Spotting this newspaper clipping from the Derbyshire Courier – Saturday 02 May 1840 on the Ashover History and Genealogy Facebook page prompted the obvious question: why were the Poor Law Commissioners ordering such sales to be made? A quick email to our Editor, Philip Riden, generated this explanation:-
“It’s probably to raise cash towards their share of building Chesterfield union workhouse. Ashover was put into Chesterfield union after 1834 and each township in the union had to find a share of the cost of the workhouse. If a township owned some property for the benefit of the poor, typically either a parish workhouse or cottages in which they used to house the poor, or from which they took rent to pay to the poor, which would not be needed for any of those purposes after the union workhouse was opened, the township was expected to sell the property. The proceeds would be credited to the township’s capital account with the union, thus reducing the amount they had to raise in rates to pay each year on capital account towards the cost of the workhouse.”
“Ashover had a union workhouse built under the 1785 Act (which provided for voluntary unions of parishes). I assume that was transferred to Chesterfield union after 1834 and sold by the Chesterfield guardians. This sale does not look to me like the old Gilbert Act workhouse at Ashover, and I would guess the cottages had ended up in the hands of the wardens and overseer and the rent was being used to reduce the poor rate for the parish. So they would have to be sold under the 1834 Act.”
Somewhat unfortunate for the tenants who would presumably have found themselves homeless after the sale and looking for somewhere else to live.
A quick thanks to our followers. We’ve only been going since January on this website, but we hope you’re finding our content and posts useful and interesting.
Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and that we also have a Twitter account.
We use Facebook for shorter news and items of interest. You’ll find the vast majority of our blogs on there too. On our Twitter account you’ll find feeds we share and create about general news in the world of VCH and local history.
Our latest Tweet and Facebook post has, for example, been about an important auction sale of the contents of Weston Hall, Northamptonshire. Until recently this was one of the homes of the Sitwell family, who are, of course, closely associated with Renishaw Hall, Derbyshire.
Last week we took a look at jam and preserve production in Bolsover – this week it’s Chesterfield’s turn, with the Midland Fruit Preserving Co., Avenue Road, off Sheffield Road.*
Extract from the 1919 Ordnance Survey large scale map of the area with the The Midland Fruit Preserving Co. premises marked.
Brief history
The business was established in 1893 by Ernest Shentall, Mr A and Mr J Shentall (all members of the same family with connections into the grocery business).
The Derbyshire Times carried a thorough piece on the concern in its ‘Derbyshire Industries’ series in on 5 March 1932. By this time there were between 200 to 300 employees – mainly women. Presumably, like Bolsover, the variation is due to seasonal activities.
Very few, if any, photographs of the preserves factory have survived. This rather poor quality one of ‘some of the boilers on the left, Seville oranges being prepared for marmalade making’ is one of three that appeared in the Derbyshire Times article on the company in March 1932.
Motor transport was exclusively used at this time. Strawberries came mainly from the ‘eastern counties, Wisbech and district,’ supplemented by some grown locally. The fruit was delivered overnight and by mid-day the 20 or so tons used in a day had already become jam! Between 50 and 100 tons of the stuff were produced in a week.
Marmalade was another staple, along with black and red currant jams. ‘Thousands of jars of pickled onions’ were also produced accompanied by other pickles and sauces. Like the Bolsover concern (which was a completely separate company) winter saw the production of mincemeat. Christmas pudding was yet another product made.
Another 1932 Derbyshire Times image. The process is nearly finished as women fill the actual jam jars.
This ‘very self-contained’ firm kept a ‘large maintenance staff’ and delivered goods ‘by roads to towns at least 100 miles from Chesterfield’. Their premises were said by the Derbyshire Times to cover eight to ten acres. There was even ‘a fine canteen’ complete with stage.
Closure comes
But by the early 1960s the company was in trouble, ceasing production in June 1962, as the liquidators moved in. A sale of the plant and equipment was held on 17 and 18 October 1962. The 750 lots included fruit preserving plant, 15 motor cars and 11 lorries. A couple of days previously the factory premises had been auctioned – the total site area was just over 4 ½ acres. It was sold to Henry Wigfall & Co. who paid £30,000 for it. They intended to use the premises for warehousing. It was later occupied by Waldo, a suite manufacturing company. The premises were demolished a few years ago and are now the site of housing.
