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Chesterfield’s railway stations: a short history

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Chesterfield formerly had three railway stations in or adjacent to the town centre. But it didn’t end there, as a further seven were contained within what would now be Chesterfield borough. In this blog – a version of which first appeared in the Derbyshire Times – we take a brief look at these stations.

Stations weren’t just closed in the so-called Beeching era of British Railways (the 1960s under a plan developed by the then Chairman). Some were surprisingly early losses as competing company lines were closed. In Chesterfield borough, for example, the lines of three formerly competing companies once served the town – the Midland Railway, Great Central Railway and the Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway. Of these only the former Midland station is still in business – at the bottom of Corporation Street. All the other railway stations in today’s borough have closed.

Station names can change, but we’ve used those that most people might remember. The closure dates we give here relate to passenger services. It’s worth remembering that some stations retained a goods service after they closed to passengers.

Chesterfield Midland Station – open but reconstructed.

Chesterfield’s remaining railway station, at the bottom of Corporation Street and on the NE/SW and London route, is the town’s earliest.

It was first opened in 1840 as part of the North Midland Railway’s Derby to Leeds line. Construction of this line brought George Stephenson to live at Tapton House, not far away from the railway station, where he died in 1848. Stephenson was the engineer in chief of the line (with his son Robert). George was regarded as the so-called ‘father of the railways’ and is commemorated by a statue outside the station by Stephen Hickling which was unveiled in 2005. It was, though, Stephenson’s understudy Frederick Swanwick who took most of the decisions during the line’s construction. George Stephenson is buried in nearby Trinity Church.

In 1844 the North Midland Railway amalgamated with three other companies to form the Midland Railway. A ‘grouping’ of railways in 1923 resulted in the Midland becoming part of the London Midland and Scottish Railway, until nationalised in 1948.

The first Chesterfield station pictured in a Samuel Russell lithograph. The stations were designed by Francis Thompson. The detached building to the left is probably a water tower and steam driven pump house. This station was swept away in works to construct a direct line to Sheffield, which was opened in 1870. Today’s main-line railway station stands roughly on the site.

It appears that North Midland House – the isolated property which has the station car park behind it – was been built out of repurposed masonry fragments from Francis Thomson’s original station building. These appear to have been salvaged when a new station was constructed in the late 1860s to early 1870, about 200 yards north of the first building, to accommodate the opening of the current direct line to Sheffield (opened in 1870). Until that time passengers for the city had to travel to Rotherham Masborough and catch a local train from there to Sheffield.

The rather austere exterior of the 1870 opened Midland Railway station. (Taken from TP Wood’s Almanac for 1900).

The 1870 station was rebuilt in the early 1960s (in stages). This building was itself replaced in 2000 by the present structure. Throughout the various rebuildings the 1870s station platform canopies have been retained albeit altered at some stage – they appear to have less glazing in them than their original configuration. The outer edges of the canopies were re-clad in 2023, to a similar design as that existing.

There were once extensive goods yards and sidings nearby (the site of the present car park), which included a brick built and a wooden built goods shed and stables for horses.

A November 2022 view of the station approach. The rebuilt station is to the left, with North Midland House to the right. Note the similarities of the chimneys and other masonry elements with those in the Russell lithograph – examples of the reclaimed material from the original 1840 railway station. This building is listed grade II.

Chesterfield Market Place Station (closed and demolished)

The Chesterfield Market Place Station of the Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway. Next door, to the left, is the Portland Hotel. The station building was a sad loss when it was demolished in the early 1970s. (Collection P Cousins).

The Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway’s Market Place Station (next to the Portland Hotel) was opened in 1897 and closed to passengers in 1951 (though a sparse goods service continued until spring 1957). After some years as a paint and carpet warehouse it was sadly demolished in 1973.

Though it was planned to, the railway never reached Lancashire nor the East Coast. It was taken over by the Great Central Railway (GCR) in 1907, became part of the London and North Eastern Railway in 1923 (when the railways were grouped into four big companies) and was part of British Railway’s (BR) Eastern Region from nationalisation in 1948.

From here you could catch trains to Lincoln, Mansfield and stations in between (for example Arkwright, Bolsover, etc.), though the service was always sparse.

The line was carried into the Market Place station via major engineering works. Most noteworthy was a viaduct at Horns Bridge, which towered above the area, including the Midland Railway and the Great Central Railway lines, which all crossed in this area. A very small remnant of this brick and iron lattice-work viaduct can been seen today, in the form of a blue-brick pillar backing on to the Midland Railway line at the Horn’s Bridge A61/A617 roundabout.

For more about the probable architect of this station – Cole Adams – see our blog here.

An extensive goods shed and yard was near the station. In the line’s early years, a small steam locomotive engine shed was also situated nearby. The station and goods yard hosted an, at one time, well-remembered centenary death of George Stephenson railway exhibition in 1948. The goods yard, on West Bars, later formed the home of Arnold Laver timber merchants.

The Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway never reached the east coast nor ventured further westwards from Chesterfield, its passenger service was always sparse, though it did tap some useful colliery outlets and it constructed a handsome headquarters in its Market Place station. The line was later connected with the Great Central Railway via a series of junctions at Duckmanton (after the date of this map). These opened in 1907 the same year the GCR purchased the Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway. (Map taken from Pendleton and Jacques ‘Modern Chesterfield’ (1903)).

