Lost 17, Abandoned 1

Black clouds gather over the county ground in 2016, a season in which Derbyshire failed to win a single county championship match.

Much has been written about the history of Derbyshire County Cricket Club by more knowledgable writers than I, but I thought it would be interesting to take a brief look at the disappointing 1920 county championship season from a local angle, considering the contrasting fortunes of three cricketers from this area; Thomas Forrester of Pilsley, Allen Turner of Heath, and Guy Jackson, born at Ankerbold. One was at the end of his time with the county, one apparently didn’t quite make the grade, and the third was at the start of a successful cricket career.

There is a good deal of information about the careers of all Derbyshire players available online, particularly at the DCCC Heritage website, for those who wish to know more.

The 1920 Season

Notorious in the history of the club, the 1920 season saw Derbyshire lose 17 of their 18 county championship matches, the other match being rained off. The side, struggling to rebuild after the war, lost heavily and were especially poor in the batting department. More details of the season can be found in the excellent Old Ebor blog here:https://oldebor.wordpress.com/category/derbyshire/

The batsmen of the team have lost their form – is it true that they have also lost their nerve? The bowling is reduced to one slow to medium bowler… The worst feature of all, however, is the absence of a single young player to whom we can turn with hope or confidence… What can be done to avert the perpetuation of such tragedies as have been enacted in the first three matches? (Derby Daily Telegraph – Tuesday 25 May 1920).

Tom Forrester 1873-1927

Image: heritagederbyshireccc.com

Thomas Forrester played two matches in the 1920 season, 15-17 May against Yorkshire at Bramall Lane, and 19-20 May at Queen’s Park, Chesterfield, against Lancashire. Both were 3-day matches which lasted less than 2 days.

Thomas Forrester (sometimes Forester) was born in Clay Cross in 1873 but raised in Pilsley. He began his working life as a schoolteacher, and came to prominence whilst at teacher training college in Birmingham, subsequently playing for Warwickshire for about three years.

He joined Derbyshire in 1902 and played three seasons for the county as an amateur. He retired due to pressure of work but rejoined the county team in 1910 and became established as a regular. A capable left-hand bat and right-arm bowler, in 1912 he took 7-18 against Nottinghamshire. In WWI he was awarded the DSO and rose to the rank of major.

By the start of the 1920 season Major Tom Forrester was 45 years old, and the match at Chesterfield proved to be his last, as he broke down after bowling 20 overs and was unable to bat at all. This loss of one of the old hands was a blow to the Derbyshire team.

Major Tom Forrester was later landlord of the Willow Tree at Pilsley. He died in Nottingham in 1927.

Allen Turner 1891-1961

Allen Turner was born at Heath in 1891. He worked as a clerk for Hardwick Colliery Co. and played football and cricket for the colliery teams. He was given a chance to play for the struggling county side for the match against Leicester at Derby 11-13 August. The Sheffield Daily Telegraph reported that ‘ Still another recruit will be introduced in the Derbyshire side for the last home match…. This is Turner, a medium fast bowler, of Hardwick Colliery, who has been spoken of as one of the best bowlers in the Derbyshire League.’ (Sheffield Daily Telegraph – Wednesday 11 August 1920). He only bowled 13 overs, but took a wicket and made 2 runs in each innings. Derbyshire collapsed in their second innings and lost the match by an innings and 14 runs.

Turner was also selected for the match against Nottingham at Trent Bridge 26-28 August which Derbyshire lost by 197 runs. Although he bagged a pair batting, Allen Turner’s bowling performance was perfectly respectable, with 3-66 and 2-28, a five-wicket haul, which makes me wonder why he never played for the county again.

Guy Jackson 1896-1966

The name Jackson instanly identifies our man as a member of the wealthy family associated with the Clay Cross Company. Guy Rolf Jackson was the son of the chairman, and had a privileged upbringing coming to prominence as a cricketer playing for his school team, Harrow.

