An Instrument Of No Advantage

Some Notes on the Organ at St Lawrence Church, North Wingfield

In 1727 parishioners organised a petition against Lemuel Gladwin’s proposal to install an organ in the church, stating that to would be ‘of no advantage’ but would only put them to more expense. The petition was obviously ultimately unsuccessful, as thirty years later, Mr Anthony Greatorex (1730-1814) was organist at North Wingfield. The parish registers record the Greatorex family living at Locko Lane until circa 1766, when Mr Greatorex moved to Leicester to become organist of St Margaret’s church. While the family were living in North Wingfield, Thomas, son of Anthony and Ann Greatorex of Locko, was baptised at North Wingfield on 22 October 1758. Thomas Greatorex became a distinguished organist and conductor, and is buried in Westminster Abbey.

Portraits of Anthony Greatorex and his wife by Joseph Wright of Derby, now in the SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia, USA. The portraits are not dated, but are presumably of the couple who once lived in North Wingfield. Thomas Greatorex was said to possess several valuable telescopes, and his father (if it is he) appears to be holding one here.

The organists who succeeded Anthony Greatorex for the next 100 years are unknown to me, but the rector from 1799 to 1822 was the Rev Henry (Harry) Hankey who was a keen musician. A skilled violin player, he led the band at the third Chesterfield Subscription Concert, held at the Assembly Room at the Angel Inn (Derby Mercury 19 November 1818). It seems likely that he would have made sure that there was music played in his church. It may not have been organ music, though, as when the Rev Samuel Butler inspected the church on 10 July 1823 he reported that the organ was out of order. At this time the organist’s salary was set at £8. (M.R. Austin (ed.) The Church in Derbyshire in 1823-4. Derbyshire Archaeological Society Record Series v.5, 1972).

Twenty years later the organ was in some sort of working order again, but in May 1866 a ‘Lover of Music’ wrote to the Derbyshire Times complaining that “sometimes I could fancy it thought itself grown too old in the service, and fain would be mute, rather than compel anyone either to sing or listen to it. Sometimes it seemed something like the squeak of child with the whooping-cough, and the end of a tune generally died away with a sound resembling something between a hiss and a groan” (Derbyshire Times 16 May 1866).

In the mid nineteenth century George Cupit of Danesmoor was organist. Along with his salary Cupit had some land courtesy of his position, and also worked as a joiner for the Clay Cross Company. He died 24 November 1886 but had probably given up his musical duties before this date, as Mr Whitworth, and then the curate’s sister Miss Alice Wood, both subsequently took on the role of organist before 1886, the latter residing in the parish from 1879 to 1886. (Interview with Thomas Allibone in Derbyshire Courier 15 February 1910).

This newspaper report of a funeral of a member of the Cupit family mentions Mr George Cupit, organist at North Wingfield for 40 years. Derbyshire Times 5 June 1936.

After 1890 organists had a much better instrument to play on. On 21 June 1890 the Derbyshire Times reported the opening of the new organ at North Wingfield church. Three special opening ceremonies were arranged to raise funds to pay for the new instrument which had cost £435. It was been built by C. Lloyd & Co. of Nottingham, and transported to North Wingfield by rail to Clay Cross station.

Derbyshire Courier 21 June 1890.

Until shortly before his untimely death aged 52 in 1903, the organist was Mr W.H. Newbould, the headmaster of Tupton Boys’ School. The rector wrote in the parish magazine “Mr Newbould had been organist and choirmaster here from Mr Darby’s days, and had made the services, from the musical point of view, among the best in the neighbourhood.” (Thirteen years at North Wingfield: a record of events compiled from the parish magazine from 1897 to 1910 (n.d.), 21).

Mr Newbould was succeeded by Mr Herbert Butterworth (1868-1946), who had been organist at Clay Cross, and also worked as an accountant for the Clay Cross Company. For a time Mr Herbert also had a quadrille band, led the Clay Cross Volunteers Band for sixteen years, and was conductor of the Clay Cross Choral Society for six years. He gave regular recitals round the district in aid of church funds. Mr Butterworth resigned from his position in 1941, after nearly 40 years.

I leave the last word on the organ to an anonymous note on a church leaflet:

“Over the last hundred years the instrument has been cared for by the original builders, then by Henry Willis & Sons, and currently by A. Cragg Organ Builders (Midlands). In the early years of the incumbency of Canon Joyce the organ was completely overhauled including the replacement of the original pedal board, and then late in 1980 the instrument was, as many members of the congregation will recall, cleaned and overhauled at a cost of £3,253. So with loving care and attention the organ built in 1892 [sic] should continue to give good service in leading the worship well into the 21st century. Let us hope that there will be organists to see that this will be so.”

