EARLY MAN county are given verbatim in Ten Years' Diggings, a work which will be referred to again shortly. Bray's Tour in Derbyshire and Yorkshire (1778) and Pilkington's Present State of Derbyshire (1789) share with the early volumes of Archceologia in containing the first published accounts ot many of these pre-historic remains. Nearer the close of this century the names of the Rev. Bache Thornhill of Stanton and Mr. White Watson, F.L.S., of Bakewell, better known for his geological pursuits, are associated with archaeological discoveries on Stanton Moor. After a lull of twenty years came another period of activity. Again the change was brought about by two individuals, Mr. William Bateman, F.S.A., of Youlgreave, and Mr. Samuel Mitchell of Sheffield, who appear to have been close friends. Mr. Bateman came of an old Hartington family, which, about the beginning of the last century, became possessed of the manor of Middleton-by-Youlgreave, which is situated in a region sin- gularly rich in ancient remains. Between the years 1821 and 1827 he, singly or with Mr. Mitchell, opened a dozen or more of the barrows in the vicinity. After his death, the latter gentleman opened many barrows around Hathersage, contributing an occasional paper upon his discoveries to the Sheffield Literary and Philosophical Society. Many of his memo- randa of these are bound in the last of five manuscript volumes relating to the district of that city, which passed to the British Museum upon his death in i868/ About the same period (1827-8) a Mr. Thomas Bird of Eyam opened barrows on Leam and Eyam Moors. After another lull we enter in 1843 upon a third period of activity which curiously was again brought about by two men working in friendly concert. The first to appear on the scene was Mr. Thomas Bateman, F.S.A., son of the above Mr. Bateman and author of Vestiges of the Antiqui- ties of Derbyshire (1848) and Ten Years Diggings in Celtic ana 1 Saxon Grave Hills in the Counties of Derby ^ Stafford and York (1861). These books ' record the systematic opening of more than four hundred tumuli,' most of which were in Derbyshire. His ' zealous and intelligent fellow- labourer ' in the first two counties was Mr. Samuel Carrington, a village schoolmaster and geologist of Wetton in Staffordshire, whose barrow-diggings covered ten years (184858), while Mr. Bateman's continued until the year before his early death in 1861. The scene of their labours in these two counties lay, with few exceptions, between Tideswell on the north, Ashbourne on the south, Rowsley on the east and Leek on the west, a region bisected by Dove Dale and characterized by its limestone scenery. The proceeds of these explorations were preserved in Mr. Bateman's private museum at Lomberdale House near Youlgreave, but some years after his death they, or rather the larger portion of them, 2 were placed on loan in the Sheffield Museum, and became the property of that city by purchase in 1893. 1 Add. MSS. 28, u z. 2 Some years ago the writer was credibly informed that all the smaller and imperfect human bones and most of the potsherds were buried in the garden at Lomberdale upon the removal of the collection to Sheffield. I l6l 21