Chesterfield Central Station (closed and demolished)

The last passenger train (a special) – headed by the ‘Flying Scotsman’ steam locomotive on its way from Sheffield to London Marylebone – 15 June 1963 (it did not revisit the so-called ‘Chesterfield Loop’ on which this station stood, on its way back). The station’s booking (ticket) office was at street level, with stairways down to the platforms. Services were mainly local – to/from Nottingham Victoria and Sheffield Victoria. (The late Chris Hollis, collection P Cousins)

Another demolished station was the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway’s (later GCR) buildings on Infirmary Road. Its site is now covered by the inner relief road – officially known as ‘Great Central Way’ – which opened in 1985.

The station was built as part of a branch off the company’s then new ‘Derbyshire Lines’ Beighton to Annesley extension. Work on making the line into a loop had started while the branch to Chesterfield Central was still being built. This involved construction of a tunnel through Chesterfield, part of which still remains. The original constructing company – the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway – then built a new mainline to London Marylebone. The company changed its name in 1897 to the Great Central Railway, anticipating the opening (in 1899) of this new line. What became the ‘Chesterfield Loop’ departed the mainline just south of Staveley Central Station, re-joining it again near Heath. 

Having opened in 1892, the station passed into LNER hands in 1923, then into BR’s Eastern Region in 1948. It closed in early March 1963.

Like other stations on the Chesterfield Loop, passenger services were mainly local – to/from Nottingham Victoria and Sheffield Victoria. A very limited number of expresses did call at the Chesterfield station at varying periods during its existence.

An extensive brick-built goods shed and sidings were nearby.

The Infirmary Road booking office buildings (with platforms below), after the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway had renamed itself the Great Central Railway in anticipation of opening its new mainline to London. The entrance to the Chesterfield tunnel would have been just behind the photographer to the right. (Taken from TP Wood’s Almanac for 1900)
Chesterfield Midland Station is to the right on this late 1890s map extract – this station still serves the town. The Great Central Railway’s Chesterfield Central Station is to the left. The two parallel dotted lines running from that station are the line of Chesterfield tunnel. Both stations, especially the Midland, once had extensive goods facilities including warehouses. Chesterfield Brewery was latterly the site of Trebor – it is now demolished and the site of the Chesterfield Waterside regeneration scheme. (Derbyshire XXV.6, revised: 1897 to 1898, published: 1898. Courtesy National Library of Scotland).

Sheepbridge and Brimington Station (closed and demolished)

This lovely Edwardian photograph shows the two station platforms, the signal box and footbridge, with presumably the station master and some of his staff and possibly family, posed for the camera. We are looking towards Chesterfield in this view. The booking office is amongst the left-hand set of buildings. (Collection P Cousins).
Sheepbridge and Brimington Station was situated at the bottom of Wheeldon Mill. Its position is shown here in this 1947 Ordnance Survey Map. (SK43/37 – A, publication date: 1947. Courtesy National Library of Scotland).

The next station on the GCR’s Chesterfield Loop towards Staveley was Sheepbridge and Brimington, at the bottom of Wheeldon Mill. Its site is now mainly occupied by a haulage business – though the former station master’s house still survives.

Like that at Chesterfield, stations on this part of the GCR were of wooden construction and were lauded by railway historian Gordon Biddle as being amongst the best of their type.

This station opened in June 1892 and closed in early 1956. The platform buildings on the left in our photograph had survived, albeit minus their canopies, until April 2010, when they were destroyed by fire.

Staveley Works for Barrow Hill Station (closed and demolished)

The two platforms for the station were carried over the canal at the Hollingwood Hub. The brickwork, either side of the lock gate, is a remnant of the bridge abutments on top of which the platforms were carried. Part of the canal was diverted here to enable construction of the railway. The 1892 datestone was originally situated above the entrance to the GCR’s Chesterfield tunnel on Infirmary Road. It’s insertion in the embankment wall is more recent. (P Cousins).

Next towards Staveley on the GCR Chesterfield Loop line was Staveley Works (for Barrow Hill) Station. This was carried over the Chesterfield canal on a bridge, in the area of the present Hollingwood Hub. Some of these embankments and their abutments still survive.

This wooden station building, like Chesterfield Central, also opened in 1892 and closed in early March 1963. 

The 1892 datestone in a nearby wall was originally at the Chesterfield Tunnel entrance portal on Infirmary Road. It was rescued from storage by members of the Chesterfield Canal Trust.

Staveley Central Station (closed and demolished)

Once a busy station – now a road. Where the platforms would have been at Staveley Central, taken from the Lowgates road bridge. (P Cousins).
Staveley Central had typical ‘Derbyshire Lines’ wooden buildings, including those at the Lowgates overbridge and at platform level. (The late Fred Wood, collection P Cousins).

The GCR’s loop joined their mainline just south of Staveley Central Station. Situated at Lowgates this station is now the route of the A6192 Ireland Close.

Here were more wooden buildings, opening in 1892 and closing in early March 1963. Nearby was a large engine shed (closed 1966) and railway workers’ housing.