Painting of G.R. Jackson: meisterdrucke.com

After distinguished service in the war, G.R. Jackson made his county championship debut for Derbyshire in July 1919, shortly after his 23rd birthday. He was to go on to have a long career with the county, playing some 280 first class matches and captaining the team 1922-30.

Captain Jackson was a fine left handed batsman, but in 1920 he was out of form. In the nine county matches he played between May and July his top score was 14, and he was out for a duck six times. his average for the season was 5.11, and this was perhaps why he did not feature in any more matches that season. It was said that he had stood down to give his cousin Anthony Jackson a game or two. It would be two years before he scored his first century in a county championship match, at Cardiff in June 1923, when he was run out after making 102.

Captain Jackson lived at Higham Cliffe for many years, and died at Chesterfield Royal Hospital on 21 February 1966.

And Finally…

The performances of Derbyshire in county cricket team in 1920 are probably best forgotten, but there was at least one positive. This season saw the debut of one of their great wicketkeepers, Harry Elliott (1891-1976) of Scarcliffe. He played for the team for 27 years, and also for England 1927-1934. He later became a test umpire.

Old King Cole

Looking for the story behind another another pawnshop ticket led me to the following newscutting:

Cutting from The Derbyshire Times Saturday 20 August 1932.

At the Clay Cross Carnival in August 1932 Mr Charles William ‘Bill’ Quemby rode on a cart seated above a giant lump of coal, dressed as ‘Old King Cole’, attended by six miners. His throne was decorated with pit props and safety lamps, and his dray was drawn by three horses supplied by the Clay Cross Company’s farm.

As the parade was processing along Bridge Street one of the rear wheels on this dray collapsed, and his attendants had to jack it up and make repairs before it could continue.

When Old King Cole arrived at the Welfare Grounds, the enormous lump of coal was put on display as a ‘guess the weight’ competition. It was said to be the largest sized block possible to be got out of no.2 pit.

The parade included vehicles themed ‘Lady Godiva’ , ‘Just Married’, and ‘The Circus Comes to Town’, but first prize was won by the New Tupton Hospital Committee with “Hospital Side Ward’. The Derbyshire Times reported that the carnival was a financial success, raising money for the Clay Cross and District Hospital Fund.

The CXCo.’s dray was, of course, given the ‘premier award’.

Background

The Quemby family lived near Loughborough in the 19th century. Mr Quemby married Miss Sarah Harris in 1888, and the family moved around, coming to Derbyshire circa 1906, when one of their three sons was enrolled at Shirebrook Junior Boys School.

Mr Quemby later found employment with the Hepthorne Lane contractor T. Beighton, and then with the Clay Cross Company, becoming a foreman, and working on the construction of the Ashover Light Railway. The family lived on Holmgate Road for more than thirty years. When Mr Quemby died on 30 January 1940, he was much respected, and described as ‘one of the best known employees of the Clay Cross Company’.

Mrs Quemby must have visited the pawnbroker not long after moving to Clay Cross. We can’t know now whether she was raising money on behalf of a neighbour, or whether it was for her own family. Times were hard, but worse was to come. The Quembys lost two sons during WWI. Their eldest son, Leonard, was lost at sea on The Arcadian in 1917, and their second son, Charles William, died in a German POW camp in 1918.

Finally, I also found another cutting featuring Mr Quemby:

Sources

• Derbyshire Times Saturday 12 May 1917 (Leonard Quemby’s obit.)
• Derby Daily Telegraph Wednesday 17 August 1932
• Sheffield Daily Telegraph Wednesday 17 August 1932
• Derbyshire Times Saturday 20 August 1932
• Derbyshire Times Friday 13 September 1935
• Derbyshire Times Friday 2 February 1940 (Mr Quemby’s obit.)
• Derbyshire Times Friday 18 June 1943 (Mrs Quemby’s obit.)