An early company advertisement from the Derbyshire Times of 12 September 1894.
So, another relatively short-lived jam and preserves factory closed. No doubt influenced, like that at Bolsover, by the change in diet which saw less jam consumed and the dominance of national brands with big advertising budgets and nationwide distribution.
*Although many people local to the area would regard this as being Whittington Moor, in fact the boundary between Newbold and Whittington parishes runs down the middle of Sheffield Road. The Midland Fruit Preserving Company premises were therefore in Newbold parish. Though we haven’t yet prepared our draft text on Newbold’s economic history, the story of this company will be told in that section under Newbold parish.
We’d love to see any photographs of either the jam factory or its subsequent use as a furniture and upholstery manufacturers.
Back to Bolsover for our latest blog, which features, what might now be regarded as an unusual activity for the area – jam and preserves production.
Jam jar label
The Bolsover Home Grown Fruit Preserving Company was established in 1900. The chairman was JP Houfton of the Bolsover Colliery Company. Other directors included members of the Tinsley family, one of whom, farmed 200 acres of fruit locally.
Percy Houfton designed a factory for the company. Opening in 1902 this was situated on a 2 ½ acre site next to the Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railweay (LD&ECR ) station at Carr Vale. Apparently one reason the business was established was to absorb some of the surplus female labour in the district – then a mining community. Coal for the factory was mined at the Bolsover Colliery Company with jars from factories in Chesterfield and Worksop.
The jam and preserves factory location is identified on this 1920 Ordnance Survey map extract.
Farmed strawberries from local suppliers were particularly used in the early years, but Wisbech (in Cambridgeshire) and the Fens also provided other fruit shipped by rail. Along with jam, the factory bottled fresh fruit such as blackcurrant and bilberries. Mincemeat was a winter product.
Exterior of the jam and preserves factory building – now housing.
In the early 1920s the company considered moving into fruit canning. Despite an extension to the factory and installation of some plant, this was fairly quickly abandoned due to a slump in the fruit preserving industry nationally. The company did, however, prosper during the Second World War.
After the war road transport was used to bring in plums and apples from the Vale of Evesham and raspberries from Carse of Gowrie. Oranges and lemons were imported via Liverpool. Despite earlier issues, canning fresh fruit increased in importance, along with canning peas. A regular workforce of around a few dozen were supplemented by several hundred seasonal workers during the late summer. Products seem to have been mainly sold locally.
The late 1950s saw the company facing competition from national brands, changing diets (the consumption of jam reduced), storage issues and lack of capital to mechanise. In 1959 the company ceased production. A year later Bolsover Urban District Council purchased the factory site and part of the old LD&ECR goods yard. For a period Sheffield cutlery manufacturers Walker & Hall used the premises.
Inside the jam and preserves factory.
The factory was later occupied by a Mercol Lubricants but this closed in the early years of the 2000s, was demolished and is now a housing estate.
There were other local fruit preserving businesses including one at Whittington Moor, Chesterfield.
Our thanks to Bernard Haigh and the Bolsover Civic Society for assistance with this blog. If you’ve any images (or labels) of the fruit preserving concern they would love to hear from you. Contact their secretary – [email protected].
Information for this blog has been sourced from ‘Derbyshire VCH volume III – Bolsover and adjoining parishes’, ‘Now and then Bolsover’ by Bernard Haigh and Geoff Harris and Bernard Haigh’s ‘More Bolsover remembered’ books. Images are sourced from Bolsover Civic Society and Bernard Haigh.
Were taking a brief look at the important Norman church at Steetley, courtesy of our Derbyshire VCH volume III – ‘Bolsover and adjoining parishes’. It’s well worth seeking out this attractive building.
Clearly in a ruinous state, this engraving of Steetley church appeared in the Lyson brother’s ‘Magna Britannia’, volume V of 1817.
Steetley church on12 October 2021. Note the heavily restored porchand the window mainly inserted in the14th century (but restored in the 1880 restoration), which replaced two smaller Norman lights.