As the station at Staveley was on the mainline, trains travelled through it (but did not usually call) until 1966 – when services on the mainline were finally withdrawn. Indeed, freight carried on longer as the line was then used by coal trains to/from Arkwright Colliery.

Nearby the station was a once extensive goods yard with goods shed.

Platform remains were still visible at the former Staveley Central Station until the new A6192 Ireland Close highway was constructed from 2007. The Lowgates road overbridge is situated to the extreme left. This was completely rebuilt as part of the road construction works. The railway line had survived here for some time as access to the former Arkwright Colliery. (The late Fred Wood, collection P Cousins).

Staveley Town Station (closed – street level building survives)

Though it was closed in the early 1950s Staveley Town station, on the former Midland Railway, still survives – its roadside booking office converted into a house. (P Cousins).

A little further eastwards from the GCR’s station at Lowgates was the Midland Railway’s Staveley Town station, at Netherthorpe, opened in 1888 and closed in 1951, a road-side building, presumably the booking office, still survives on Fan Road.

The platforms were in a cutting behind and below this building. This was not a mainline station – the route ran to/from Mansfield and Chesterfield Midland station via Clowne.

The two Staveley railway stations taken from 1890s Ordnance Survey maps. Netherthorpe Station on the Midland Railway was renamed Staveley Town in 1900. The GCR’s Staveley Town Station wasn’t renamed Staveley Central until 1950, some two years after British Railways had taken over operations. The houses to the south (bottom of the station (marked ‘Railway’ for ‘Railway Terrace’) were built by the GCR to house its workers. Beyond these was the large engine shed. (Right; Derbyshire Sheet XIX.SW revised: 1897, published: 1899, left Derbyshire Sheet XVIII.SE, revised: 1897, published: 1899. Courtesy National Library of Scotland).

Sheepbridge & Whittington Moor station (closed, street-level buildings survive)

Sheepbridge and Whittington Moor Station buildings still survive at the junction of Station Road and the B6057. (P Cousins).

When the Midland Railway opened their direct line from the still in business Chesterfield railway station to Sheffield in 1870, some local stations were also included. Sheepbridge and Whittington Moor station was just one of these.

The booking office still survives at street level, as does the station master’s house, painted white in this photograph. The station closed in 1967, but was used for engineering works diversions until 1975.

Barrow Hill and Whittington stations (both closed, both demolished)

Shuttles from Chesterfield’s only remaining railway station at the bottom of Corporation Street were run to the surviving platform at Barrow Hill station for some of the railway roundhouse open days in British Rail times. The buildings fronting Station Road had been demolished some years earlier. Here’s a diesel multiple-unit at the station on 5 October 1980, with passengers about to board from the remaining platform, by then devoid of any facilities. (P Cousins).
Whittington Station as shown on this 1899 Ordnance Survey map. The platforms spanned the bridleway which runs from Station Road, Whittington to Bilby Lane at Brimington. (Derbyshire Sheet XVIII.SE, revised: 1897, published: 1899, Courtesy National Library of Scotland).

Until the Midland Railway constructed their direct line to Sheffield the city, as we have previously mentioned, was accessed via a line that went to Rotherham Masborough, opening in 1840 and constructed by the North Midland Railway. In the present Chesterfield borough were two stations situated on this line which both replaced much earlier ones. 

Replacing an earlier structure, Barrow Hill station opened in 1888 and closed in 1954, though was used for trains to the nearby Barrow Hill railway roundhouse open days into the 1980s. This station is part of a bid to reopen the line to passengers. Today there is little in the way of remains, though it is possible to trace the lower part of the booking office wall which was situated nearly opposite the Barrow Hill Memorial Hall. The current Barrow Hill Roundhouse is situated nearby.

Whittington opened in 1873 and closed in 1952, but excursion trains still called until at least 1977. (There was an earlier station at Whittington, which had opened October 1861, closing when the 1873 station opened).

Names and renames and more about openings and closings

Most if not all of the stations we have covered in this blog would have carried another name or names at some stage. If you are interested in this aspect of railway station history or want more details about station opening and closing dates, we’d recommend you have a look at an on-line version of Michael Quick’s Railway Passenger Stations in Great Britain: a Chronology – The Railway & Canal Historical Society (rchs.org.uk).

This post was slightly edited on 21 December 2022, to make it clear that the second Midland station at Chesterfield was built around 200 yards north of the 1840 station. The picture of the 1870s Midland Railway station and a revised picture of Chesterfield Central Railway station (both from TP Wood’s Almanac for 1900) were added on 28 December 2022. A further edit was undertaken on 15 May 2023 adding a link to a post on the architect of the LDECR Market Place station and update the entry on Chesterfield (Midland) station, referring to a canopy refurbishment. On 25 July 2024 a further edit was made to the section on North Midland House confirming that masonry elements from the original 1840 Francis Thompson station were incorporated into that property.

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Shuttlewood school demolished

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In early 2021 we looked at the Shuttlewood schools complex noting that the former senior school of 1907 was to be demolished. It’s perhaps worth noting, then, that this school building has, in fact, been knocked down over the last few weeks.

The 1907 Shuttlewood Schools before demolition. They were used as a senior school.
The site of the now demolished Shuttlewood schools. To the right is the still operational Brockley Primary and Nursery Schools. Picture taken on 8 November 2022, just following completion of demolition.