A Walk Round A Deer Park

The front of Wingerworth Hall, facing north-east. The deer park lay on the land sloping down behind the mansion.

Wingerworth Deer Park 1920

In 1920 the deer park belonging to Wingerworth Hall was put up for sale by auction by Major Philip Hunloke. The park covered 110 acres, and along with the ponds, tennis and cricket grounds, and keeper’s lodge, was part of a lot of almost 125 acres. Much of the information for the following blog comes from the Wingerworth sale catalogues produced for the auction.

The deer park, based on the 1920 sale catalogue map.

Wingerworth deer park with some modern roads superimposed. All of the park is now covered with housing, apart from the land to the west of Allendale Road in the north-east quadrant. Of the ponds, only Smithy Pond, the Lodge Pond and part of the Island Pond remain.

Longedge Lane forms the northern boundary of the park, Hockley Lane the eastern, and New Road and Nethermoor Road the western boundaries. The main carriageway through the centre of the park remains in use today, and is called Central Drive.

Our walk commences at 1, Hockley Lane, or Park Lodge, on the north-eastern corner of the park, heading south down Hockley Lane. In 1920 Park Lodge was described as a superior residence called the Keeper’s House, stone built and slated, with four bedrooms. It is a Grade II listed building.

Photo: David G. Edwards, 2010.

From A Wingerworth Historical Miscellany by David G. Edwards

Park Lodge, 1 Hockley Lane is one of a number of typical Victorian houses in Wingerworth. It dates from 1851: that year, the census enumerator entered ‘one house building’, which must have been Park Lodge, between the entries for Wingerworth Hall and another lodge at the lower end of Lodge Drive. No building is shown on that site on the tithe map of 1843. In the 1861 census, the house was occupied by Joseph Davis, his wife Elizabeth and a visitor, Anne Archer. Joseph Davis was born at Ewell in Surrey about 1819. The 1851 census recorded him as a riding master, White’s county directory of 1857 as a horse breaker, and the 1861 census as retired valet, but in a codicil to his will in 1855 Sir Henry Hunloke, leaving him an annuity of £52 and rent-free occupation of the house in Wingerworth Park, described him as his groom, who had given him over 20 years faithful service. Joseph was still at Park Lodge when Adelaide and Frederick Hunloke inherited the Wingerworth estate in 1864 but left soon afterwards. A tombstone in the churchyard records that Elizabeth died in Chesterfield in 1898, aged 81, and Joseph in Rotherham in 1900, also at 81. The next occupants of Park Lodge were William Smithson, his wife and their young family. William was born in London and was coachman to the Hunlokes.

Hockley Lane curves down and round the eastern boundary of the park, coming to the farm settlement which gives the road its name, passing some large properties on the left, one of which, Springwood House, was advertised for sale recently with a carp lake, bluebell woodland, tennis court and aircraft hangar.

Hockley Farm was occupied for some years by the Madin family, and was described in 1920 as a moderate sized holding of 49 acres. Mr F.R. Madin purchased the property from the Hunloke estate for £7,900, and it was sold after his death in 1931 to Mr J. Perkins.

Nearby at Hockley Mr and Mrs Vickers had a cottage and nursery garden. Mr Vickers bought the property from the Hunloke estate in 1920 for £700, but was said to be so stressed and depressed by the purchase that a few months later he committed suicide (Sheffield Ind. 22 November 1920, et al.). His widow, Mrs Fanny Vickers, lived to a great age and was well-known for having a market stall near the pump on Chesterfield market. She gave an interview to the Derbyshire Times on the occasion of her 90th birthday, when she was still running the nurseries with the assistance of her grandsons and son in law (Derbyshire Times 26 March 1943). She died in 1946, aged 93.

From Hockley Lane, our walk takes us straight on across the bottom section of the appropriately named Deerlands Road to Nethermooor Road, and a right turn leads us along the south western boundary of the park, now heading north and uphill.

