Matlock Mercury
The Matlock Mercury (or the Matlock Mercury & West Derbyshire News, to give it its full title) is a weekly tabloid newspaper for the town of Matlock on the edge of the Peak District National Park, as well as the towns of Bakewell and Wirksworth and villages in the Derbyshire Dales.
It’s published by G C Brittain & Sons, a Matlock-based sub-division of Wilfred Edmunds Ltd, who publish a number of local titles from their offices in Chesterfield. The ultimate owners are the Johnston Press group.
The Mercury was founded in the late 1940s as an entertainment guide called Coming Events and took on its present name in the 1950s. It was subsequently taken over by the Derbyshire Times.
Its biggest claim to fame is probably the seven-year campaign by editor Don Hale to overturn the conviction of Stephen Downing for the murder of Wendy Sewell in 1973. Downing was 17 at the time of the murder, but had a reading age of 11. The conviction was declared unsafe in 2001 and Downing was released, having spent 27 years in prison. Hale was named The Observer’s Man of the Year for 2001 and Journalist of the Year by Granada Television’s What The Papers Say, as well as being awarded an OBE.
It comes out on Thursdays. There are two associated freesheets: the Peak Times and the Wirksworth Newsletter.
Website: http://www.matlockmercury.co.uk/
Latest posts in England - East Midlands
Horncastle News
Weekly tabloid for Horncastle and other parts of East Lindsey in Lincolnshire...
http://www.britishpapers.co.uk/england-emids/horncastle-news/
Hucknall Dispatch
Weekly tabloid for Hucknall and area in central Nottinghamshire...
http://www.britishpapers.co.uk/england-emids/hucknall-dispatch/
Ilkeston Advertiser
Weekly tabloid for the area between Derby and Nottingham...
http://www.britishpapers.co.uk/england-emids/ilkeston-advertiser/
Other East Midlands newspapers
List of all the regional and local newspapers in the East Midlands which don't y...
http://www.britishpapers.co.uk/england-emids/england-emids-other/