Every Ticket Tells a Story

Pawnbroker’s tickets from the shop of Francis W. Campbell, High Street, Clay Cross, 1910.

Mr Payne pawned a silver Albert chain and a medal on the 24 May 1910.

Mr Frederick Payne’s parents David and Fanny moved to Clay Cross in the mid 1850s, and he was their third child, and the first of their ten children to be born at Clay Cross. He was born in 1856, and probably had a typical upbringing for the times, his family flitting between Clay Cross, Holmgate and Tupton. In 1877 both his mother and his younger brother Matthew died (aged 17) within the space of two months, which must have been devastating for the family.

Mr Payne married Mary Stevenson at North Wingfield the following year, and they were living with their two children at Bircumshaw’s Houses, Waterloo Street Clay Cross in 1881. Meanwhile, his 18 year old brother Alfred, perhaps reluctant to become a coal miner like the rest of the men in the family, signed up for 6 years service in the 57th Brigade and departed for Scotland for training in May 1881. He was severely wounded in Egypt in 1882, and received an Egyptian Campaign medal.

Frederick Payne’s wife Mary died aged just 29 in January 1889, and his father died in Chesterfield Workhouse less than a month later. Mr Payne and his children were boarding with a family on Eyre Street in 1891, and the following year he remarried. By 1901 he and his second wife Sarah had a 3-roomed home on Eyre Street, and four children all under eight years of age. His two children by his first wife had gone to live with relatives.

In February 1898 Mr Payne’s son by his first marriage, James, enlisted and served in the army for 12 years. In that time he went to Malta, South Africa, and China, and was awarded the Queen’s South African medal.

Frederick Payne and another of his sons (also Frederick) both worked at Pilsley Colliery. Frederick Payne junior was injured there in March 1910 (though perhaps not too badly as he survived only to be killed in action in April 1917). Worse was to follow, as Mr Payne’s wife Sarah died in childbirth in December 1910 (due to lack of proper care), and he died at Eyre Street in November 1912. He left six children ranging in ages from 8 to 18.

When Mr Payne pawned the medal in 1910, was it his brother’s Egypt Campaign medal, his son James’s South Africa Campaign medal, or some other medal? We can’t know for sure, but we can be certain that the five shillings would have been very useful for his family in those difficult times.

Mrs Hearn pawned a pair of trousers on 18 August 1910.

Mrs Constance Jane Hearn (known as Jane) was born in Little Eaton in 1880, and grew up in Breadsall where her father, Robert Hazlegrove, was an engine driver at the waterworks. She was six years old when her mother died in 1886, and her father was clearly unable to look after all four children left to his care. In 1891 Jane and two of her brothers were in Shardlow Workhouse. In later years the Hazlegrove family appear to have been reunited, and her father was living at Trowell with her brothers on the census returns of 1901 and 1911. He died there in September 1911.

How Jane Hazlegrove came to meet Charles Hearn is unknown. he was a Londoner, but had come to the East Midlands work as a coal miner before 1890. and can be found living at Alton (Ashover parish) with his first wife Elizabeth in 1891 (they married at Ashover in 1890). Mrs Elizabeth Hearn died the following year aged just 24. Jane was living with Charles Hearn at Ripley by 1901, and in 1911 they were the parents of six children. The family had moved to Church Row on Church Lane, North Wingfield, circa 1906. At North Wingfield, Mr and Mrs Hearn lived next door to Mr Cornelius Corbett and his wife Emmie, a couple in their 30s with four young children. I believe the note on the bottom of the redemption slip refers to this family.

It appears that Mrs Hearn took a pair of trousers to the pawn shop to raise 2/6 for her next door neighbours. The Corbetts may have been raising funds to pay for a doctor. I venture to guess that Mrs Emmie Corbett was very ill. She died less than a month later, and was buried at North Wingfield on 13 September 1910.

