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This June 1985 view of Chesterfield taken from the parish church tower shows a familiar, if changed, view. But it’s not the by-pass under construction snaking away to the top left, the now demolished Trebor (once the Chesterfield Brewery Company) premises (left of centre) or the soon to be demolished Chesterfield Hotel just behind the tower to the Stephenson Memorial Hall (right), that we are discussing in this post, but a rather more elusive building ‘The Pump House’. 

As the map extract from our Chesterfield Streets and Houses book shows, this mysterious property sat in the area to the right of Tapton Lane – which can be seen travelling down out of town, to the bottom centre of the photograph. 

The house appears to have been built by a Marmaduke Carver (d. 1756).  It’s not shown on William Senior’s 1633 survey of Chesterfield. Joseph Hunter mentions this house by name in his book Familiae Minorium Gentium (‘Families of the Lesser Gentry’). This may be the only place the name appears! 

Marmaduke Carver married Ann Milward. One of their offspring – another Marmaduke – was town clerk of Chesterfield from 1711 to 1745. The house and its estate were then owned by other members of the Carver family (for the full story see Streets and Houses), until the estate was sold by John Carver in 1804, for £2,100, to Robert Malkin – a wholesale grocer of Chesterfield, who was already living there. This is where Malkin Street gets its name from. In 1833 Malkin purchased, from the Cavendish estate, a plot of land on the south and east sides of his house, at the top of Tapton Lane. This land was already occupied by him as a pleasure ground.

Malkin died in 1846. Two years later his daughter sold the house contents and the house was advertised to let in 1858. The following year the property was sold to John Marsden, also a Chesterfield grocer. He sold the house and some of the estate to Chesterfield corporation in 1870, when the house was demolished and Corporation Street was laid out through the grounds.

The Malkins were members of the Unitarian congregation at Elder Yard meeting house and were known for their benefactions to the poor in Chesterfield.

One mystery remains and that’s around the name ‘The Pump House’. Surviving deeds do not mention it by name, nor do various maps and surveys. Why the reference to a pump?

Unfortunately, although the house is shown on large-scale maps, no illustration of ‘The Pump House’ is known to exist. Oddly enough, there is a watercolour sketch of the church from the north made in 1824, when there were still houses standing in what is now the northern part of the churchyard, entitled ‘Chesterfield from Mr Malkin’s’, but the artist must have been sitting in the gateway to the house, with his back to it. The drawing was reproduced some years ago in the booklet, Chesterfield: Scenes from Yesterday.

Local historians are often asked what a particular place-name means and where it’s come from. In VCH we use the standard reference work on the subject, the multi-volumed English Place-Name Society (EPNS) volumes.

As the society’s website explains EPNS;

… was established in 1923 to conduct a county-by-county survey of the place-names of England. The first county survey of Buckinghamshire appeared in 1925.

To date, the Survey has produced 91 volumes, the most recent being The Place-Names of Leicestershire Part VII, published in 2016. Almost all English counties have been surveyed at least in part and work to complete the Survey is ongoing.

The Survey is used by researchers, academics, and those interested in the origins, meaning, and significance of English place-names.

Derbyshire has a complete survey, split across three parts. Part one includes a general introduction, survey of river names and covers the High Peak Hundred. Part two covers the Scarsdale, Wirksworth and Morleyston & Litchurch hundreds; part three the Appletree, Repton & Gresley hundreds with analysis and indexes. Despite being published in 1959, the volumes are still the ‘gold standard’ for place name study. There’s an entry for each place studied which consists of a list of names associated with it, followed by a description of the name’s meaning. Street names and field names are also identified – with some more notable ones being very briefly discussed.

So, as an example; for Chesterfield, (which is in part two) the survey identifies the name ‘Cestrafelda’ as being used in 955 and other variations thereafter, declaring the name means ‘open country near or belonging to a fortification’. At time the survey was published in 1959, existence of a fort in Chesterfield was still unproved, but we now know that indeed the town was a Roman fort.

You’ll need access to part one to identify what some of the abbreviations in the text for each place-name mean. Incidentally the ‘maps’ identified on the dust jacket of part one are actually in part three!

Some of the society’s publications (but not currently Derbyshire) are now available on-line  https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/research/groups/epns/downloads.aspx. The Derbyshire volumes are now out-of-print, but you may be able to obtain second-hand copies. They are also available to consult in Derbyshire and Derby Libraries local studies.

