This lovely photograph, dating from about 1900, is of the Albion Restaurant and Boarding House on North Parade, part of a row of beautiful stone built early Victorian properties which are Grade II listed today. The wrought iron balconies are still in place although the plants outside the first floor windows have long gone.

The picture shows a group of female visitors with a male driver. It was probably taken as a souvenir of the group's visit to Matlock Bath. A menu board hangs beside the window on the wall outside the Restaurant. Beneath the window (next to the front horse) is a sign with a cycle on it that advertises "Accommodation for Cyclists". Let us hope that the group in the carriage were not just posing for the photographer and went into the "Dining Hall" for a meal!

The imposing row of houses beyond the Albion is Fountain Villas. The four large houses are of similar date and also listed.

The Albion was used for a wide variety of events over the years, including catering for parties of day trippers. For example, when Sheffield Newsagents and some of their wives visited the Matlocks for their annual excursion they ate both both lunch and tea at the Albion, having walked into Matlock and back between the two meals^[1. In 1912 the staff of a Hull printing works left Hull at 6.15a.m. and arrived at Matlock Bath at 9.30. Some of them went to Haddon after lunch at the Albion, others visited the Via Gellia and others went boating and/or visited the caverns. They arrived home at almost midnight, presumably exhausted afte such a full day^[3].

The restaurant also held events for the local community. In December 1909 a sale of work was held on the premises in aid of Matlock Bath Church, with Rev. C. Baker conducting the opening ceremony^[2]. Fundraisers for the church were held at the restaurant for a number of years as neither the Grand Pavilion nor the Parochial Hall had been built—the latter was not built until the 1920s.

References:

^[1] "Sheffield Daily Telegraph", 21 August 1908. Some of them rode up the Bank on the tram, others listened to the band, watched the pierrots or went boating on the Derwent.

^[2] "Derby Daily Telegraph", 7 March 1909.

^[3] "Hull Daily Mail", 16 July 1912.