Melbourne takes its name from the mill stream running through it, and is a small town about eight miles south of Derby, with a direct link with its Australian namesake - Lord Melbourne, Queen Victoria's famous Prime Minister - who was born at the Hall in this Derbyshire town and the Australian city, then a small settlement was named after him.
The town boasts two little greens, one with a shapely tree, along with a gabled stone vicarage a century plus old, and a fine tithe barn 700 years old in its lower part of stone, with a doorway 550 years old, along with some fine old beams......and of course Melbourne Hall.
Melbourne Hall, the most charming and homely-looking of Derbyshire's great houses, is as famous for its large, formal gardens as for the house itself. These were thought for some years to have been the work of one Andre Lenotre, the same gentleman who laid out the gardens at Versailles, but of late it has been discovered that they were actually designed by Henry Wise, who was nevertheless greatly influenced by Lenotre. The terraced sweeping lawns, the lake, the yew hedges and the avenues of limes form a gracious setting for the occasioal discreetly placed feature such as the two embracing cherubs, the little lead cupids and the Four Seasons monument. Perhaps the two features which most readily catch the eye are the long yew tunnel, and the so-called birdcage, a masterpiece in wrought iron, as delicate as a piece of jewellery, made by Robert Bakewell. Melbourne Hall had its Tudor walls refashioned nearly 300 years ago when Francis Smith of Warwick added graceful new rooms, and his son,William, completed the work in 1744 with an elegant new front.
The house itself which is still lived in can be visited, as can the gardens, during the summer months. There are many delightful rooms, charmingly furnished, along with a particularly fine collection of portraits. Melbourne Hall these days is the home of Lord and Lady Ralph Kerr, and is only open for public viewing during the month of August, though the gardens are open throughout the period April to September. The State rooms are available however for the occasional day conferences, receptions, etc, and an exhibition is held annually in the billiard room. In addition to the gardens there is an excellent tea-room, gift shop and craft shop (the latter being open almost all year).
Melbourne Pool, across the road from the Hall, is delightful with its island trees. The pool is said to fill a quarry which gave the stone for Melbourne Castle, the almost vanished stronghold to which the Duke of Bourbon was brought a captive from Agincourt. Here he remained for 19 years until released for a ransom of £18,000 and when set free at last, he left Melbourne for London on his way to France, but died before he could set sail.
Sir Ralph Shirley, one of the commanders at Agincourt, was a Governor of the Castle, and in the church at Staunton Harold, three miles from here, are the tattered banners he captured on that glorious day, with flags taken by his relatives at Crecy and Shrewsbury. By the time of Charles I, the castle had fallen into ruin, and now its only remains are a frament of a massive wall bounding a farmyard by the square near the church.
The wonderful church of Melbourne, one of the finest and most complete Norman churches in England, stands open to the road, built in the shape of a cross with a central tower, and two small and unfinished western towers with a fine doorway between them opening into a portico with a vaulted roof.
It is a majestic place inside ,with a great forest of round arches built by the Normans for bays and windows. The glory here is the Norman nave with five bays on each side, their fine horse-shoe arches adorned with chevrons and resting on massive pillars 15 feet high and over 12 feet round.
In the busier part of the town is a group of 14 cottages and a chapel adjoining them, built and endowed by a certain Thomas Cook whose name is known to just about every tourist worldwide. It is rather odd that he should have been born in a cottage, and at the same time in Melbourne Hall was born a man who carried the name of Melbourne across the other side of the world.
When Thomas Cook was born a poor boy here in 1808, people were still parochial and inert, seldom leaving their villages. Cook, alternately gardener, wood-turner and local missionary, travelled on foot nearly the whole of the 2,700 miles of his first (evangelical)tour. Forty years later he compassed the earth in 222 days. His real mission as a pioneer of popular travel began in 1841 when he induced the Midland Railway to take 570 passengers, a temperance party, from Leicester to Loughborough and back for a shilling (.5p) each.
Setting up in Leicester as a tourist agent, the very first of his calling, Cook, aided by his son John, quickly developed the business. The son proved the chief organiser; at 17 he conveyed 165,000 people to London for the Great Exhibition of 1851 at the Crystal Palace, engaging a brass band to play in the streets and persuading into his trains persons who flocked out to listen. Never since the Crusades had the world seen such hosts of travellers as Cook and Son personally conducted throughout the Old World and the New. They planned the tours, booked trains , ships, and hotels, established their own banking system, and prepared every detail. It was the Cooks who carried provisions to starving Paris after the armistice that ended the Franco-Prussian war; they who took General Gordon and his forces up to Korosko; they who transported the relief expedition.
Thomas Cook died in 1892, but the work continued unchecked, with headquarters in London and branches throughout the world.
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