March 2021

We are still at Bolsover for this blog – and is anyone up for a swim? Unfortunately, if you are – you’re too late, for these baths were closed, controversially, in the late 1980s and demolished.

They were opened in 1925 on land given to the miner’s welfare committee fund by the duke of Portland, at the bottom of Castle Lane. Not only were there public baths, but the scheme also included public slipper baths (where, for those who had no bathroom, you could go and get one) and showers. The baths (there was one pool) could be boarded over for dances, concerts and meetings.

Our first photograph shows the baths, including the superintendent’s house, under construction. Our second the completed baths, both are courtesy of Bernard Haigh and featured in his ‘Around Bolsover’ book. The baths were certainly impressive.  As recorded in our book ‘Bolsover: castle, town and colliery’ the town’s urban district council took a 25-year lease on the baths in 1925, at a nominal sum.

They were used by local people and those from further afield – particularly schools, who would be transported by the town’s Castle Coaches to and from the baths. (The writer of this post remembers being ferried from a Chesterfield area junior school to Bolsover and back in the late 1960s by Bolsover’s own Castle Coaches).

The interwar period was one of progress by Bolsover’s urban district council. They constructed council homes, provided improved parks, purchased the formerly private water undertaking (1923) and began to supply electricity (from 1927). A library was also established in the council offices, jointly with the county council, in 1925, before moving to a former Co-op branch in 1932, on Cotton Street.

We’ve dipped in to our own archives for this blog, with pictures of when our part of the England’s Past for Everyone (EPE) project was launched in Bolsover Library on 18 March 2006.

We were able to welcome Dennis Skinner, then Bolsover MP, who cut our rather tasty birthday cake. Professor David Hey (who sadly died in 2016) and Professor John Beckett from the University of Nottingham and one-time Victoria County History (VCH) national director were also present along with civic and local history organisations in the Derbyshire project areas (which were Bolsover and Hardwick). Professor Hey was a chairman of the Derbyshire Victoria County History Trust.

The EPE project was driven by the internationally respected research standards of VCH. In addition to the two books on Bolsover and Hardwick which were eventually produced, a website was created. This is still accessible at https://www.victoriacountyhistory.ac.uk/explore/. The project included work with schools. A volunteer research group was started and contributed to the work. Other communities across England were also part of the EPE project.

Find out more about the Derbyshire EPE books on Bolsover and Hardwick (which are unfortunately now out of print) and other VCH publications here.

It’s only fairly recently that we have been managing our own digital media presence. Both our own webpage and Facebook page are newcomers.

We have had a blog published by the British Association for Local History (BALH), about this recent approach to digital media, including Facebook posts. Take a look at https://www.balh.org.uk/blog-opening-up-our-research-to…

The BALH has lots of information on its website (https://www.balh.org.uk/) for anyone interested in local history and runs a popular series of on-line talks and seminars.

Local wine and spirit merchant Thomas Philpot Wood (1840-1911) published an annual almanac from his premises over-looking Chesterfield Market Place. Our first illustration shows the once familiar cover of one the later editions. The second illustration is taken from the rear cover of his edition for 1900, which clearly shows TP Wood’s premises. The almanac was distributed freely to his ‘customers and friends’.

The first edition was published in 1863 with the final one in 1963 (for 1964), though by this time the business had long been part of the Mansfield Brewery Company. There were notable gaps in publication, including just before the First World War and after the Second World War.

In its early years, Wood would introduce each almanac with his personal thoughts about local and national happenings. There were general articles, a local directory and perhaps, most famously of all, a chronicle in which local events were briefly listed. Our third photograph shows the final entries for the 1900 almanac. They generally end in November of each year to allow for typesetting and subsequent publication around Christmas. The almanac for 1900 was therefore published in the period leading up to Christmas 1899. It comprised some 515 pages – quite an undertaking. They were eagerly awaited in many households.

The almanacs might also be illustrated with plates of local features, such as the workhouse on Newbold Road (later Scarsdale Hospital) – our final photo. Wood explains in his introduction that rebuilding or a move out of town was then under discussion. In the event the former was pursued.

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The covers of the almanac changed little in its later years. Our first photograph shows one from 1921, which includes the TP Wood’s punch (in a) bowl trademark. The cover of the last edition for 1964 was basically the same, but with a dark blue paper.

TP Wood himself was a great benefactor to the town and prominent in its politics. Today he is best remembered as the driving force behind Chesterfield’s Queen’s Park and his almanac. You can find out more about him at this short biography by Chesterfield Museum.

There’s an interesting blog from the Derbyshire Record Office about how an engraving of Chapman’s 1837 map appeared in one of TP Wood’s almanacs here.

For us in Derbyshire VCH, we still use TP Wood’s almanacs as a useful research source – particularly its chronicle of local events.