Our illustrations here are taken from Lysons’ 1817 Magna Britannia (volume V). These were based on measured drawings.
The chapel, in the north east of Whitwell parish, was built by the Brito family, who held a free tenement there in the 12th and 13th centuries. They also probably had a manor house situated adjacent to the chapel building. In 1323 the estate included a 1-acre plot on which a capital message had once stood.
A priest’s house was noted in about 1200. It is clear that Steetley is the unnamed chapel of Whitwell noted in 1291.
The chapel probably went out of use sometime before 1531. It was in use as a barn in 1636 and into the early 19th century. By the time the Lysons brothers wrote about it in 1817 the nave was roofless.
But antiquarian interest was increasing. The apsidal east end was restored in around 1840 for the earl of Surrey. Worksop based Robert White published a set of measured drawings and a photographic survey in 1860. In 1873 the British Archaeological Association visited. They made recommendations to roof the nave and further preserve the building. In 1875 a service had been held in the still ruinous chapel, but rebuilding was being discussed.
Another plate from Lysons’ 1817 book. The apsidal chancel can be seen. In his 1953 book ‘The buildings of England, Derbyshire’, architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner described the building as ‘by far the richest example of Norman architecture in Derbyshire’.
A similar view to the 1817 plate above, this, though, is taken on 12 October 2021.
Five years later a restoration scheme was carried out by JL Pearson. Re-consecrated by the Bishop of Lichfield, it was said that the chapel had been ‘restored for the use of colliers’ (presumably those working at Steetley colliery). As any previous dedications were unknown it was dedicated to All Saints. From this date (1880) the building was used regularly for worship. It is still open for worship today, with accommodation for 60.
A further scheme of restoration was carried out in 1986-9.
An Anglo-Norman grave slab is present in the church.
You can find out much more in our VCH Volume III including a manorial history of both Steetley and Whitwell.
One of two interior photographs that appeared in JC Cox’s ‘Notes on the churches of Derbyshire, volume I, Scarsdale Hundred’ of 1875. This view is looking towards the apsidal chancel, which is at the far end . This part of the building is clearly roofless at this date.
The south doorway to the nave was heavily restored in 1880, with five orders instead of the former three.
Detail from the south doorway. As might be expected the exterior stone-work has suffered from erosion.
We are taking a brief look at Chesterfield Grammar School in this blog. With the school closing in 1991, quite a few people might not realise that Chesterfield actually did have such a school.
Surprisingly few photographs of the old Chesterfield Grammar School, on Sheffield Road, appear in the public domain – at least those of the actual school, as opposed to pupil and teacher school year photographs. Our first illustration is taken from Ford’s 1839 ‘History of Chesterfield’. It shows the second school building on Sheffield Road.
The second grammar school building on Sheffield Road, from Ford’s 1839 ‘History of Chesterfield’.
The grammar school was endowed by Godfrey Foljambe of Walton Hall, who died in 1595. The school probably opened in 1598, when it took over the former St Helen’s chapel. In 1710 the medieval chapel was superseded with a two-storey building, shown in our first illustration, which is taken from Ford’s 1839 ‘History of Chesterfield’. Highly regarded in the early eighteenth century, after some years of decline the school closed in 1832.
The new school opened in 1847.
Our second illustration shows the new building constructed, again, near the site of St Helen’s chapel. This new grammar school (boys only and fee paying) opened in 1847. The Rev. Frederick Calder, as headmaster, started a process of expansion and modernisation. This building now forms part of Chesterfield College’s West Studios, which our modern (and third) illustration shows. Part of the 1840s building can be seen, together with a major extension built in 1899 (to the far right). Contrast this with our fourth photograph, which shows the building in an Edwardian colourised postcard.
Chesterfield College’s ‘West Studios’ – the former Chesterfield Grammar School buildings, in 2017.
The main building of the grammar school on Sheffield Road, probabaly in about 1910. The building shown in our second illustration (the 1840s building) is to the far left. (Courtesy Richard Sheppard).
In 1903 the grammar school was recognised as a secondary school. It remained independent until 1940, when it was transferred to Derbyshire County Council.
