A History of the Town of Belper in Bird Sounds

A History of the Town of Belper in Bird Sounds

Nestling into the flanks of the River Derwent, the town of Belper dates back to the sound of pheasants and swans.
Somewhere around the year 1231 the town was born. It was not so much a town then, as a honking, buzzing, screeching cacophony of bird sounds. Around that time, there were wealthy landowners with nothing better to do than pluck species of birds from their natural habitats and collect them in cages and aviaries. Now and then, they escaped and bred in leafy shade, and as a result the immediate avian environment around the town was more adventurous, more spectacular than any of the similar hamlets nearby, also shaking off their slumber and extending into the countryside. It all really began with a pair of swans moving silently along the river. Silently, that was, until they paddled ashore and began honking and crowing to one another like a thirteenth century alarm going off. This was the bird sounds that gave birth to the town as it is today.

Many, many years later, the hamlet having become rather more of a town, its reputation grew throughout Europe for its superior ironwork industry, notably nails. In its heyday, Belper made nails for just about everyone who needed nails. As you read this, on a bench, on a bus, sat in the building or your choice, nails from this sleepy, rural town would invariably been responsible for the original construction of the place you in which you are right now passing the time of day. As the forges grew in size, they attracted a whole host of scavengers as almost overnight the town became a haven for magpies and ravens amongst others. Immediately the rattling, raucous chatter of the magpies reverberated along the narrow, cobbled streets of the town, knocking at the closed doors of homesteads, echoing down chimneys like the moaning of a displaced ghost. The ravens for their part brought whistling wings and sharp, jagged cries that mingled with the clank and chime of the blacksmiths.

Later, around the time of the Industrial Revolution, Jedediah Strutt opened a water-powered mill in the town and in no time at all, the eaves and roof of the mill were taken over by an army of pigeons and roosting swallows. At night, as the town tipped into bouts of silence rippled with singing and bellowing bursting from its many taverns, anyone passing the mighty Strutt mill might come to the conclusion that the building itself was cooing into the dissolving day.
Strutt also brought also brought peacocks and peahens to the neighbourhood – and the misunderstood early morning screams of the peacock were initially responsible for some very unpleasant, entirely unfounded rumours of overnight female visitors. As the town began to understand the peacocks better, their sporadic wailing became part of the every day tapestry of noise belonging to the blossoming town.

It is also widely believed that the town was the first place in the UK to experience gas street lighting. Whilst this removed a great fear of darkness in the town and gave the young in the town somewhere to congregate, few paused to consider the effect on the local owl community. Having enjoyed hundreds of years of untroubled darkness – largely untroubled even by nocturnal candles – the first gas lights cause considerable hooted debate amongst the treetop parliament at the far end of the town. Some of the younger owls had flown into the street lights convinced they had found a new moon. For the first few weeks in fact, all other sounds of the night were obscured by the clamouring screeching and low, two-toned siren call of the owls as they were forced to come to terms with the lightning march of lighting process.

Nowadays, the town is like many others, ceaselessly bombarded with new homes. It is a town fiercely proud of its history of nails, mills, textiles and more recently hosiery. It is a town with an excellent greengrocer, some fine public houses and a well-defended battle against the tide of supermarket domination keen to devour the edges of the town.

It is also a popular flyover for geese at dusk, honking in formation as they shadow the clouds with a shimmering ‘V’. Early morning bursts from the resting earth with a chorus of Jenny Wrens, sparrows, tits and magpies and each day in this town unfolds gently, with the occasional surprise of cuckoos returned from their African winter break and throughout the warmer months, the late afternoon, drowsy thud of a woodpecker.

This is the history of the town of Belper in bird sounds brought up to date.