Despite its age The Place-Names of Derbyshire is VCH’s first port-of-call when we look at place-name origins. It ought to be yours too, if you are interested in the subject of how your community came to have its name.

Our sister organisation – the Derbyshire Record Society – is just about to publish part one of The Derbyshire Musters of 1638–9. This part contains the introduction and indexes. We explore a little about this book in our blog, but it will be an important contribution to the history of the county and of great use to family historians. ‘The Muster book’, as it has become known, lists all men aged between 16 and 60 in each town and village.

Between the early sixteenth century and the mid seventeenth the Privy Council instructed local officials in each county to hold regular musters of able-bodied men who could be called upon to defend the kingdom in time of war. Men from every town and village had to assemble, usually in the early autumn, at a specified meeting place and show that they possessed suitable arms and armour. Gentry families had to provide horsemen. The musters were ordered by the lord lieutenant, summoned by the deputy lieutenants, and organised locally by the high constable of each hundred.

In 1638 the young 3rd earl of Devonshire had just become lord lieutenant of Derbyshire. He was evidently keen to impress the Council, as the earl ordered the constables to compile lists of all men aged between 16 and 60 in each town and village. He had the results copied into a volume to be sent up to London. The book, containing some 17,300 names, survives among the records of the State Paper Office in The National Archives. It provides a uniquely full record of the inhabitants of every community in Derbyshire on the eve of the Civil War. What we don’t know, of course, is what these men thought of being brought together, their names and place of residence being identified and listed.

The new publication should be fantastic source for family history in Derbyshire, as well as the demography of the county. It also sheds new light on local administration in the early seventeenth century.

In this two-part edition, the text of the 1638 muster book is printed in full alongside a shorter roll of 1639 and some ancillary documents (as part 2 – available in the autumn of 2021). In all about 18,400 individuals are named. Newly published Part 1 consists of a full index by person and place and is prefaced by a detailed introduction.  The record society has divided the book into two parts so that users can have the index and the lists of names in front of them at the same time. It also spreads the cost of a work that runs to over 400 pages.

To order new title you can complete the online order form here.

The Derbyshire Musters of 1638–9 (in two parts) is edited by Victor A. Rosewarne. Part 1 is £20 post free to members or £30 plus £3 postage to non-members.

Here we take a brief look at ‘The Rocket’ which was the ‘house journal’ of the Clay Cross Company which was first published the 1960s. This once well-known company was established in 1837 by George Stephenson and his associates. It’s now fast receding into memories, as the former manufacturing site, which closed in 1998, becomes developed particularly for housing.

We recently posted on how we use company magazines to help chart the history of particular businesses. We also pointed out that family historians may find photographs and a brief account of their relative’s time at the company, in these magazines. Such articles might include retirement, long-service, marriage and death. It’s a feature of these magazines not to be over-looked.

Latterly the Clay Cross company became known for its pipe castings, but it had owned collieries, quarries, foundries and even a large farm and a light railway out to its quarries at Ashover.

‘The Rocket’– number 36, Summer 1987 – shown here, celebrated the Clay Cross Company’s 150th anniversary. The front cover of this special edition is shown with an engraving taken from FS Williams’ 1876 book ‘The Midland Railway: its rise and progress’. It shows the Clay Cross Company in the ‘V’ of the railway lines. The right-hand line is to Derby, the left is the Erewash Valley line.

For some years ‘The Rocket’ usually featured an article from RF Childs, who was the company estates manager. Our illustration of him is taken from issue 27, from late 1979. It shows him in the company’s ‘archive room’ which he had helped create in that year. Dick Childs retired in 1986. The company archive included Stephenson letters, minute books, photographs, plans and other records. The company archives are now split between the Derbyshire Record Office and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

The yellow covered edition featured here is number 35 (winter 1986) – the first to be fully produced under the Biwater group’s ownership. The front cover shows pipes for a contract in Malaya stocked within the works car park. It was taken by the works Technical Department’s Adrian Smith. For those who know the area North Wingfield parish church might just be discerned on the centre horizon.

‘The Rocket’ was usually around 20 pages in length. Like many of its kind, it paints a picture of corporate life including newly opened production facilities, management changes and acquisitions. Sports and other social activities, along with marriages, retirements and deaths are also carried within its pages. Our final illustration is taken from issue number 8 of January 1968. It features some of those little snippets of information that we feel may be of interest to family historians. Note that Mr LV Clarke was retiring after 51½ years of service to the company!

