This is a "hold to light card", so it has holes punched through the thin outer film of the picture to reveal the semi-transparent base card underneath. When you hold the card up to the light it creates an illusion of illumination.

On this card the holes through have been chosen to show lighted windows, street lamps and the moon, thus creating an impression of a scene by moonlight. So here we see the windows of the Royal Hotel, the Royal Pavilion (the Palais Royal from 1923 onwards) and the main building of Matlock Bath's Switchback Railway, as well as various houses and even the church, all illuminated.

What makes the card of significant interest is a small detail that provides us with a rare view of the area below the main building of the Switchback Railway. Suggestions have been made, on occasion, that the rail at the end of the railway track went down and the cars were then raised back up by some kind of lift or hoist. Whilst the enlargement below isn't the clearest of images it nevertheless shows there are no tracks beneath the building for a lift to connect to.

Other photographs on this web site show photographs of the inside of the Switchback's main building.

The publication date is uncertain as it is difficult to see how much landscaping there had been in the Derwent Garden's grounds but some of the seats facing the river that we see in other pictures were in place. See, for example, Matlock Bath: Derwent Gardens, before 1909. The Café had not been built but the stairs down into the gardens from the Swichback had been added to the main structure.