Dinner: Butcher’s Meat and Garden Stuff

In 1767, 42 Derbyshire parishes formed themselves into the Ashover Union. The Union bought a large former bath-house at Ashover for use as a workhouse.

The Old Ashover Workhouse

Picture of the old Ashover Workhouse in Derbyshire Times Saturday 13 May 1905

A Subscription Poor House

John Farey. A general View of the Agriculture of Derbyshire. Vol III pp. 555-564.

Only Four Have Joined!

The Ashover poorhouse committee held a meeting 19 June 1773 and found they needed more inmates to lessen the expense of caring for each person.

Derby Mercury Friday 2 July 1773

A parliamentary report of 1777 recorded local workhouses in operation at Chesterfield (for up to 50 inmates), Ashover (60), Barlow (10), Dronfield (12), and Eckington (36).

The Rules in 1809

By 1809 61 parishes subscribed to Ashover Union, and there were 38 paupers in the workhouse. Maintenance payable to the workhouse was £10.8s. per inmate (Stephen Glover. The History of the County of Derby. 1829. Pt 2, p. 51).

John Farey. A general View of the Agriculture of Derbyshire. Vol III pp. 555-564.

John Farey. A general View of the Agriculture of Derbyshire. Vol III pp. 555-564.

Gathering Dung and Digging

In 1809 Mr David Watts and his wife were Master and Mistress, and had been so for some years. There were 38 inmates.

John Farey. A general View of the Agriculture of Derbyshire. Vol III pp. 555-556.

1833 – Tragedies at the Workhouse

In April 1833 inmate Elizabeth Lucas, an elderly woman, found dead in nearby stream, and in September a 27 year old man named George Bradley committed suicide by drowning himself in a trough of water.

Derby Mercury 17 April 1833

Derby Mercury 18 Sep 1833

1834 All Change

As a result of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act North Wingfield parish became a member of the Chesterfield Poor Law Union (which formally came into existence on 19th October 1837). Others using Ashover became part of the Bakewell Union, who took charge of the workhouse at Ashover. The Bakewell Poor Law Union Guardians first met in August, 1838 in Bakewell’s town hall. The Ashover parish workhouse was rented as a temporary union workhouse. Bakewell’s new Workhouse was built in 1840-41 (now Newholme Hospital).

Chesterfield’s new workhouse was opened in 1839, serving a union of more than thirty parishes. See https://www.workhouses.org.uk/Chesterfield/ for more information.

It Could Hold 200

At a discussion about the building of a new workhouse in Chesterfield to replace the existing two old houses catering for the Chesterfield Union area (Chesterfield and Ashover) it was remarked that Ashover Workhouse was capable of containing 200 inmates (Derbyshire Courier 25 Nov 1837). Preparations were made to move the inmates from the parishes in the Chesterfield Union into the new workhouse at Chesterfield.

Winding Up – the ‘divorce settlement’

Derbyshire Courier 28 March 1840

Meeting of Guardians of Chesterfield Poor Law Union Sat 21 March 1840. Chair: R. Arkwright Esq.

Motion by Mr Lee of Ashover – next Tuesday the Bakewell Board of Guardians intended to auction off the furniture etc of the Ashover Workhouse, from which they were withdrawing their paupers – as several other parishes had also contributed towards the cost of the furniture he thought it unfair that Bakewell should take all the sale profits. His motion was carried – and an inquiry set up to determine who should take what share.

‘… Fifty nine paupers were on Monday removed from the old workhouse at Ashover to the new one at Chesterfield.’

Derbyshire Courier 28 March 1840

Shipped out in Wagons

A letter to the editor reminiscing by ‘M.B.’ of Williamthorpe, .

Derbyshire Times 7 May 1887

Itchy Paupers – and Touchy Medical Officers

Derbyshire Courier 11 April 1840

The 1811 Census of Hasland

The 1811 census return for Hasland (DRO D8042/728). It gives the names of many of the heads of households, and identifies which district the houses were in.