Situated on Clowne Road (B6418) near to Bolsover the now demolished building was at the northern part of the schools’ site – the southern part is occupied by Brockley Primary and Nursery School, which is still very much open. This southern part of the complex (opened in 1927) is listed grade II – as a good example of the work of ground-breaking Derbyshire Education Committee architect GH Widows.

The now demolished building was not listed and had not been used for teaching since 2007.

You can find out more about the history of the school buildings by following the link here.

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Hasland and Chesterfield books nearly sold out

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Both of our ‘Chesterfield Streets and Houses’ and ‘History of Hasland…’ books are likely to become out of print in the next few weeks. If you are thinking of buying a copy, we’d advise you to do so as soon as possible.

We believe copies are still available at the Chesterfield Visitor Information Centre (near the Parish Church) and at Waterstones in the town. Each book costs £20. At the moment we cannot say whether there will be a reprint.

Our thanks to everyone who has supported our work by purchasing a book. We hope that you have enjoyed it.

Our next publication is likely to be on Wingerworth – hopefully available during the first half of 2023. This will build on a substantial raft of work already undertaken by well-known local historian Dr David Edwards, supplemented by further work in The National Archives and elsewhere.

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Storforth Lane Hasland – from brickworks to industrial estate

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We’ve been looking at industries in the area around Storforth Lane, Hasland parish, in our last few blogs. We end this story with a look at how the modern Storforth Lane Trading Estate came about and its immediate predecessor – a brickworks.

CJ Saunders, taken from his obituary in the Derbyshire Times, 31 October 1925. According to the article ‘He came to Chesterfield in 1879, as engineering manager of the Monkwood Colliery, at Barlow, now extinct, and some years later went into partnership with Mr. Naylor at the colliery and brickworks at Brockwell. On Mr. Naylor’s death he took over the business, and, as the colliery showed signs of being worked out, devoted his energies to the brickworks. Later he opened the works in Storforth Lane, of which he was managing director when he died’.

In 1898 Charles James Saunders (1853–1925), who had a brickworks on Brockwell Lane (in Newbold), adjoining his home at Brockwell House, incorporated his business as C.J. Saunders & Co. Ltd, with capital of £1,4000 in £10 shares.

The new company was to take over the Brockwell Lane works as a going concern and build a brick and tile-works at Storforth Lane. The works stood on the north side of Storforth Lane immediately to the east of the Midland Railway, from which it was served by a siding, whereas the Brockwell Lane works (which closed in 1914) was never rail connected. Part of the site had previously been occupied by the spoil tips and miscellaneous works of Storforth Lane colliery. Clay was got from pits adjoining the works.

Saunders was chairman and managing director; the other directors were P.H. Chandler and John Saunders; and the other subscribers were Reuben Wragg, a slater, Edward Mitchell and his son Arthur Edward, chartered accountants, F.A. Walker, solicitor, and C.W. Rollinson, architect.

The promoters took all the shares and there was no public offer. The shareholders were largely identical with the syndicate which at about the same time developed the ‘Hasland Building Estate’, the grid of streets between Storforth Lane, Hasland Green and Hasland Road, and the works were probably established in part to supply materials for the new houses.

The company was reconstructed in 1921 and in 1931, a few years after Saunders had died, the works were offered for sale, including the kiln and other buildings standing on a 25a. freehold site, the siding and a loading dock, tools, stores, stock in trade, goodwill and all the remaining clay. Portions of the land were let to a variety of tenants, producing a yearly rent of £91, and the worked-out clay pits were being used to tip refuse by Chesterfield corporation. The company appears to have remained in existence for a short time after this sale.

To give an example as to the extent of works the Derbyshire Times of Saturday 31 March 1934 reported that the clay pit on site had a drop of 60 to 70 feet with about 16-20 feet of water in the bottom.

The Derbyshire Times of 28 February 1931 carried this advertisement of the brickwork’s sale.

In its edition of August 25th, 1934 the Derbyshire Times reported that;

‘Storforth Lane Brickworks, Chesterfield, formerly owned by Messrs. C. J. Saunders and Company, Ltd., which had been idle since the death of the founder two or three years ago, is again working full time and producing large quantities of bricks needed in connection with building developments in Chesterfield and district. A new department for manufacturing rustic and other patent bricks is contemplated for the near future. A new company has taken over the concern and is registered as Brickworks, Ltd., with a capital of £12,500 in £1 shares. The managing director is Mr. Edwin Glossop, of Ambergate. The works and kilns have been reorganised under the new management, whose main works are at Ambergate, with a branch at Twentywell – Lane, Dore. The new owners are looking forward to a long period of prosperity and are hoping to eclipse records established during the past thirty years.’

Kelly’s directory of Derbyshire states that Saunders Brickworks Ltd were operating the site in their 1936 edition. The works appears to have remained open until at least 1942, when it was being described as ‘Saunders Brickworks Ltd.’