On the right, one of the several ponds on the park, the Smithy Pond, can be seen. In 1920 there were seven lakes or ponds in the park, and this was the largest, covering more than 5 acres. The pond provided power for an ironworks in Wingerworth. Dr Edwards writes that ‘no remains of this bloomery-cum-smithy have been uncovered, but iron slag which may have originated from it can still be seen in the upper surface of the dam of the pond’ (Edwards, Miscellany). The public house here opened in 1992. Many will remember this pond as the Lido. For more, see the Victoria County History blog here: https://derbyshirevch.org/2023/03/wingerworth-and-its-lido-railway/

Instead of climbing all the way up to the crossroads at Hill Houses, when reaching the twin lodges at the entrance to the park, turn right and walk through the middle of the deer park, along Central Drive.

Photo: David G. Edwards, 2012.

Photo: L. Phillips 2023

In 1920 these double entrance lodges to the park were sold as 4-room detached cottages which were then occupied by estate servants, rent free. The purchasers were required to put up a boundary wall between the lodges and the deer park, the plots having been marked out ready for sale.

Behind the left hand lodge the Wall Pond, now called the Lodge Pond, of just over an acre gives pleasant views across to Allendale Road.

Continue up Central Drive. Most of this road, like most of Hockley Lane, is unadopted.

Central Drive takes us all the way back up to Hockley Lane, and a left turn finds us back at the Park Lodge, completing the circuit.

Wall or Lodge Pond. Photo: L. Phillips, 2023.

For information used in this blog I am indebted to Dr D.G. Edwards, whose extensive research is also being used to produce a Derbyshire Victoria County History spin-off book on Wingerworth. Search for, and follow, Derbyshire VCH on social media to keep up to date with their publication announcements.

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

Napoleon’s Home – Manchester

When Mr Mark Napoleon Elliott, a 55 year old bankrupt oil merchant died in Manchester in 1881, it seems unlikely that many would have known of his connection with an oddly-named public house in Derbyshire, ‘Napoleon’s Home’.

OS XXX SW 1884

You can find some information about Napoleon’s Home and the New Napoleon on the web site of Stretton Handley Church of England Primary School here: http://www.strettonhandley.derbyshire.sch.uk/woolley-trail/newnapoleon/

Here I take a brief look at the life of the man who is said to have given the public house its name.

Mr Mark Elliott was born in Crich in 1826, the son of a grocer named George Elliott. Members of the Elliott family lived at Woolley, in Stretton township, and by 1848 directories show that George Elliott had moved from Crich and was farming in Woolley Moor. The 1851 census lists him farming a smallholding of 16 acres. In the 1860s he is mentioned in newspapers as the landlord of a beerhouse, called ‘Napoleon’s Home’. The beerhouse was said to have been named after one of his sons, two of which he had nicknamed Nelson and Napoleon. ‘Nelson’ was probably George, Mark’s elder brother by two years, but there were also two other younger Elliott brothers named Alexander and Geoffrey.

By the time his father was mentioned in the newspapers in the 1860s, usually for minor transgressions against the licensing laws, Mark ‘Napoleon’ Elliott, had long departed from Derbyshire. He had, in fact, gone before 1851, when he was staying with a family in Manchester, and working as a druggist. In August 1857 Mr Mark Elliott was called up for jury service in Manchester, and was then listed as a drysalter of Fennel Street (his business address). The newspaper listed him as ‘Mark Napoleon Elliott’ (Manchester Times 1 August 1857), and he seems to have now formally adopted Napoleon as his middle name.

Derbyshire Advertiser 11 September 1857

The following month Mark Elliott returned to Derbyshire to marry Alice Bown, a daughter of the Atlow schoolmaster, at Wirksworth. The couple made their home in Liverpool, and then Manchester, and by 1861 Mr Mark N. Elliott was a drug and oil merchant employing 1 man and 1 boy. He was by then the father of 3 children, and the household included a domestic servant. Mr Mark Napoleon Elliott prospered in trade and became a man of some standing in Manchester. He was probably the adventurous Manchester gentleman named ‘M.N. Elliott’ who visited European battlefields in 1859 and 1870, tracing the exploits of Napoleon III.

Blackburn Standard 3 March 1877

Mr Mark Napoleon Elliott was the father of seven children, and his eldest son Mark Albert Napoleon (1859 -1911) was also given the Napoleon name. There were other connections in Mr Elliott’s life with the Napoleonic era; the family also lived at various times at Waterloo Road (Cheetham) and Trafalgar Street (Lower Broughton) in Manchester.

Manchester Courier 10 March 1881

1881 was a sad year for the family. Mark Napoleon Elliott’s wife Alice died in February aged just 54, and then the bankruptcy proceedings commenced soon after. Having lost his business with liabilities of £700, and moved to lodgings, Mark Napoleon Elliott died on 22 June 1881.