At the end of the 18th century, the government, on a war footing and threatened by civil unrest due to food shortages, was badly informed as to the extent of the population in this country. There was an urgent need to know how many men were available to call to arms, and what resources were needed to keep the population fed.

The first census of the whole of Britain (England, Scotland, and Wales) was taken on the 10 March 1801. It was just a head count, but the results gave an approximate population for England and Wales of 9.4 million, and for Scotland 1.6 million.

The 1811 census, Britain’s second census, was taken on the 27 May 1811. It showed that the population of England and Wales had increased to more than 10 million. Although this census was another head-count, some of the returns survive in more detail, amongst them that of Hasland township. This enumerator’s return somehow came to be included in the Barnes family papers deposited at Chesterfield Library, and is now in the safe keeping of Derbyshire Record Office.

The first official census returns were merely a count of houses occupied and empty, and numbers of males and females, and no record of individuals was made. In July 1801 the Derby Mercury published an abstract of the 1801 census count, which did not include those in prisons or on military service, and had other problems, but still proved useful. It recorded 161,147 persons living in Derbyshire.

On 27 May 1811 Thomas Brelsford, constable, charged the township of Hasland five shillings (25p) for two days work, taking an account of the population of the township (Overseers Accounts, Bagshaw Collection, seen at Sheffield Archives but now at DRO D7676/BagC/574/2-13). Thomas Brelsford (sometimes Brailsford, 1762-1838) was a tenant of Bernard Lucas, and farmed about 60 acres at Milehill. He was constable of Hasland from April 1811 to April 1812.

Mr Brailsford placed his name at that of his neighbour John Hall at the top of the list, before touring the township; visiting Corbriggs, Birchill, Grassmoor, Hasland, Hady, Spital, Boythorpe, and Birdholme in turn. He counted 328 males and 369 females in Hasland on that night. There were 4 households at Birchill, 5 at Corbriggs, 5 at Boythorpe, 9 at Spital, 17 at Birdholme 17 at Hady, 30 at Grassmoor and Grasshill, and 62 at Hasland. In all, Hasland township had 151 households.

According to an advertisement in the Derby Mercury 17 May 1798, Miss Shore took over the school at Birdholme from Miss Topps in the summer of 1798, and was offering a year’s board, tuition, with all the extras, for £17.17s.0d.

The largest household was Miss Shore’s boarding school for young ladies at Birdholme House consisting of 20 females and no males. The two largest private households were at Hasland, the houses of Josiah Claughton, and Samuel Higginbottom.

Samuel Higginbottom’s household (6 males and 7 females) at Hasland Green occupied a substantial brick dwelling house, the property of Thomas Pennington Lucas, who had moved away to live at Pleasley (this property was advertised for sale in the Derby Mercury 13 August 1812 , following Mr Lucas’s death). Josiah Claughton’s household at nearby Hasland House consisted of 4 males and 9 females.

At Grasshill, John Brocksopp’s household was 4 males and 5 females. Two farmers, James Hawley at Hasland and William Gill at Grassmoor, also had large households.

James Hawley, who died in 1828, left a will, requesting that his widow and then their son George, be allowed to continue the tenancy of the house, lands and farm, which he rented from the Lucas estate. It was situated on the south-western edge of Hasland not far from the manor farm.

William Gill was also a tenant of the Lucas estate. His family lived on Gill’s Lane in Grassmoor for many years. He also left a will, which was proved in 1845, in which he requested that his son Stephen was allowed to keep the tenancy of the farm at Grassmoor, with the permission of his landlord. William Gill does not name his landlord in his will, written in 1844, probably because Mr Bernard Lucas had died in 1840, and the Lucas estate was then being managed by his trustees. In 1849 his son Stephen Gill occupied 10 ½ acres at Grassmoor, and the estate was still under the management of the trustees.

Two toll houses are listed on the 1811 census, at Grassmoor and Boythorpe.