Like Clay Cross works itself, ‘The Rocket’ is now a memory, but a tangible one. For as the works is regenerated and disappears copies of the magazine will survive in local studies libraries and perhaps become treasured family possessions.

We’re heading to Barlborough for this brief review of the Rodes family in the parish and a couple of distinctive indicators of their influence.

The Rodes family were influential in the north eastern part of Derbyshire, in particular in the Barlborough area. Our Derbyshire Victoria County History (VCH) Volume III charts their involvement. The holders of Barlborough Hall (Rodes family) and Park Hall (Pole family) estates were generally regarded as joint lords of Barlborough manor from the 18th century. (Incidentally, landownership in the parish is described by our County Editor as ‘complex’).

Francis Rodes of Staveley, Woodthorpe (a rising lawyer) purchased land in Barlborough in the early 1570s. He had Barlborough Hall built in 1583-4.

By the 1840s a descendant (through various branches of the family), William Hatfield Glossop, changed his surname to de Rodes. Succeeded by his daughter Sophia Felicité in 1883, she married Godfrey Lampson Tennyson Locker-Lampson in 1905. Their eldest daughter (also Felicité or Felicity) married Henry E Rimington-Wilson. He inherited the estate in 1935. Barlborough Hall was sold the following year and the year after sold again to a Roman Catholic body. It became and still is a junior department of Mount St Mary’s College, Spinkhill. The Rimington-Wilsons subsequently sold all or most of what remained of their estate in Barlbrough to Osbert Sitwell of Renishaw.

Though Barlborough Hall, which is at the very least closely related to houses designed by Robert Smythson, if not by him, is the most well-known symbol of the Rodes era in the area, there are others.

Perhaps a more unusual one is the memorial archway in the village centre, originally to the school. Erected by WH de Rodes in 1869 it was in memory of his wife Sophia Felicité. It’s complete with Latin and Hebrew inscriptions and features a mosaic with gold and silver leaf.

Much more about the Rodes family and about Barlborough can be found in our VCH Volume III ‘Bolsover and Adjoining parishes…’ which can be found in local studies libraries. It’s also still available for purchase.

Don’t forget to visit Barlborough Heritage Centre and their recently revamped website. They also have a range of publications available about the parish.

The subject of county bridges may not sound over-exciting – but they formed a very important part of the county’s transportation infrastructure – and many still do. A recent publication by Philip Riden (who is also our VCH county editor) – ‘Derbyshire county bridges 1530-1889’- published by the Derbyshire Record Society, puts them in the spotlight, perhaps for the first time in recent memory.

The book contains a gazetteer of 139 county bridges across Derbyshire. As an example, in the Chesterfield area county bridges included ones at Hagg Bridge, Tupton; Stony Bridge, Hasland, Spital Bridge, Hasland; Tapton Bridge; Old River Bridge, Brimington and Whittington; Slittingmill Bridge, Eckington and Staveley and three others on the river Rother alone. On the Hipper were Walton Bridge and Lordsmill Bridge.

What were county bridges?

The Bridges Act of 1530 required the court of quarter sessions (local courts traditionally held at four times of the year) to repair bridges in its county or borough for which no-one else was responsible. In Derbyshire the Act was ap­plied with some vigour. By 1729, when the first list of bridges was compiled, the county was maintaining some sixty bridges, including most of those on main roads in Derbyshire. Between then and about 1840, when the railways began to re­move long-distance traffic from the roads, the number of county bridges in Derbyshire roughly doubled. During this period many were rebuilt and widened, and several fine new bridges were erected, which remain in use to­day. This work was undertaken by a succession of county surveyors, who evolved from working stone­masons into professionally quali­fied officers. All the bridges passed to the county council on its establishment in 1889.

The county bridges book

To give a flavour of the book we’ve included an extract from the gazetteer which covers Tapton Bridge on the river Rother. Our illustration above shows the area in the 1980s.

The bridge was one of number rebuilt by the county council in the post-First World War period  https://picturethepast.org.uk/image-library/image-details/poster/dccc002544/posterid/dccc002544.html has a picture of the bridge being widened.