There were various other extensions to the Sheffield Road site, including the purchase of nearby Hurst House, for use by the sixth form, but the school buildings became increasingly inadequate. A decision was made to relocate to Brookside, where the school’s governors had purchased land for playing fields in 1928. Fully opening in 1967, it’s these buildings that form the basis of the present co-educational Brookfield Community School.
The education ministry’s architect was concerned that this replacement building was itself inadequate in some ways. He was particularly concerned that the kitchen wasn’t large enough, the dining room was ‘critically small’ and that additional windows were needed in the assembly hall to meet Ministry regulations. Nor did he like the combination of steel and pre-cast concrete, or the mixture of brick and small block cladding. The building’s architects were the once well-known Chesterfield practice of Wilcockson & Cutts.
Our final photographs are two taken from a series of postcards of the Sheffield Road site published around 1928, but probably taken earlier. They both show the rear of the building
The school buildings from the south-east.
The school buildings from the north-east. This and the view above are from a set of postcards published in the late 1920s.
The end of, what by that time was called Chesterfield School, came in 1991 following a reorganisation of the town’s secondary schools.
There’s much more about the grammar school and Chesterfield education in general in our VCH county editor’s book ‘A History of Chesterfield Grammar School’. This 700-page book was commissioned by the Old Cestrefeldian Trust, from whom it is available. You can also find out more of the history of the school and a link to purchase the book at http://oldcestrefeldians.org.uk/History.html.
The Old Cestrefeldian Trust is publishing Chesterfield Grammar School Roll of Honour 1939-1945, a 96-page paperback containing short biographies of some 70 former pupils who died while serving in the Armed Forces during the Second World War. More details of this new title will be available nearer the time.
(Our thanks to the Old Cestrefeldians’ Trust for permission reproduce illustrations from their collection and use information from Philip Riden’s book, ‘A History of Chesterfield Grammar School’)
North Derbyshire and peak district local bus operator Hulleys of Baslow are celebrating their centenary this year. In this blog we take a look at this operator, whose buses have been a familiar sight in the area for 100 years. VCH covers local bus operators in our red book series (but not the actual fleets in any great detail), as they played an important role in the economy of the area they served and in some cases still do.
Recreation of the old Hulley’s fleet name.
Henry Hulley, who had previously operated taxis, started to run a bus service between Bakewell and Chesterfield in April 1921.
In the following decades routes and journeys increased, with a couple of local operators being purchased before the Second World War. After, there was a fairly brief incursion into the Ashbourne area, courtesy of another business purchase, but these operations were sold in 1954.
Following Henry Hulley’s death in 1971, the remaining family members sold the business in 1978 to JH Wooliscroft & Son, of Darley Dale, who traded as ‘Silver Service’.
A perhaps timeless view of Bakewell in August 1980. The bus on the right is in a red and honey livery adopted by Silver Service after they took over the Hulley operations. It was soon superseded by a blue and honey ‘Silver Service’ livery. The bus is one of a batch of ex Merseyside Leyland Panthers which gave generally unsatisfactory operation with the company.
The familiar red and cream Hulley fleet livery and indeed the name disappeared under the Wooliscroft ownership. But the name reappeared again after the former Hulley’s Baslow garage and routes were sold to the Silver Service Transport Manager Arthur Cotterhill and Peter Eades who was a long-serving ex Hulley employee. The fleet was reinvigorated with a new blue and cream livery adopted.
In 2020 the business was purchased by Alf Crofts, who had been a Hulleys driver for 16 years.
The company held a centenary event at Chatsworth on 26 September where modern buses in recreated old and in current liveries were displayed.
Recreation of two former liveries as displayed at the centenary event held at Chatsworth in September 2021. The left-hand bus is said to recreate the first livery, whilst the right hand bus recreates the Silver Service livery.
At one time Hulleys did have reputation for using quite old vehicles and had some fleet problems. Today the company operates modern buses and once again double-deckers.
There’s lots more information on the history of the company on their website http://www.hulleys-of-baslow.co.uk/hulleys-100-centenary from which some of the information in this post is sourced. A two-part history of Hulleys has recently appeared in the Newsletter of Transpire, the Chesterfield Bus Society.
