Description: Looking north-east at the Cavendish Hotel with the photographer standing at the junction of Derby Lane, Stenson Road, Upper Dale Road (left) and Walbrook Road (right). Derby Corporation electric tram No 8 awaits departure for Victoria Street and the town centre, operating a circular service that has come down Normanton Road and Upper Dale Road from Victoria Street and will then return along Walbrook Road, Dairy House Road, Douglas Street and Osmaston Road.
No 8 was one of the inital batch of 25 vehicles supplied to the Corporation for its newly electrified tramway operation in 1903-4 by Brush of Loughborough. In the 1920s it was modernised with a top cover and survived until 1933. Derby's trams were replaced by trolleybuses between 1930 and 1934, the Normanton Road-Cavendish-Peartree route being the final one to be converted.
Just 25 years before this view was taken this location was entirely rural and the only buildings were those forming Walbrook Farm. Rapid development ensued during the 1890s and soon what had been fields was covered by streets of terraced houses. The Cavendish Hotel, with its distinctive curved frontage, was erected in 1898 and soon gave its name to the immediate vicinity which is still known as The Cavendish today.
Derby-based postcard publisher F W Scarratt produced this card, which displays one of his characteristically ornate borders. Scarratt took over 1,800 images during a career that lasted from 1905 until 1938 and this view was allocated the number 429 in his series. To see an uncropped version taken from the original glass plate negative go to DCHQ010159.