The toll house in Boythorpe was on the Derby Road, a short distance south of the junction with Storforth Lane, and was usually called ‘Birdholme Bar’. In 1811 when the right to collect the tolls here was auctioned, it was included with the Clay Cross bar, and the income from both for the previous year was £386.12s.7d. (Derby Mercury 27 June 1811).

The toll house at Grassmoor was on the Birkin Lane turnpike, where it crossed the North Wingfield Road. By the time of the census, John Brocksopp of Grasshill had the right to collect the tolls here, and at the auction in April 1812 he paid £102 to continue to collect tolls for the coming year.

Pictured: a page from toll keeper Edward Turner’s accounts for Grassmoor bar (formerly Bar 773, now DRO D8042/773). Fees ranged from 1d. for a saddled horse to 6d. for a two-horse cart.

Who Was The Irishman at the Furnace?

At Grasshill there was an ‘Irishman at Furnace’. This was the blast-furnace owned and worked by John Brocksopp. The furnace was a short-lived venture. It was probably started in November 1801, when Brocksopp appointed John Bargh as manager (Bar790), and was shut down in 1812, after Brocksopp’s death. Unfortunately there is no clue as to the identity of the Irishman.

Woodthorpe

The manor of Woodthorpe, the farmstead or hamlet in the wood, was mentioned in leases in the thirteenth century, when it was granted to one of the Kniveton family. Their manor house was Woodthorpe Hall.

In the nineteenth century, the township of Woodthorpe covered some 1,020 acres in the ancient parish of North Wingfield. It was bounded on the south by the township of Clay Lane and on the west north and east by the parishes of Ashover and Wingerworth, and the townships of Tupton, and North Wingfield. It also had a small boundary on its eastern extremity with Pilsley township.

It seems to me that nowadays Woodthorpe doesn’t have a strong identity as a local settlement. This is perhaps because of several boundary and administrative changes. Part of it was taken into the ecclesiastical parish of Clay Cross in 1852, and from 1894 to 1935 part of Woodthorpe was in the civil parish of Egstow. Today part of the township lies in Tupton, Wingerworth and Clay Cross civil parishes. Even with increased housebuilding in North East Derbyshire, the area remains rural, and did not have the boom in settlement that other villages in the coalfield did in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

The crop returns for Woodthorpe were included with Tupton until the twentieth century. In 1930 there were 560 acres under cultivation in Woodthorpe. The chief crops were oats and wheat, but most of the land was permanent grass, cultivated for mowing and pasture.

Some Woodthorpe Place Names

• Brassington Street was built up from the late 1870s. In April 1878 planning permission was given for Messrs Joseph, John and James Holmes to built houses and a shop in Brassington Street and Egstow Street (Derbyshire Times 13 April 1878).
• John Street was first built up with a terrace on its southern side circa 1900, and 7 households appear on the 1901 census, with a further 6 dwellings under construction. At a council meeting in 1906 it was noted that it was then a private street owned by the Clay Cross Company. The semi-detached houses on the northern side were added about thirty years later.
• Coney Green takes its name from an Anglo-Saxon name for a rabbit.
• Coupe Lane was probably named after the Coupe (Cowpe Cope etc) family.
• Crabtree Farm is a descriptive name, and refers to a crab apple tree.
• Egstow, Egstow Hall, and Egstow Street are thought to refer to a man named Ecga (or Ecgi), ‘stow’ being old English for ‘place’.
• Furnace Hill was a small settlement built behind Coney Green House on the southern edge of Clay Cross works, and presumably named due to the proximity to the works.
• Hilltop Farm on the A61 is 462 feet (140m) above sea level. It is not the highest point in the area, but travelling towards Clay Cross from Tupton this farm is on the brow of the hill.
• Pondstead Wood and Pondstead Cottages were not far from Tupton Hall’s fishponds and may have taken their name from this feature.
• Press Brook’s ancient name pre-dates 1330, and could be derived from the word ‘priest’.
• Stocksmoor may be derived from the old English ‘stoc’ for a summer pasture or outlying settlement.