The county bridges book is based on bridge papers which survive from the late seventeenth century in the records of quarter sessions at Derbyshire Record Office, Matlock. Described are about 130 bridges in Derbyshire, ranging in date from the thirteenth century to the early nineteenth. All the bridges are located on a series of maps, with a representative sample illustrated. A gazetteer is prefaced by a 36-page introduction outlining the work of quarter sessions under the Bridges Act of 1530 and later legislation. Also included are the careers of the county surveyors.

The Derbyshire Record Society was established in 1977. It publishes edited texts, monographs and pamphlets relating to the history of the county. As you might expect VCH uses a number of these in our work to produce new histories of Derbyshire communities. Find out more about the society at https://derbyshirerecordsociety.org/index.php.

We are particularly grateful to the Derbyshire Record Society and to Philip Riden for permission to use an extract from the book ‘Derbyshire County Bridges 1530-1889’ and to use a description of county bridges in this blog. Copies of the book are available at £33 for non-members (£20 for members of the Derbyshire Record Society) by downloading the order form at https://derbyshirerecordsociety.org/order.php

Next time you’re on Corporation Street, look up at the Stephenson Memorial Hall and you should notice the empty niche – still awaiting a statue of George Stephenson.

From the start it the building was designed as a memorial to the great railway engineer George Stephenson. Our blog and post of 6 June mentioned Violet Markham’s views on the her views on its design, it’s served the town well, since it was first opened in 1879.

Designed by Smith & Woodhouse of Manchester, the building became too much of a burden for the Trustees and was sold to the Chesterfield Corporation in 1889. It was they who acquired a piece of land to the east of the original building. This saw the existing public hall altered and extended forming a theatre with a new stage and dressing rooms, together with improved entrances. Opening in 1898 this was to a design by local architect WH Wagstaff. The public hall soon became known as the Corporation Theatre – where a variety of shows, concerts, musicals, plays and films could be enjoyed. 1949 saw the first municipal repertory theatre established there.

The later history of the western (original) portion of the building saw it in use as a public library, council chamber, mayor’s parlour and committee rooms. When the town council moved to its new town hall in 1938 the majority of the building was taken over by the library. They moved to New Beetwell Street in 1980. The present museum was formerly opened in the block in 1994.

The building is hopefully due a Chesterfield & District Civic Society plaque in the near future.

A brief, potted history, of a well-known and loved Chesterfield building, which has served the town well since its opening in 1879.

But it’s unlikely that George Stephenson will ever grace that empty niche, now his statue can be found at Chesterfield railway station a few minutes’ walk away.

If you are interested in supporting the work of the Derbyshire VCH Trust, you are very welcome to join us.

We are currently concentrating our research on the Chesterfield area, having undertaken research, which has been published, on Bolsover and adjoining parishes – https://derbyshirevch.org/our-publications/

Part of the work we do involves making our research more widely known. We do this through traditional and electronic publishing, including our blogs and Facebook posts.

You can find out more information on our activities at our website https://derbyshirevch.org/how-we-research/ and by contacting us at https://derbyshirevch.org/contact/

In normal times we run a weekly term-time research group in Chesterfield, which brings together a small friendly group of interested people under our County Editor Philip Riden. We hope to restart this in September. We also hold summer guided walks and hold an AGM with guest speaker. Members of VCH also receive a free copy of our publications (but not back copies) and a periodic newsletter.

Membership is available from £5 a month, which includes entry into our monthly prize-draw currently for £100. We are a registered charity.

Thanks to social media, websites and the like Violet Markham (1872 – 1959) is probably better known than she has been for a number of years. Her autobiography ‘Return Passage’ was published in 1953, and is generally well-known, but this blog highlights just a little of what was left out of that autobiography.

Violet is shown here in the 1920s. We won’t dwell on her life suffice to say she was born in 1872 at the now demolished Brimington Hall, moving with her family to Tapton House in 1873.  She had three brothers. Ernest (1867-1888), Charles Paxton Markham (1865-1926) and Sir Arthur Basil (1866-1916). Both the latter rose to prominent positions in local industry and politics. Violet Markham also played a leading role in public life. She became involved with the local poor law union, school board, was mayor of Chesterfield in 1927 and 1928 and active nationally. She also set up ‘The Settlement’ in Chesterfield town centre.

The Derbyshire Times published a short series of articles that had been axed from her autobiography by the publisher. They were later reprinted as a booklet in January 1958. ‘Transformation of a town: Chesterfield in retrospect’ was therefore actually written as part of her autobiography and gives us some insight into Markham’s thoughts about her town, which might be of some surprise.

