One hundred and twenty thousand years ago, during a warmer part of the Ice Age, the whole area was a riverside swamp, and skeletons of a hippopotamus, elephant, brown bear, hyena and bison have been found there.

The Allenton hippopotamus was found in 1895 underneath the Crown Hotel (established in 1891) and its well-preserved skeleton is displayed at the Derby Museum and Art Gallery.

[2] An easily recognisable feature of the local streetscape is a pedestrian footbridge over the Mitre Island roundabout, erected in July 1971.

Another public house, in a Stockbroker's Tudor design, by the name of The Mitre, was opened in 1930 for Zachary Smith's brewery when Harvey Road was built, and was demolished in 2020.

The location has further infrastructure of sauna, dance studio and gym to complement the existing running track, with the whole being named Moorways Sports Village.