Hunloke Estate Sale map 1920 showing Carr Plantation (87), Cowlishaw Wood (28), and Berresford Moor Plantation and Near Tupton Wood (25).

The Hunloke Estate Woods in Woodthorpe in 1920

By the time the Wingerworth estate was put up for sale in 1920, the Hunloke family owned more than 160 acres of woodland in Woodthorpe township. The woods were valuable, not only for the timber as a crop, but also for the game and the shooting rights.

Berresford Moor Plantation, named after the Ber(r)esford family who were living in Woodthorpe in the eighteenth century, and Mulberry Wood, each covered about 14 acres. Near Tupton Wood, adjoining, was 25 acres and Far Tupton Wood was about 43 acres.

Cowlishaw Wood, named after the Cowlishaw family, was 48 acres, and Carr Plantation, possibly named from the old Norse (kjarr) for swampy ground, was 8 acres. On some maps a pheasantry is marked on the west side of the wood. Britton Wood, is thought to take its name from a man named William le Breton of Woodthorpe, who was living in the 1200s, and this wood covered about 15 acres.

Notes on Industry in Woodthorpe Township

The industrial history of Woodthorpe, which includes Clay Cross works, is too large a subject to do it justice here. Instead I offer a few sketchy notes:

• On the 14 May 1604, William Kniveton, lord of the manor, sold to Ralph Clark of Chesterfield, Nicholas Webster and George Heathcote, all the woods in the manor of Woodthorpe, except certain trees, for £350. The purchasers had the right to “digg, delve and make pitts, kilns and gett clotts” for making charcoal and “white cole”, with free passage for carriage, until 25 December 1612.
• Surveyor John Farey recorded the existence of ironstone pits in Woodthorpe at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
• In 1829 Thomas Bennett was a manufacturer of fustians here (hardwearing cloth).
• Woodthorpe corn mill was operated by John Hodgkinson in 1829. The corn mill on the Press Brook probably dates back many centuries, and there is mention of a mill here (or nearby) in the thirteenth century.
• In 1857 the township had a brick and tile maker.
• In 1864 Woodthorpe quarry was worked by Michael Nightingale & Sons, who paid the Hunlokes £35 annual rent for just under 9 acres of land.
• Woodthorpe corn mill was operated by both wind and steam in 1904. It was described only as a water mill in 1922 and 1932. The corn mill was worked by Robert Bateman in 1904 and 1912, and in 1922 and 1932 by Robert and George Henry Bateman. Robert Bateman died at Woodthorpe Mill aged 63 in December 1936. He was a bachelor and had lived with his brother for many years. The Bateman brothers were said to be the last users of water power in the district, and had then only moved over into farming in recent years, rather than continuing with the milling business.

Woodthorpe in the news

In July 1947 partners in a firewood dealing business got into a dispute over money, and one shot and killed the other, who had threatened him with an axe. Convicted for murder, the perpetrator said “If I had not shot him he would have chopped my head off”.

A Walk Down Church Lane

Part 2

The eastern part of Church Lane slopes down to Locko Brook. The benchmarks on the ordnance survey map show a fall of about 50 feet (15.2m).

OS map 1884. This map also shows the detached parts of Morton parish in North Wingfield. ‘4ft RH’ on a boundary means that it is 4 feet from the root of the hedge.

In 1884 the row of cottages named Alma Terrace (or Row) was the only property on this part of Church Lane. The row was built on a field in Morton parish. In 1849 this field was farmed by Daniel Sims, and owned by the executors of a wealthy Chesterfield linen draper named John Hoole (sometimes Hole). John Hoole died in September 1837, and, as he had no children, left his property to be divided between his numerous nephews and nieces. Alma Row still stands, and it consists of 12 cottages, 2 up, 2 down. The row is divided into 3 sections, each section – 4 cottages – stepped down the slope.

