xx REPORT. 
district, I could not help remembering how singularly fortunate 
you in Derbyshire are, compared with us in Staffordshire. Thanks 
to the nature of the rocks, you certainly have in Derbyshire the 
most beautiful scenery. I do not mean to compare it with the 
districts of the great mountain ranges of the land, but you cer- 
tainly have the most beautiful scenery of central England. This 
is due to the volcanic forces that in early times lifted up the 
mountain limestone and the millstone grit, and this produced the 
grand scenery of Buxton, and those picturesque gorges which go 
to make up the natural charms of Matlock. You have also the 
development of the new red sandstone, that runs across the land 
from south to north-east. I cannot help considering these cir- 
cumstances when I come to regard the buildings and architecture 
of the county. In comparing your county with Staffordshire, I 
have been struck with the fact of how much we have lost—and 
I may instance ecclesiastical buildings—through the perishable 
nature of our material. To refer to my own cathedral, it has 
suffered not merely from Puritan violence in the seventeenth 
century, but also from the perishable nature of the rock of which 
the cathedral is built. You are more highly favoured in that you 
have close at hand more endurable materials in millstone grit and 
mountain limestone, of which many of your churches are com- 
posed, and the result is this very interesting fact connected with 
the architecture of Derbyshire, that you have—as my friend Mr. 
Charles Cox has pointed out in his admirable volumes on the 
Churches of Derbyshire—what we have not in Staffordshire—very 
rich examples of every kind and period of architecture, from the 
Saxon down to the latest Perpendicular. We have not anything 
like the same range of interesting buildings in Staffordshire, and 
this is owing to the cause to which I have alluded. Another 
circumstance to which my attention was turned, was this: at the 
time of the Norman Conquest there was not one single conventual 
building in the county of Derby. There had been one at Repton, 
‘but you will remember that had been destroyed in the Dano- 
Anglian wars, so that at the time of the Conquest there was not a 
single conventual building in Derbyshire. You had collegiate 