After the brickworks closed the site was redeveloped by Edwin Marriott as Chesterfield’s first purpose-built trading estate for small businesses. A company ‘Storforth Lane Industries’ was registered in June 1956, presumably to develop and let the trading estate. Builder and contractor Edwin Marriott was the chairman of the board and permanent director, with the other first directors being Florence Bethune Marriott, Richard Edwin De Glossop and Marjorie Anne Glossop. The company was dissolved in January 2010.

Storforth Lane Brickworks shown on this map published in 1954. Note the ‘Old Shaft (Coal)’ which marks the site of the former colliery pit head. (Ordnance Survey, SK36NE – A, surveyed / revised: pre-1930 to 1954, published: 1955. Courtesy National Library of Scotland).
With the demise of local brickworks a whole raft of trades disappeared. This is just one example of a now disappeared occupation – an advertisement for a brickworks burner placed in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph of Tuesday 30 April 1929 at the Storforth Lane Brickworks.

Our previous blogs about this area – to the east and west of the Storforth Lane railway bridge – have been:

Our Hasland book
There’s lost more information about industries in Hasland, which includes the Derby Road area, along with the references to the sources used in this blog, in our Hasland book. Copies are available from the Chesterfield Visitor Centre and Chesterfield branch of Waterstones, priced at £20.

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Storforth Lane colliery, Hasland

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In this blog we take a look at another industrial concern, not far from the former Broad Oaks or Derby Road Ironworks. Here we take a look at Storforth Lane colliery, which occupied most of the present trading estate of that name, although the pit top was a little further eastwards.

Today’s Storforth Lane Trading Estate – once the site of a colliery, then a brickyard. The actual pit-top was situated a little to the east of the estate.

This colliery was the third sunk on the Heathcote estate – on the north side of Storforth Lane to the east of the Midland Railway. When the Heathcote estate was sold in 1874 it was said that this coal had been leased to George Senior for a term of 21 years ending in 1889 and that Senior had assigned the lease to the Industrial Coal & Iron Co. Ltd. The company continued to be listed as owner until 1878, when it was succeeded by a Dr Black.

This 1876 surveyed Ordnance Survey map shows the colliery and its connections to the Midland Railway line. Notice the tramroad which travels in an easterly direction to the pit top. (Derbyshire Sheet XXV.SW, surveyed: 1876, published: 1883. Courtesy National Library of Scotland).
The actual colliery shaft was just off the first map – to the east – as shown on this extract. The tramroad presumably travelled to it and the pithead off-loading facilities. (Ordnance Survey Derbyshire Sheet XXV.SE, Surveyed: 1877, Published: 1883. Courtesy National Library of Scotland)

The Industrial Coal & Iron Co. Ltd, promoted with a nominal capital of £150,000, paid £40,000 for Storforth Lane colliery and another £22,000 to develop it and connect the workings underground with those of the Hasland and Whitebank pits. This enabled coal from all three to be wound at Storforth Lane. This work was complete by June 1875, when the company advertised redundant winding engines from the other two collieries and a long list of other plant for sale. They also took out a new lease of a larger area of coal at Storforth Lane. At the same time, the company owned Woodhouse colliery at Woodhouse Junction on the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway east of Sheffield (in Handsworth Woodhouse, Yorks.), where it also had a brickworks.

The company’s performance, compared with promises in its prospectus, was criticised by a shareholder at a half-yearly general meeting in August 1875. In March the following year the directors stated that, since Woodhouse colliery needed more capital to develop, the company had either to issue further shares or sell Storforth Lane colliery. In November 1876 a Sheffield builder petitioned for the company to be compulsorily wound up, which the directors indicated they would oppose.

In May 1877 the Chancery division ordered the sale by private tender of all plant, machinery and moveable items at both the Woodhouse and Storforth Lane collieries. The latter failed to sell and was put up for auction two months later.

The colliery was taken over in September 1877 by a newly formed Storforth Lane Colliery Co. Ltd, whose secretary in May 1878 absconded with the company’s books and papers. In August that year Dr Black, described as the lessor of the colliery, successfully applied to be appointed receiver. This was after the company had been summoned for not paying wages due to its men. It was stated then that the colliery had closed a month earlier.

In January 1879 the company, in a notice signed by a director named William Thomas Barrett, convened a meeting at which members resolved to wind up voluntarily, but a month later the court ordered the company to be compulsorily wound up.

Black, who may have been the main figure behind the company, seems to have tried to keep the colliery open for a few years. Soon after Black died in 1886 the plant at Storforth Lane was put up for sale. The colliery may have been restarted yet again, since in 1896 a business named the Storforth Lane Colliery & Derby Road Brickworks was advertising the sale of bricks, a steam engine, boiler and other equipment. It was certainly out of use by 1914, when part of the site was occupied by the Storforth Lane brickworks of C.J. Saunders Ltd.

The colliery was clearly denoted as disused on this 1897 revision. (Ordnance Survey Derbyshire XXV.10, revised: 1897, published: 1898. Courtesy National Library of Scotland).
By the 1921 6-inch Ordnance Survey map the former colliery site was now the site of a brickworks (Derbyshire Sheet XXV.SW Revised: 1914, Published: 1921. Courtesy National Library of Scotland).