Macclesfield Courier 9 July 1859

Ormskirk Advertiser 15 September 1879

Mr Robinson’s Windmill

Wingerworth Mill on the Rother near the signal box, once the home of the Robinson family.

In the first quarter of the 19th century there was a windmill in Grassmoor, on the south side of Mill Lane. It stood in an 8 acre field, on the brow of the hill leading up from the river Rother. In 1779, when the grass moor was enclosed, and the land was shared out between the local landowners, this field was allotted to Edward Brocksopp, but the enclosure map does not show any buildings here.

By 1825 the windmill had been built in the field, which was now owned and farmed by Mr William Askew (1761-1842). Mr Askew was a well-heeled timber merchant, who also owned the Rose & Crown at Woodthorpe. The windmill, however, was owned and worked by Askew’s son’s father-in-law Mr Arthur Robinson who lived at Wingerworth Mill. Sanderson’s map of 1835 shows it placed on the east corner of the field, adjacent to the road.

Sanderson’s map, 1835. By 1825 a windmill had been built on William Askew’s field in Grassmoor, owned and worked by Arthur Robinson. On the 1779 map, Mill Lane was clearly marked as ‘Mill Road’ and so it is evident that the road took its name from Wingerworth Mill, a water mill nearby, on the Rother.

Mr Arthur Robinson (1755-1832) had lived and worked at Wingerworth Mill for many years by the time the windmill was built. He came from a family traditionally involved in milling. Brockhurst Mill and Farm near Slack Hill were occupied by members of the Robinson family for several generations, and another of his ancestors was a miller at Cromford in the 18th century. The Robinsons also had some connection with the Clayton family. In 1832 both Arthur and his son James were named ‘Robinson otherwise Clayton’.

Tragedy struck the Robinson family in 1824, when Arthur’s wife Elizabeth, and his eldest son Arthur, both died within the space of a few months.

After his wife’s death, Mr Robinson advertised the sale of his farming stock, and other property, including a water corn mill in Ashover parish. The sale was said to be due to ill health, but he remained at Wingerworth Mill for the rest of his life. He died there on 1 September 1832, aged 78, and was buried at Wingerworth.

Derby Mercury 27 October 1824 – DEATHS – On the 17th instant, at his father’s house at Wingerworth Mill, in this county, Mr Arthur Robinson jun. In the 43rd year of his age, a man very much respected by his relatives and acquaintance.

Sheffield Independent 15 September 1832 – DEATHS – At Wingerworth Mill, near Chesterfield, Mr Arthur Robinson, aged 78.

The windmill in Grassmoor must have fallen out of use around this time, but it was still standing in 1837, when the field in which it stood was advertised for sale. I have not found any mention of it after this date.

Derbyshire Courier 18 & 25 November 1837 – The sale of a close of freehold land situate at Grassmoor in which a windmill stands. The sale took place at William Askew’s public house in Woodthorpe.

Grassmoor WMC and Institute was later built on the site once occupied by the windmill.

OS XXX.15 1938 showing the club building on Mill Lane.

Derbyshire Times 3 March 1939. The Working Mens Club and Institute at Grassmoor possibly started in the early years of the 20th century (I have found a mention of it in 1917), and the first club building was said to have been a wooden hut. Is it the building in this cutting?

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.

Lings

OS 1″ Sheet 112 1897

Lings = Heather

The area in North Wingfield township known as Lings was in the manor of Williamthorpe, and lies on the northern edge of North Wingfield’s parish. It is on the border with Grassmoor, and it is easy to imagine that this higher ground on the south-eastern edge of the grassy moor was once covered with heather.

Three Farms became One

By the mid 17th century there were three farms at Lings, of 38, 64 and 93 acres, occupied by tenants of the Hunlokes of Wingerworth Hall. The land belonging to the smallest farm was distributed between the other two farms before 1779, and, after the death of the tenant Mr Francis Browne in 1862, much of the land of the other smaller farm was transferred to the one remaining farm, which increased to about 140 acres. Farming families in the larger farm over the centuries included Brelsford, Ashmore, Bacon, Holmes and Wright.

The last of the Browne family at Lings was Mr Francis Browne who died in 1862. His family claimed to be the descendants of a Civil War Royalist, and made an unsuccessful claim to the vacant Viscountcy of Montague.