She didn’t, for example, think much about the Victorian architecture that she was familiar with in her youth. She stated that the town ‘had an ugly brick Market Hall’.

Nor did Violet Markham think much of the Stephenson Memorial Hall (now the museum and art gallery and Pomegranate theatre) which she dismissed, writing that it ‘…would have ranked high in any competition of period buildings selected for their special hideousness.’  Violet was also a little dismissive of the famous crooked spire – ‘no object of beauty’ she thought, realising she was ‘at the risk of being stoned by fellow-citizens’ for this view!

Markham’s view on the Market Hall wasn’t unique. The building came in for further criticism in the 1950s when Nicolas Pevsner visited the town for his series of books ‘The Buildings of England’. ‘The crudest show of high Victorian provincial prosperity’ he thought.

Violet Markham did, however, praise the town for being ‘a tenacious place and had a well-knit corporate life with an individuality of its own.’ She reviews the state of the Chesterfield of her youth, highlighting the insanitary conditions she encountered, characterised by ‘narrow streets, which in some areas had degenerated into evil slums with yards and passages and hovels unfit for human habitation.’ When we look at some of the quaint photographs of old Chesterfield, it’s important to remember this and the progress made in the borough at eradicating such poor conditions.

Markham goes on to address her own role and those of her fellow politicians in reforming these slums. In reviewing progress made during her life-time, she chooses three main topics to review where progress had been made: health, housing and education. Particularly on the latter Chesterfield received national recognition for its forward thinking policy.

Whilst VCH may not give a lengthy account to the personal role Markham and her like (including her brother Charles) played in reforming the social and physical conditions in the borough, it will chronicle important advances made in housing and education in the 20th century, of which she was a part. This has resulted in a town far in advance of the one of Violet Markham’s youth.

A copy of ‘Transformation of a town: Chesterfield in retrospect’ is available for reference in Chesterfield Local Studies Library.

Our 15 March 2021 post on Chesterfield wine and spirit merchant TP Wood’s series of almanacs, was quite popular. But did you know that there may be a much earlier local version, which we would love to see?

Speaking at a meeting of the Rotary Club in late 1924, local historian William Jacques mentions ‘Gallimore’s Almanac’ which he says dated back to 1842. Jacques had recently been presented with a set of 22, which he believed were the only ones in existence. The Gallimores, who according to Jacques, were brothers, took over the printing business of Ford in Irongate (the Shambles). We do know that a C Gallimore was advertising that he had taken over Ford’s business in May 1841 – our illustration is taken from the Derbyshire Courier of 5 June 1841.  Ford is best remembered as the publisher of the 1839 ‘History of Chesterfield…’

Thanks to the Derbyshire Times of 27 December 1924, we know a little more about Jacques’ talk and what he found in the almanac. Jacques apparently mentioned the old Town Hall in the Market Place, the Grammar School and other early schools and religious meeting houses. Jacques stated that half of Gallimore’s almanac content consisted of advertisements ‘nine-tenths of which related to quack medicines’. (Gallimore was dealer in these).

Jacques was secretary of the Chesterfield Education Committee for many years, a JP and formerly editor/manager of the Derbyshire Courier, he died on New Year’s Day 1931, aged 71. He also wrote ‘Modern Chesterfield…’ jointly with John Pendleton, which was published in 1903.

The almanacs remain a bit of a mystery. One might have thought that they would have found their way into the Jacques’ collection in Chesterfield Local Studies Library – but they haven’t. Nor does there appear to be much in the way of newspaper advertisements for the publication. What we do know is that, according to an advertisement in the Derbyshire Courier of Saturday 01 December 1849, ‘Allen’s Great Midland Almanac’ was available from Gallimore’s (and other stockists). Is this the ‘Gallimore’s almanac’ that Jacques refers to; with locally produced pages interleaved with a regional publication?

VCH will try and sort out the progression of the local printing industry in Chesterfield, so we’d love to see a copy or receive any further information on these mysterious almanacs.

Update 12 July 2023 – we found a copy in Chesterfield Local Studies Library! See our update here.

This blog was amended on 28 March 2023 to reflect the correct date of the first edition of Gallimore’s Almanac as 1842 not 1824 and that the Gallimores were Quakers.