Description: Looking south-east towards Siddals Road and the Midland station with plenty of market activity in evidence. The building projecting on the right is the Castle & Falcon public house on the corner of East Street and beyond this is Cockpit Hill, effectively a widening of the south side of the Morledge. Opposite is the Derby Pure Ice & Storage Company's premises (familiarly known as 'The Ice Factory'), which was eventually destroyed by fire in 1976.
The broad cobbled surface of the Morledge and Cockpit Hill was occupied by market traders up to the beginning of the 1970s and also, in earlier years, was host to fairground attractions - indeed, a set of swingboats can just be discerned above the awnings here.
The buildings behind the stalls on the left were mainly industrial and included a plaster mill, a colour works (to which the tall chimney belongs), and the Borough Mortuary. All were swept away in the early 1930s as part of the then Central Improvement Scheme to be replaced by a new open market and bus station. These in turn later gave way to a new courts complex and a development of flats, hotels and other commercial facilities (including a new bus station) called Riverlights. From 1975 Cockpit Hill to the right was subsumed by The Eagle Centre, Derby's main shopping centre, with the result that none of the buildings depicted in this view remain today.
Derby-based postcard publisher F W Scarratt took this photo but it is not known what number he allocated it in his series.