When Mr Francis Browne’s youngest son, William Nichols Browne of Brimington (who was born at Lings), gave an interview to the Derbyshire Times in 1901, he recalled that Lady Hunloke (perhaps in jest) referred to his father as ‘Montague’. (Derbyshire Times 16 February 1901).

For more on the Browne family see our facebook post https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1384464651564492&id=492150250795941

Lings Colliery

In the 1780s Joseph Butler started a colliery at Lings, which provided coke for his furnaces at Wingerworth and Killamarsh. Coal raised at Lings Colliery was coked before being transported down an incline to a wharf at Ankerbold. The furnace at Wingerworth was blown out in 1816 and the colliery at Lings probably closed shortly afterwards. In the early 1830s there were still coal pits near Lings Farm but it is not clear whether they were being worked, or by whom. The tramroad to Ankerbold had disappeared completely.

In June 1841 work commenced on the second colliery at Lings, this time by the Wingerworth Colliery Company. Coal was taken down to the Midland main line near Clay Cross Station (in Tupton) by a new incline ‘The Duke’s Incline’ managed by the Midland Railway Company. In 1851 there were four households living at Lings Pits.

After some accidents, safety on the Duke’s Incline was improved in the 1860s when a stationary steam engine replaced the self-acting system. The incline was abandoned altogether in the 1870s when the Midland Railway was granted powers to build a network of new junction lines. Lings Colliery was closed in the 1890s.

Lings Farm and Colliery, OS 6″ XXX.NE, 1900. The map was surveyed 1897-8, and it was around this time that the colliery was abandoned.

Lings Rows

Lings Row, a large development of of thirty-six cottages (six blocks of six cottages), was built on a field called ‘Little High Flat’ in the second half of the 1840s. On the 1851 census 34 of the 36 cottages were occupied, and fifty men and boys living here were coal miners. Today Deincourt Crescent occupies the site.

A sketch of the housing on Chesterfield Road made by the parish clerk in 1906.

At around the same time that Lings Row was built, two blocks of cottages were built end-on to Chesterfield Road, nearer to North Wingfield Green, on a field named West White Ley (or Leas). These were called Lings Cross Rows. Top Cross Row was made up of a block of six cottages, and Bottom Cross Row was a long block of sixteen cottages. Between 1861 and 1871 another block of six cottages was added to Top Cross Row, making twelve in all. To the north, on the boundary with Grassmoor, another two rows of nineteen cottages called Speedwell Row, were built in a triangle on the corner of a field near Windwhistle Farm called Platt’s Close, circa 1850.

Speedwell Row 1917 OS 25″ XXX.3. The dotted line marks the boundary between North Wingfield parish and Grassmoor (in Hasland parish).

Pubs and Chapels

The Miners Arms, situated opposite Lings Row, began as a butcher’s and grocer’s shop and beerhouse named ‘Clover Tree’ belonging to Charles Todd. It was established there before 1858. By 1861 Todd’s public house was known as ‘The Miners Arms’, and by the 1880s the Miners Arms had become ‘The Alma Hotel’. The public house was closed and demolished at the end of 2005, and there is now high-density housing on the site.

Sketch of Lings Row Chapel, opened 1905 (Derbyshire Courier 18 April 1903)

Lings Row (Salem) Chapel was built in 1864. This was replaced by a new building (pictured here), on an adjacent site, around the turn of the century, with accommodation for 400, and the two chapel buildings stood side-by-side, as can be seen on the parish clerk’s sketch, above. The new chapel suffered from subsidence and was closed and offered for sale by the trustees in 1926 “for freehold or dismantling” (Sheffield Daily Telegraph 28 September 1926). It was sold and demolished in 1929. The old chapel was put back into use and eventually closed in 1962.

A Professional Footballer

In 1928 the Sheffield Daily Telegraph reported, “Chesterfield have signed on Fred Beedall, an inside-right, from Lings Row Primitives, a local club. He is 17 years of age, stands 5ft 8in. and is reported to be well endowed physically” (Sheffield Daily Telegraph 9 March 1928). He later became a half-back.

Fred Beedall (1911-1976) played for Chesterfield FC for about six years, although he did not make his league debut until 1932.

In 1901 and 1911 members of the Beedall family lived on Lings Row, Top Cross Row, and Bottom Cross Row, and a local newspaper rather unkindly referred to the Beedalls at North Wingfield as a ‘clan’. Members of the family were still living on Top Cross Row in 1939.

In 1934 Fred Beedall moved to Torquay United, but in 1938 he was placed on the transfer list. He returned to Chesterfield, and in 1939 he was living on Jawbones Hill, and working as a crane driver.