Alma Terrace 2021

The row was built before 1866, when the unfortunate Mary Turner of Alma Row (and previously of Church Row) was fined at Alfreton County Court. She had tried to prevent her kettle from being seized by a creditor, who had obtained a judgement against her. Her husband was in his 80s, blind, and unable to work. The unsympathetic magistrates fined her £5 and costs. The elderly couple had moved to Clay Cross by the following year, where Mr James Turner died aged 86.

Alma Row appears on the census of 1871, when the heads 10 of the 12 households were miners, though 2 were unemployed. One of the unemployed men, Isaac Shaw, was elderly, and he and his wife made ends meet by taking in lodgers.

1947 map – Why the name ‘Alma’? The Battle of Alma took place on 20 September 1854, the first battle of the Crimean war, and represented a great victory for the French and the British, over the Russians.

In June 1872 the row of houses was offered for sale (probably by Hoole’s executors), in three separate blocks. It was named ‘Alma Terrace’ in the sale notice.

South View, on the eastern side of Alma Terrace, was built about 1910, on land purchased from Mr Hoole’s executors. It was probably built for the Wain family. I’m told they purchased just under 15 acres of land in 1907 for £1,150 but am unable to confirm this. In 1911 this was the home of Mr Jonathan G. Wain, who lived there with his wife Sarah, their 4 daughters, and son, William Henry Wain.

South View, 2011

Jonathan Wain (1854-1938) was a farmer and landlord of at least 2 pubs (The White Horse Inn, Chesterfield and The Waterloo Hotel) but also had a successful joinery business. By the 1920s J.G. Wain & Son were undertakers, and William Henry Wain continued the business after his father’s death in 1938. Two of Jonathan Wain’s daughters, Florence and Lucy, had a double wedding at North Wingfield church on the 27th December 1910. By the 1990s South View was offering bed & breakfast accommodation.

Circa 2015, 4 houses were built on the orchard behind the South View, and the development was called Orchard View.

Between 1921 and 1938 three houses had been built opposite Alma Terrace, but the south side of Church Lane from number 70 down to Locko Brook remains undeveloped. In 1824 this was a large field of almost 9 acres called ‘Dams’. It was owned and farmed by John Wilkinson Clay in 1824, and in 1849 owned by Mr Clay, but farmed by Samuel Machin.

• 

  The eastern end of Church Lane in 1849. The large field named Dams may have been named after a dam on the Locko Brook, but it could refer to the large dam which was once nearby (Millholm Plantation). Right: the 1921 OS map overlaid with William Senior’s map of the dam, 1621.

• 

Travelling eastwards, the next development on the north side of the lane is Church Close, a development of detached and semi detached bungalows, built in the mid 1980s. The field they were built on was once called Stoneylands.

After Church Close there is a small terrace of 4 late Victorian cottages, numbered 129 to 135 Church Lane, at the junction with Little Morton Road.

Locko Brook Cottages 2021

On the census of 1911 Thomas Downing, Joseph Wilde, Walter Hughes and George Hall were the heads of households here. They gave their address as ‘Locko Brook’ and stated that each cottage had 5 rooms. Thomas Downing’s wife tragically committed suicide by hanging herself in an outhouse here in 1905.

Although a pleasant spot now, imagine what this part of Church Lane was like in 1903. There was no provision for taking away waste water from the houses built in this area, and it washed down from the surrounding settlements into Locko Brook. It would be some 30 years before proper sewage works were erected near the brook (now replaced by a small industrial site). At a meeting of North Wingfield Parish Council in November 1903 Councillor Salway said “we are getting double the sewage [in the brook] now. I move that we send a letter to the Rural District Council drawing their attention to the great nuisance of the sewage from the bottom of Healey Fields down to Locko Brook, as the stench is something dreadful” (Derbyshire Times 14 November 1903).

Locko Brook in 2021