REMINISCENCES OF OLD ALLESTREE, tte fi 
about as bad a bit of road as one can imagine, steep hills, banks, 
and bushes were then characteristic of the road—dreary and 
uncanny, a place for footpads. Eighty years ago it was a wild, 
desolate looking place ; we can judge of what it must have been 
by noticing how the steep hills have been lowered, and the valleys 
raised. Those old coach horses would need a rest at the New 
Inn, at Allestree, after dragging the lumbering vehicle over those 
steep hills. 1t is wonderfully improved since then. 
A rat and mole catcher was also a necessary adjunct to the 
village in those days, quite a person of distinction, wearing a 
badge, gaily painted, and having an air of mystery about him. 
How did he do it? His modus operandi was a secret ; but if he - 
was regularly paid, both moles and rats would disappear. Cease 
to pay, and there would soon be another swarm. 
Those were quiet, peaceful days, then villagers’ requirements 
were but few, and they were amply supplied ; but this Arcadian 
state of simplicity did not long continue. The Arkwrights, the 
Evans, and the Strutts had started cotton spinning by machinery, 
then the spinning wheel gave place to the cotton-winding wheel. 
Silk and calico were also woven by looms, and a change came 
over quiet Derbyshire villages such as Allestree. The more 
ambitious yeomanry, and better class of cottagers, entered into 
the spirit of competition. Better employment and higher wages 
could be found elsewhere. Allestree, to a great extent, was 
forsaken. Soon the cottages and farms went to decay. Forsome 
time they battled with adverse fortune, in picturesque but inevi- 
table ruin, but one by one they have disappeared, and quaint and 
dreamy old Allestree is no more. One such old place we well 
remember—a half-timber farm-house, with a huge wooden barn 
attached, like a Noah’s Ark for size, and apparently as old, all 
patched and mended, until which was the original could scarcely 
be told. In the yard stood an old yew tree, and there was an old 
draw-well hard by, into which some farmer of olden time had 
fallen and been drowned. The villagers told strange tales of how 
his ghost would come and perform various freaks in the midnight 
hours, unloosing the horses in the stables, and causing a general 