Other collieries nearby

The Wingerworth Iron Co. operated a colliery at Boythorpe in 1854 and another named White Bank in 1855–7, of which the latter may be identical with what were described as Whitebank collieries Nos. 1 and 2, worked by the Industrial Coal & Iron Co. Ltd, in 1874 but not thereafter. There was a fire at the company’s 12 Whitebank pit in 1873. The colliery lay on the west 13 side of the Midland Railway north of the siding leading to Wingerworth ironworks. It was also called Derby Lane colliery and is recorded under that name in 1883, operated by the Industrial Coal & Iron Co. Ltd.

Our final blog in this series will look at the site’s subsequent use a brickworks, before its adaption into the present industrial estate.

Our Hasland book contains full source references for this blog.

You can 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 and Waterstones in Chesterfield, priced at £20 for 206 pages with illustrations.

Our Hasland book

This post was slightly edited on 31 October 2022 to make it clear that the pit-top, including the single shaft to the colliery, were eastwards from the Storforth Lane Trading Estate.

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AGM reviews successful year

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Our 2022 AGM, held at Matlock’s Imperial Rooms on the 1 October, was able to review a successful year for VCH in Derbyshire.

Our 2022 AGM in progress.

The meeting heard that highlights of the year included the successful launch of our latest spin-off book on Hasland and successful sales of both this publication and the earlier ‘Chesterfield and Streets and Houses’.

Finances were also reported to be in good shape, by our Treasurer Cathrin Wharton. Membership numbers are relatively stable.  

County editor, Philip Riden, commented that our publications strategy was now being concentrated on the spin-off titles, such as the Hasland book, with work actively progressing on Wingerworth and another volume on Temple Normanton and Calow.  He paid tribute to continued support from our members along with work by volunteers. Also highlighted was the contribution to VCH made by David Edwards which had resulted in the Wingerworth volume being substantially complete. Philip also commented that the Hasland book was nearing a sell-out position.

Our publicity officer, Philip Cousins, reported on increased social media activity and the excellent coverage achieved locally for the Hasland book launch.

Chairman Lyn Pardo Roques oversaw the meeting, with Secretary Becky Sheldon providing administration and IT support. This year, unlike 2021, we did not stream the meeting as there was little demand to do this. All existing Trust officers were re-elected.

As has been the case in previous years, the morning saw the AGM of the Derbyshire Record Society, with lunch provided jointly by VCH and the Society.

After the business meeting Award winning buildings archaeologist James Wright gave a well-received talk about ‘Late Mediaeval Great Houses in the East Midlands’. The meeting closed with questions to Dr Wright followed by light refreshments.

  • A minute’s silence was taken at the meeting following news of the death of Miriam Wood, who had been a VCH stalwart since reinauguration of the project in Derbyshire and a committee member. Dr Wood will be well-known for her outstanding contribution to local history in the county.
Dr James Wright gives his well-received talk about ‘Late Mediaeval Great Houses in the East Midlands’ to our 2022 AGM.

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James Wright to speak at our AGM on Saturday 1 October

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Award winning buildings archaeologist James Wright is talking about ‘Late Mediaeval Great Houses in the East Midlands’ to our AGM on Saturday and anyone can turn up and hear what he has to say. This is also a new talk.

Dr James Wright.

Although our AGM starts with a business meeting at 2 pm, by around 2.30 pm we hope that James will be ready to talk to us, with members of the public welcome to attend. The meeting will conclude with light refreshments at 3.30 pm

Held at the Imperial Rooms, Imperial Road, Matlock, DE 4 3NL admission is free and all are welcome to the talk. Members of the public can also attend our AGM, though unless you are a member of the VCH Trust you won’t be able to vote.

Please pop along and hear what Dr Wright, who lives in Nottingham, has to say about ‘Late Mediaeval Great Houses in the East Midlands’.

Download the joint AGM agenda from the link below.

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From Ironworks to concrete – the later history of the Storforth Lane ironworks site

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In our last blog on this site at Storforth Lane we looked at the history of the Wingerworth and Broad Oaks ironworks, with their blast furnaces, on Storforth Lane. In this blog we bring the story up-to-date.

In 1931 Tarmac acquired the site of Broad Oaks blast furnaces, which had closed in 1907, presumably with a view to recovering slag for use as road metal.

After the Second World War the site passed to Henry Boot, a firm of Sheffield building contractors, who in 1956 established Reema-Boot Ltd. They produced prefabricated concrete sections for both domestic and commercial buildings. Locally this included the mission church at Boythorpe erected by SS Augustine (now the St Francis Community Centre).

By this 1938 map the ‘Broad Oaks furnaces’ are clearly marked disused, though the network of internal railways remains, along with their connection to the Midland mainline railway. (Ordnance Survey, Derbyshire Sheet XXV.SW, Revised: 1938. Courtesy National Library of Scotland).
All the remaining buildings had been removed by the date of this map – 1951. There are remnants of the internal railway system still present at this date. Five years later Henry Boot, a firm of Sheffield building contractors, established Reema-Boot Ltd, who produced sectionalised concrete structures from the site. (Ordnance Survey, SK36 (includes: 43/36) – Publication date: 1951. Courtesy National Library of Scotland).

The process was developed by a Wiltshire company, Reed & Mallik (hence Reema) established in 1937. In 1963 it was said that nationally 13,000 Reema houses had been erected, divided between over 400 contracts.