Picture from the Derbyshire Times 20 August 1932.

A Bad Reputation

It was reported that the residents of Alma Row and other residents of North Wingfield wished to be dissociated with the Lings Row radicals who, on polling day in 1906, threw mud, blue water, and worse, at the Unionist candidate Mr Locker Lampson and, indeed, any unfortunate passer-by they suspected to be a Unionist supporter.

Derbyshire Times 3 February 1906.

Thanks to Cliff Williams for information on The Duke’s Incline.

The Brickyard

A brick made at Hepthorne Lane by George Enoch Bannister Knighton (GEBK), at the brickyard near Clay Cross Station (C+STN). (From Martyn Fretwell’s excellent ‘Named Bricks’ blog. See below for a link to his site).

“Without doubt, the completion of the NMR [North Midland Railway] line and the establishment of George Stephenson’s company in 1837 had a profound effect upon Clay Cross. The transformation [was] from an agrarian based economy to an industrial based one…”

Cliff Williams. Driving the Clay Cross Tunnel, 1984.

In his book, Cliff tells us that a prodigious number of bricks were needed to build the Clay Cross Tunnel, and in the summers of 1837, 1838 and 1839 more than 15 million bricks were made by hand for the project. But this was not the only need for bricks. The men, and their families, employed in building the tunnel and railway needed to be housed, and in 1838 East and West Tunnel Row were built, with more and more buildings erected over the following years, as the coal mining boom began in our district.

OS 6″ 1884

There were many brickyards in North East Derbyshire to supply the building boom, and early trade directories record a number of brick-makers in Tupton, including one at New Tupton belonging to Mr Charles Oxley, and another in the township owned by by Mr Richard Medcalf and Mr Thomas Slack. Here I give my (not very complete) notes for one particular site next to Clay Cross Station in Tupton township.

By the 1870s a builder named Henry Green had acquired parcels of land in Hepthorne Lane. When he sold off this building land in 1873, one of the lots was described as ‘a plot of land containing admeasurement 2126 square yards or thereabouts, with brick kiln, clay mill, and pond thereon now in the possession of the said Green’, was this was the station brickyard?

Derbyshire Times 19 April 1873

The brickyard near the station was then managed by Mr Reuben Bannister, who had come to the district in the 1840s to work for the Clay Cross Company as a brick-maker. Mr Bannister was also a prominent local Methodist preacher. In 1861 he lived at Broadleys in Clay Cross, and was listed on the census as a brick-maker master, employing 2 men, 3 labourers and 3 boys. White’s Directory of 1862 lists him as a brick, tile and drainpipe maker of Danesmoor, and Harrod’s Directory of 1870 lists him as the manager of a ‘Brick, Tile and Drainpipe Works, near Clay Cross Station’.

Derbyshire Courier 6 November 1875. Mr Bannister advertised the yard for sale, but apparently the sale did not go through.

The stock at the brickyard near the station was advertised for sale in 1875, this time with Mr Bannister as the proprietor ‘declining the business’. But Mr Bannister was still living at the brickyard house in 1881, and listed as a brick and tile maker.

On the 1891 census Mr Bannister’s home at the brickyard was named ‘Springfield House’. His great-nephew, Mr George Enoch Bannister Knighton also lived at a house nearby, and worked as a brick burner. Shortly after this, Mr Bannister retired from the business and passed it over to Mr Knighton.

In September 1900, Mr Reuben Bannister, now about 78 years old, was knocked down and run over by some trucks in sidings near the station. He was taken to hospital, and one of his legs was amputated, but he died from his injuries (Derbyshire Courier 29 September & 6 October 1900).

Mr George Knighton continued to manage the brickyard and lived at Springfield House for some years, though by 1919 the brickyard was owned by the Clay Cross Company. Mr Knighton had moved to Brimington, where he died in 1929.

In 1919 Clay Cross Company were fined for employing women to work at the brickyard after 9pm. One newspaper described the company as ‘fifty years behind the times’ for doing so (Derby Daily Telegraph 13 December 1919).

Derbyshire Courier 20 December 1919

Another blog on brick-making in our district can be found here:https://brimingtonandtaptonhistory.org.uk/2021/05/03/brimington-brickmaking-in-the-spotlight/

And for the brick enthusiasts there is https://eastmidlandsnamedbricks.blogspot.com/2015/10/east-derbyshire-brickworks.html – where you will find pictures of some more Clay Cross bricks.