This card was posted in 1914 and may well have been published just before then. However, this exceptionally good photograph is Victorian and was taken from outside the Temple Hotel between 1887 and 1895.

Below the photographer on the left of the image is the zigzag of Waterloo Road, with Waterloo Square close to the edge of the picture. The Round House is top left. Holme Road goes down the hill from there and Green Bank and Clarence Terrace can be seen, with the Clarence just visible above Green Bank.

What provides a date for the image is the very large warehouse looking building just below Clarence Terrace. This was Albert Heights, a kind of Victorian fitness centre, and the skating rink was here^[1]. In 1887 Frederick Edwin Leggoe was the rink's proprietor^[2] and in 1891 William B Hunt was running it^[2], although he was not listed in Matlock Bath. Leggoe played an active part in village life and was on the Local Board^[4]. He seems to have a varied career with interesting range of occupations, ranging from greengrocer, to accountant and Salvation Army Officer with iron and steel manager thrown in for good measure^[5].

Albert Heights was demolished to make way for Rockvale Villas and Rockvale Terrace, which were built just before the end of the nineteenth century.

Of note is the horse drawn vehicle. The driver is seated quite high up and the horses are pulling either a wooden caravan or a covered waggon similar to a caravan as it has a semicylindrical top.

References (coloured links are to transcripts and information elsewhere on this web site):

^[1] The skating rink was mentioned in London Gazette of 13 Feb 1877.
^[2] "Kelly's Directory of Derbyshire", 1887, p.238. Leggoe was also given as a greengrocer at the time.
^[3] "Kelly's Directory 1891" shows William B Hunt there
^[4] Mr. Leggoe was also a member of the Local Board - see Kelly's Directory 1891, Officials
^[5] Frederick Edwin Leggoe, who was born in Sheffield in 1843 and living there in 1881, was an Iron and Steel Merchant. He was shown as an accountant in various newspaper and bankruptcy reports. His two children were living on North Parade at the time of the 1891 census and FEL advertised as running the Promenade Restaurant and as a Cab Proprietor in Kelly's Directory 1891. There is a WW2 photograph of the Café. FEL and his second wife Sarah are buried at St. Giles - he died 1916. His first wife, Mary Sarah, died in 1883 In 1901 he was living with his wife Sarah (née Barker, born in Wirksworth) in Hackney and he working as a Salvation Army Officer. He returned to Matlock Bath, as shown by Kelly's 1908 Directory and Kelly's 1916 Directory