The system involved casting panels the height of a single storey at the works, which could be erected on a prepared foundation with minimal use of skilled labour. The panels slotted into a reinforced concrete frame which tied the building together and ensured that joints between panels were watertight. This method could be used for buildings of up to four storeys, in which load was borne by the frame. For taller buildings the hollow wall panels were filled to provide load-bearing cross-walls. The external wall panels were cast with cavities containing half-inch thick fibreboard insulation. The floor panels were generally hollow. A final external finish to the wall panels was applied at the factory, using various materials, of which gravel proved to amongst the cheapest and most successful. In 1963 it was reported that Reema had been using a range of self-cleaning finishes in glass and china, and some experimental panels had been faced with crushed whisky bottles.

The Storforth Lane factory then had 140 workers, of whom only six were skilled – the joiners who made the wooden moulds for the panels. The factory was using a thousand different moulds, a number which the company pointed out could be reduced to 50 if local authorities would agree on standard designs for houses.

At Brimington, near Chesterfield, the Coal Industry Housing Association built an estate which used (though not exclusively) Reema houses. Originally the houses were painted white, leading to the nickname ‘White City’. To the right the light blue painted building is now one of a few that have not been pebble-dashed. Closer examination, not possible here, would reveal its system built concrete panels.
The Reema construction method was used in other buildings, such as churches, halls, etc. This is St Francis Community Centre at Boythorpe, one such example.

A contract for 2,000 houses for the Coal Industry Housing Association had been produced using only 34 moulds and two types of house. Other differences included the finish required for floors, including timber, thermoplastic, composition, granite or terrazo. Local authorities in the south preferred metal window frames, those in the north timber. In some case heating was ducted, in others embedded.

The company estimated that a factory capable of producing 500 houses a year could be built for £150,000. It had by 1963 built (or had under construction) 2,780 houses at Leeds (Yorks. WR) and between October 1959 and March 1962 had erected 1,810 dwellings.

By this 1960s map the site (centre) was well developed with buildings in use for construction of Reema structures by Reema (Chesterfield) Ltd. All remnants of the internal railway system and its links with the mainline have disappeared. (Ordnance Survey, SK36NE – A. Surveyed/Revised: 1960 to 1967, Published: 1967. Courtesy National Library of Scotland).

The company was renamed Reema (Chesterfield) Ltd in 1959, in 1975 it became Storforth Contractors Ltd, and in 1976 was dissolved.

After the works went out of use the main ironworks site south of Storforth Lane was redeveloped as an industrial estate, as it still is today.

Storforth Lane, September 2022. The railway bridge, still in use over the former Midland mainline, is to the right. The entrance to the ready-mixed concrete company is to the left. This is the site of the former transfer railway sidings for the ironworks. Reference to some of the maps in this blog will show that a railway once crossed the road in this vicinity.

A small area north of Storforth Lane immediately west of the Midland Railway bridge, originally occupied by transfer sidings for the ironworks, continues to be used by a ready-mixed concrete company.

Storforth lane, looking east. The industrial buildings and estates on the right are on the former ironwork’s site.

Our Hasland book contains full source references for this blog.

You can 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 and Waterstones in Chesterfield, priced at £20 for 206 pages with illustrations.

Our Hasland book

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The Broad Oaks and Wingerworth ironworks

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In this blog we’ll take a look at the so-called Wingerworth ironworks, later known as the Broad Oaks ironworks. Both names are a bit confusing. The name Broad Oaks was for many years associated with Markham works in Spital, but the ironworks weren’t there. Nor were they at Wingerworth. The works were actually at Storforth Lane, in Hasland Parish.

Two of the three blast furnaces at the Storforth Lane works (with the third to the extreme right).To gain some idea of their size a man to the bottom is circled. From a postcard taken around 1906. (Courtesy collection Philip Cousins)

In 1848 James Yates (1798–1881), a Rotherham ironfounder, took a lease for 20 years from Michaelmas 1846 of the ironstone under much of the Hunloke estate in Wingerworth and adjoining parishes, a smaller acreage of coal beneath the estate west of the Midland Railway, and two pieces of land at Tupton and Birdholme, on each of which he proposed to erect blast furnaces.

The rights of the Wingerworth Coal Co. and Clay Cross Co. under earlier leases were protected and Yates was to use the coal he mined on the estate only for smelting ironstone. Yates did not proceed with the scheme for furnaces at Tupton, possibly because the Clay Cross Co. built an ironworks not far away at about the same date. But by 1847 Yates had erected three furnaces on the west side of the Midland line immediately south of Storforth Lane.

Coal and ironstone were brought from pits on the Hunloke estate in Wingerworth on a standard gauge tramway which passed beneath Birdholme Bridge and in front of Birdholme House before running through the works to a junction with the main line. The business was known as the Wingerworth Iron Co. from the mid-1850s.

Yates was joined in partnership at the Wingerworth business by Thomas Carrington (1813–73), originally from Stockport, the brother of Betsey Carrington (1806–78), Yates’s second wife, whom he married in 1843. In 1851 Thomas, then aged 38, was living at the house on St Mary’s Gate, in Chesterfield, near the top of Tapton Lane which previously been the home of the Malkin family, with his wife Elizabeth, aged 29, who had been born in Australia, and their three sons, Thomas (9),Charles (7) and Arthur (5), all born in Stockport, and a daughter Harriet, aged one, born in Chesterfield. The chronology implies that the family moved from Cheshire between 1846 and 1850.