A 2009 built bus, at the Chatsworth event, which entered the Hulley’s fleet in 2020. This is in the current livery with the company names styled as ‘Hulleys’ It’s a far-cry from this ex-Nottingham bus, seen at Tontine Road, Chesterfield in December 1980. The company, then under Wooliscroft ownership barely seem to have had time to apply a splash of Hulley red – the green and cream being its former owner’s colours!
DD/FJ/9/1/1 – part of the Foljambe deposit at Nottinghamshire Archives – may not sound very exciting, but some of its contents are helping to fill in gaps in our understanding of the Chesterfield area under that formerly influential family.
The Foljambe Chapel and tombs in Chesterfield Parish Church around 1907 when this photograph was published in JC Cox’s ‘Memorials of old Derbyshire’. Since this date the railings have been removed and the chapel somewhat rearranged.
The Foljambe arms as published in Lysons’ ‘Magna Britannia’ (1817).
Our pictures here show some of the Foljambe tombs in Chesterfield Parish Church along with the family’s arms. The tomb’s grand design and execution show that this was a family of importance in the district up until the early 1600s – perhaps the most influential – with land in Chesterfield and across Derbyshire.
In 1704 Yorkshire antiquary, Dr Nathaniel Johnson compiled a manuscript genealogical history. This chronicled principal Foljambe family members, from the 13th century onwards. It was never fully published, but some copies of the work survive. Now our VCH County Editor and General Editor of the Derbyshire Record Society (DRS), Philip Riden, is working on a new edition of Johnson’s work. Hopefully the DRS will be publishing this in its record series.
As part of this and work for VCH generally Philip is also examining some of the contents of the Foljambe deposit at Nottinghamshire Archives. He’s mainly working on a rent roll of what we believe is for the Henry Foljambe (of Walton) estates in about 1500. It lists purchased lands, not what he inherited, showing what he added to the estate, but not his income. It covers, in particular, property in Chesterfield town centre and surrounding townships.
Although the rental may be incomplete and is in a mixture of English and Latin (warranting careful transcription) it is extending our knowledge of the area. For example, land at Dry Hurst in Tapton is mentioned (this is now the site of the nursery to the front of Chesterfield Royal Hospital). Land in Chesterfield town centre also features. For local historians some familiar names appear such as Thomas Durant and the Heathcote family.
Tapton place names mentioned include ‘Dobyn Clozh Syk’ (presumably Dobbin Clough, near to Tapton Golf Course) and there’s a reference to ‘Colpyttes butts on the Deyn land …’ in Tapton, which is the earliest reference to coalmining in the township.
There’s well-over 100 entries, mainly relating to property in Chesterfield town centre. A typical entry being; ‘Of Robert Flynt tenant of one burgage at the south end of Bocher Rowe between the said Bocher Rowe and Mercer Rowe bought of William Calall’ This is referring to rows in the Shambles.
In the Chesterfield area, following the death of Godfrey Foljambe in the 1590s, the family entered a period of decline.
You can find out more about the Foljambe of Osberton deposit at Nottinghamshire Archives (and the family) here.
Foljambe tombs as first illustrated in Ford’s 1839 ‘History of Chesterfield’.
Our blog of 14 August covered our use of His/Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Schools (HMI) reports and school log-books in our VCH red books. We used Barlborough school’s 19th and early 20th century brush with the inspectors as an example. But problems weren’t only confined to Barlborough!
When the local education authority took over Bolsover schools in 1903 there was dire overcrowding. This included Shuttlewood, where a temporary timber framed, corrugated iron-clad building was opened in 1905 for older children. It was condemned as ‘an awful affair’ by the HMI. To make matters worse the first headmaster was unable to control the children, who were regarded by HMI as backward and unruly. Only two years after opening the school was declared inefficient.
Despite extensions to the temporary building a permanent structure wasn’t opened until 1927. This building was designed by George Henry Widdows. It’s listed grade II and is now occupied by Brockley Primary School. The buildings illustrated here predate the Widdows school, but are next to it. They are empty and scheduled for demolition.
Part of the Shuttlewood schools complex on Clowne Road. This block is scheduled for demolition, having been empty for some years and surplus to requirements. The present Brockley Primary School is out of picture, to the right.
