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Part of the former Shuttlewoood schools complex on Clowne Road (B6418) near Bolsover – pictured in our first and second photographs – is to be demolished. This is the northern part of the site – the southern part is occupied by the present Brockley Primary and Nursery School, (our third photograph) which is not affected. This southern part (opened in 1927) is listed grade II – as a good example of the work of ground-breaking Derbyshire Education Committee architect GH Widows.

The northern part is not listed and not by Widdows – it originally dates from 1907 and was first used as an infant school. In 1933 (when it was extended) it became a senior school, but latterly it had not been used for teaching (since 2007). The 1927 southern building became a junior and infant school.

The northern building has been surveyed. Copies of this can be viewed on the Bolsover District Council’s planning portal, along with heritage assessments. https://publicaccess.bolsover.gov.uk/online-applications/

We have lots more on education in Bolsover, including Shuttlewood, in our VCH volume III – ‘Bolsover and adjoining parishes’, in our Explore paperback and on our website https://www.victoriacountyhistory.ac.uk/…/education-bolsover

When was Bess of Hardwick born? Our county editor thinks it was sometime between 13 February 1521 and 12 February 1522, not as some others have it.

Twenty-twenty one probably marked an important anniversary for Bess of Hardwick – it’s almost certain that it was 500 years since she was born.

Bess is probably the third most famous Englishwoman of her age after Queen Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots. Bess is, of course, particularly, associated with Hardwick Hall.

Though there’s no shortage of books on Bess of Hardwick, there has been some conjecture, over a long period, on just when she was born. Our VCH county editor, Philip Riden, who has extensively researched the issue, is certain that she was born in 1521 or in the early months of 1522.

Philip has written about the Hardwick family at Hardwick Hall in the Derbyshire Archaeological Society’s Journal (DAJ) of 2010. You can read it by selecting the article from the contents page here:
https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/…/vi…/daj/contents.cfm…

You can directly download the article as pdf via the link here. Look for the final paragraph on page 150.

You can find out more about Bess and the Hardwick estate in our paperback book ‘Hardwick a great house and its estate’.

The rather romanticised engraving of the Hardwick Hall is taken from Ford’s History of Chesterfield, published in 1839, as is the second illustration of Hardwick Old Hall.

This post was revised on 5 August 2023 to remove a link to website that no longer exists and add a direct link to an article in the DAJ.