Today's Victoria Street used to be known as Brookside (see the map below). The road follows the course of Markeaton Brook which still flows below. In the late 18th century it was an open brook with bridges across.

There is still an Independant church on the same spot Ward knew. The denomination changed its name from the Independants to the Congregational Church and they are now known as the United Reformed Church.

A copyright map of Derby dated 1806.
Reproduced courtesy Derby Local Studies Library.

A. The Derby Mercury.

B. The point where the photograph was taken from.

C. The Independant Chapel, Brookside.

D. Green Lane, the area where there were some small schools.

E. The home of Jedidiah Strutt and his family.

 

The southern side of Brookside showing (right) the rebuilt Independant Chapel, and the houses which once stood where the present day Debenhams department store now stands. Markeaton Brook can be seen to have been covered over by this time.

The north side was known as a rabbit warren of slums in Ward's day, so it is very likely that one of the houses in this picture (*) belonged to Mrs. Murden, and is where the first recorded meeting of the Particular Baptists in Derby took place on 21st October 1792.

This was four and a half months after Carey's historic sermon at the Friar Gate Chapel in Nottingham and 19 days after Carey and Fuller had taken part in the foundation of the Baptist Missionary Society at Kettering on 2nd October 1792.

 

* As can be seen in the 1806 map (above), the central two houses did not exist in 1806. Mrs Murden's was possibly either one of the five houses on the left or the four houses on the right. No further information about where Mrs. Murden lived (a unique name in Derby at the time) can be found in the Local Studies Library. Mr. Murden however can be linked to William Ward's political activities.