The first headmaster of the new schools (Henry Thomlinson) instituted such things as formal assembly and dinner, sports days and visits. As our volume III states he ‘sought to make the school a place of beauty’.
At this time Shuttlewood was very much a coal mining community. Thomlinson, recognising his pupils’ academic limitations, concentrated on handicraft, art and music, teaching ‘the children to speak the truth and be kind to animals’.
The HMI were somewhat sympathetic to Thomlinson’s aims, but raised some reservations. These included that some of the slower children (and some of the staff) couldn’t keep up with his ideals.
There’s more about the history of education in the Bolsover area and Shuttlewood schools in our Volume III. Our blog of 10 January charted a brief history of the school buildings.
The various HMI school reports shed a light not only on conditions in schools, teaching and the like, but also standards of discipline and social issues. They perhaps alter the sometimes held traditional view that schools used to teach the ‘three Rs’ in a haven of discipline and compliance.
In this post we take a very brief look at Chesterfield’s markets.
Changing retail – 1. The Market Place (originally part of the New Market first laid out in the 1190s) pictured on the last day of fish stalls on the open stalls. These businesses transferred to covered accommodation in the re-vamped Market Hall. Stall illumination is provided by tungsten lamps. Boots were yet to move to their new Low Pavement premises, which incorporated the former Greave’s chemist premises. An autumn 1980 view. (Philip Cousins).
The first reference to a market in Chesterfield is in 1165 and the present market place (known throughout the Middle Ages as the New Market) had been built by 1199. This is before the burgesses (inhabitants of the borough with full rights of citizenship) were granted the right in 1204 to hold a Saturday market and an eight-day annual fair.
This area of the churchyard would once have been home to part of the original market in Chesterfield.
The old market place, was situated the north side of the parish church. This became known as the Weekday Market, presumably because a small number of traders stood there on days other than Saturdays. The chartered Saturday market was held in the present Market Place. The old market place had been built over the by the 15th century and may have gone out of use before then.
Construction of the New Market of the 1190s, by the Crown Officials who had charge of the Manor of Chesterfield, was undoubtedly a bold move. The existing market next to the parish church must have become constrained due to its position – being unable to be extended.
Changing retail – 2. Low Pavement under redevelopment for ‘The Pavements’ shopping centre in June 1980. The former well-known Greave’s chemist shop was situated in the corner white-painted building. Only the frontages of the original buildings remained after the redevelopment, which comprised a modern shopping complex behind the facades. (Philip Cousins).
The New Market had three components: the open market place (basically the current market area), the lines of shops and houses along its northern and southern sides, and the block of shambles at its eastern end. The shambles were constructed for butchers, fishmongers and possibly other traders who would have stood in the market every day, not merely on Saturdays. The map extract from Potter’s 1803 plan of the town shows some of the layout of the market place area (note though, that not all properties are shown).
The Market Hall, originally built by a private company, dates from 1857. It replaced earlier buildings on the same site. These also provided covered accommodation for some traders and rooms for public meetings. The Market Hall was refurbished in the late 1970s, and again more recently.
Changing retail – 3. Another June 1980 view, this time showing The Shambles under refurbishment. By this time the area had become quite run-down. This photograph would have been taken on a Sunday – before shops were allowed to open in 1994. Note the dog outside ‘Ye Royal Oak’ and the Bass Charrington ‘toby jug’ light above the entrance. (Philip Cousins).
An extract from Peter Potter’s 1803 map of Chesterfield. Not all properties are shown. Note the buildings on the site of the present Market Hall.
Although other fairs were established in Chesterfield after 1204, alongside the main September fair, no additional markets were chartered. The practice of holding markets on Friday and Monday, as well as Saturday, appears to date only from the early 20th century. The practice of erecting stalls other than in the Market Place is much more recent.
In 1900 the livestock market, which had been held in the Market Place, was transferred to a new purposely laid out ste off Markham Road.
One important lesson that can be reached from the market’s long history is that retailing (including markets) evolves continuously and must alter, as it has in the past, to meet changing consumer demand.
You can find out lots more about the growth of Chesterfield town centre and the history of the town’s markets in our ‘Chesterfield Streets and Houses book’.
