In this blog we take another look at Hasland, from our recent book. This time it’s about a now disappeared 17th-century house, sometimes called Hasland Old Hall.
junction of Calow Lane and Chapel Lane. (Courtesy Derbyshire County Council – Derbyshire Library Service).
Little seems to have been known about its history – the remains of the building finally disappearing in 1984. Its site is now housing.
The property appears to have been a large 17-century house, of two stories, plus attics. What looks like a large rear wing could be seen (and is illustrated above) on Calow Lane adjoining the junction with Chapel Lane.
It’s one of those unfortunate houses across the country not to have survived and was poorly recorded. Apparently there was a coat of arms on plasterwork on one of the chimney breasts on the ground floor, with a date of 1665 and the initials RS on it. A resident, reported in a 1984 Derbyshire Times article, remembered that the arms contained a unicorn, magpie, lion, oak leaves and acorns. The initials don’t appear to correspond with anyone listed on the 1670 Hearth Tax in Hasland. Not all the larger houses in Hasland can, however, be located, so it may be that this house was amongst them.
In1849 Francis Childs owned the house. It was part of a small estate of cottage property on Calow Lane and Chapel Lane – totalling 6 acres. Childs (1791/2-1857) was a farmer at Calow Oaks (in Calow) and the son of a man of the same name who farmed at Hasland. But we know nothing of the earlier owners.
Until at least into the 1950s the house was divided into tenements. But it started to collapse and was demolished. It appears to have been finally swept away in 1984.
If you can remember anything of this property we’d be very interested to hear from you.
You learn more about other properties in Hasland in our book – ‘A history of Hasland including Birdholme, Boythrope, Corbriggs, Grassmoor, Hady, Spital and Winsick’. It’s on sale at the Chesterfield Visitor Centre, Waterstones in Chesterfield and Hasland Co-op, priced at £20 for 206 pages with illustrations.
I wonder whether inquiries at The Royal College of Arms could help identify the R.S. My quick look through Burke’s Armory found SELIOKE with oak leaves, some SMITHS with a unicorn, which isn’t very helpful. There is always the possibility that the Arms were actually quartered, showing bearings of the illusive R.S.’ s parents, or his and his wife’s.