In 1861, by which time the family had moved to Holywell House on Holywell Street, Carrington was employing about 600 men in his ironworks and collieries, and gave a figure of 400 ten years later. In 1869 he and Yates renewed their lease of ironstone beneath the Hunloke estate west of the railway and the land on which the ironworks was built for a further 21 years.

The first 6-inch to one mile Ordnance Survey map clearly shows the ‘Wingerworth Works (Iron)’ with the presumably ever-growing blast furnace slag tip. Derby Road runs top to bottom to the left on this map extract, with Storforth Lane running centre, left to right, under the then Midland Railway mainline from Chesterfield. Note the connection with the Midland Railway. The tramway, exiting the map to bottom centre, is on its way southwards to Speighthill Colliery (near the Chesterfield end of Long Edge Lane) and another then disused colliery to the west of Birdholme House. (Derbyshire Sheet XXV.SW, Surveyed: 1876, Published: 1883. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland).

Carrington, a Congregationalist, was elected a member of the Iron & Steel Institute in 1870 and the following year was elected the first chairman of Chesterfield school board, an office he retained until he died in 1873. His effects were initially sworn at under £70,000 and later resworn at under £60,000. He was described in the probate grant as an ‘Ironmaster and Hat Manufacturer’. One of his executors was his brother Samuel Ratcliffe Carrington, a hatmaker of Stockport, suggesting that Thomas had kept an interest in a family business. James Yates (who remained resident at Rotherham) was also an executor.

Thomas’s son Arthur Carrington (c.1846–1924) became a member of the Iron & Steel Institute in 1872 and seems to have been the only acting partner in the Wingerworth Co. after Thomas’s death. He was employing 80 men at the furnaces in 1881. From about 1884 Thomas Blair, who had previously worked as a furnace manager at John Brown’s Atlas Works in Sheffield, was the manager at the Wingerworth business.

By this map revision of 1897 the works were known as Broad Oaks. In that year C.P. Markham took a lease of the works, initially through his Chesterfield engineering business, Markham & Co. Derbyshire Sheet XXV.SW, Revised: 1897, Published: 1899. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland).

In 1886 Blair gave a paper on silica and other deposits he had found in an old furnace bear at Wingerworth to the Iron & Steel Institute, of which he was elected a member in 1875. Blair supplied analyses of Northamptonshire ore to C.H. Plevins in 1887, when Plevins was considering erecting steel works on his estate at Woodford (Northants.), and may have been seen as a potential manager of the new enterprise.

After the ironstone at Wingerworth became exhausted in the 1870s (and the tramway from the works partly lifted), the company drew supplies from a mine near Burghley (Rutland). In the previous decade the company had joined other companies in a consortium known as the Midland Counties Iron Ore Co. which made unsuccessful attempts to develop the Jurassic iron ore of Northamptonshire.

The three furnaces at Wingerworth were rebuilt in 1872 and thereafter each had a capacity of 16,000 tons a year. At least two, and in some years all three, were in blast until 1886, when the works shut down for two years. The furnaces were back in use between 1889 and 1893 but then closed again. In February 1887 cash was collected at Derby Road Iron Church and used to provide tickets which were given to married men with families laid off from the works who could use them to buy goods from local tradesmen.

The works had closed in 1907 and were disused, but were to have further use, though not for iron production, as we will see in a later blog. (Derbyshire sheet Derbyshire Sheet XXV Revised: 1914, Published: 1921. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland).

In 1897 C.P. Markham took a lease of the works, initially through his Chesterfield engineering business, Markham & Co., although they appear afterwards to have been transferred to the Staveley Coal & Iron Co. Markham, who later purchased the freehold of the site, put the furnaces back into blast, giving work to about 150 men, and also built a new pipe foundry, which employed a similar number. The furnaces were then said to have a capacity of 350 tons a week each.  After Markham took over the site it was known as Broad Oaks Furnaces, presumably because it operated in connection with Markham & Co.’s Broad Oaks Ironworks, Chesterfield.

Broad Oaks Furnaces closed in 1907. The site remained derelict for some years before it was acquired in 1931 by Tarmac, and was later used by a company manufacturing prefabricated concrete buildings. The manufacturing of iron for the Staveley Coal and Iron Company was transferred to the new Devonshire Works at Staveley, which were constructed to replace Broad Oaks iron works and significantly improve production and by-product capture, refining and sale.

We’ll be tracing the further use of the ironworks site in a future post.

The 1897 25-inch map carries even greater detail of the works, in the year that CP Markham purchased them. The three circular structures are the actual blast furnaces. The works here would have had coke ovens and at one-time, as highlighted in the text, also had a pipe foundry – presumably those buildings to the far left of the site. (Derbyshire sheet XXV.10 Revised: 1897, Published: 1898. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland).
Our Hasland book
There’s lost more information about industries in Hasland, which includes the Derby Road area, along with the references to the sources used in this blog, in our Hasland book, recently published.

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