Two Derbyshire Villages

My gt-gt grandfather, George Robinson, was born in the Derbyshire village of Tideswell. I've never been there in spite of the fact that it's only half an hour's drive from my house so the other weekend I decided to go and have a look round. The 14th century parish church of St John the Baptist is known as ' The Cathedral of the Peak'. The building of the church began in 1346 but was interrupted in 1349/50 when the Black Death devastated England killing a third of the population. Eventually the building began again though and the Tower and the chancel were added. Since then the exterior has remained unaltered and looks today exactly as it did when it was completed in 1400. It wasn't the first church on this site though, there was a church in Tideswell from at least 1193 when 'Henry, clericus de Tideswelle' was appointed as priest.



Inside the church is huge and there is a wonderful feeling of light and space thanks to the enormous traceried windows filled with clear glass. This photo is taken from the end of the nave looking up towards the chancel.


This is the 14th century font in which George, his parents and his grandparents and almost certainly many previous generations were christened. So far I only know George's parents, Joseph Robinson(bap 10 Dec 1789) and Ellen Hall(bap 14 Feb 1790), and their parents, John Robinson and Hannah Fletcher and Robert Hall and Sarah Wyatt. More is going to be discovered later today I hope as this morning's post brought me the CD containing all the baptisms, marriages and burials for Tideswell going back to 1635!!



This is one of several pew end carvings done by a local man with the marvellous name of Advent Hunstone. The carvings portray the sacraments - this one is baptism. The Hunstones of Tideswell were a well known family of woodcarvers.



The Lady Chapel contains thes two stone gravestones of women, dating from 1300 and 1375. It isn't a very good photo as they were the other side of the altar rail and I had to perform all sorts of contortions to get it at all.



This is the tomb of Sir Sampson Meverill in the centre of the Chancel. Sir Sampson was born on the 29th September 1388 and was a famous local Knight and landowner. He fought at Agincourt and against Joan of Arc surviving both those and many other battles and eventually dying peacefully at home at the ripe old age(in those days) of 74.



If you crouch down and peer through the stone tracery of the tomb you see this rather unsettling sight - a cadaver wrapped in a winding sheet! I've never seen anything quite like this before. It was a lovely sunny afternoon and there was too much light streaming through the windows to get a good photograph unfortunately.



More carving, this time done by Suffolk craftsmen in 1800. Here we have St George slaying the Dragon which rather ties in with my previous post.


Tideswell was granted a market charter in 1250 and was an important centre for both wool and lead. The area was famous for lead mining and this is the source of the wealth which enabled the building of such a fine church. The Tideswell lead miners were well known for their strength and were greatly prized by the military authorities. George III is reported to have remarked when a platoon of Tideswell miners were paraded before him in London-

“I don’t know what effect these men will have on the enemy, but by God they frighten me!”

Next door to the church is The George Inn (above) which was built in 1730. It was known originally as The New George Inn and was a busy coaching inn serving routes to Sheffield, Derby and Buxton. These days the road through Tideswell is surpringly quiet and it's a pleasant place to wander round. At some point I shall go again and explore some of the medieval lanes and alleys that apparently lie behind the main street.



I decided to go home via the little village of Foolow which must be one of the most delightful villages in the Peak District. The Bull's Head is the village pub,a pleasant place to spend some time on a warm summer's evening.



A solitary duck on the village pond! Three more appeared a few minutes later but this was really the place where the four farms in the village watered their cattle and horses. Sadly there isn't a single one left now, all are private houses.


A medieval cross stands on the village green.



Just to one side of the pond stands this marvellous stone well. An elderly gentleman who was passing told me that there are two wells in Foolow and this one on the Green was water for animals and I would guess also that water for washing clothes and other domestic tasks would come from here.



I imagine that Foolow had many fewer people suffering from water borne diseases than most places as it has a second well which I wouldn't have found if my elderly gentleman hadn't told me about it. This one stands a good few hundred yards outside the village and is the one that was used for drinking water. Being so far from the houses and fed by a spring it wouldn't have been tainted by water from the local privies and other unpleasant sources as so many water supplies were. It would have been hard work hauling buckets of water up and down the lane though especially on a freezing winter's day.


This is the view from the drinking water well with the lane to the neighbouring hamlet of Bretton snaking away over the moor.


The tiny church of St Hugh of Lincoln was originally the village smithy and only seats about 80 people. It was converted to a church in 1888.



I haven't come across a St Hugh's Church before so I did a little research and discovered that Hugh was born in Avalon,France in 1135. He came to England in 1179 and eventually became Bishop of Lincoln. He died in November 1200 at his London residence but was brought back to Lincoln cathedral for burial. There is a lovely story about the white swan which is St Hugh's emblem. The Manor of Stow was held by the Bishops of Lincoln and a particularly fierce swan which lived there formed a great attachment to Hugh and would follow him about, and was his constant companion whilst he was at Lincoln. In case you are wondering Stow is about 10 miles from the city.



Foolow is full of attractive buildings, this is the 18th century Manor House.



According to my elderly gentleman Old Hall Farm dates back to 1630 and inside it still has cruck beams and two stone staircases. It's now divided into two separate homes, it always makes me feel so sad when the old farmhouses are turned into upmarket homes and all the land is sold off.



A final little touch of history, just along from the modern postbox is the original Victorian one set into a wall. You don't often see these now and this one is only a decorative feature these days but at least it's still there.
This is a lovely area, one I've only driven through on the main road on my way to somewhere else in the past but I've decided that this summer I shall go and explore some more of the villages and lanes of the White Peak.

A Woolly Rabbit and a Spring Outing

For the past few weeks my mind has been a total blank as far as ideas for writing blog posts, e-mails and letters were concerned. I've been busy doing things but the constant grey skies appear to have caused my mind to switch off completely. The last few days of lovely blue skies and sunshine have done the trick though and my e-mail in-box is now empty, all the letters are winging their way to various parts of the UK and overseas and here I am finally writing a post.



While I've been absent I've made a dozen jars of Seville orange marmalade. It's the perfect job for a miserable, grey day as working with all the lovely bright orange fruits is a very cheering task.



I've been knitting as well, a cardigan for Gabriel and a rabbit (top photo) for George. When my children were young I used to make a lot of these rabbits and also..


..this owl for the school fairs that were held at Christmas and in the summer. I made an owl for Gabriel last summer and have been intending to do the rabbit for George ever since. It was posted earlier this week and was, I gather,very well received:)



On Saturday afternoon I joined members of our local history group on a visit to Fanshawegate Hall. Several of us met up on Totley Hall Lane and walked up through the fields. There were no rabbits, woolly or otherwise, but there were lots of lambs enjoying a lovely Spring day.



I've visited Fanshawegate Hall many times before as it is open every year under the National Gardens Scheme, it was interesting to see it so early in the year when it wouldn't normally be open to the public. The top photograph was taken on Saturday, the one below is from a previous visit in the height of summer. It's a very old house and was owned by the same family, the Fanshawes,for nearly 700 years until it was sold in 1944.In its entire history only four families have owned it including Mr and Mrs Ramsden,the current owners. Most of Fanshawegate Hall is 16th century but parts date back to 1260 including the dining room and parts of the cellars. In the 16th century it was a substantial manor house but by the early 17th century a large part of the original hall had been pulled down and it became a farmhouse, still owned by the Fanshawe family but rented out to tenant farmers. Much of the stone and timber from the demolished part was used to build Woodthorpe Hall which still stands further down the lane.


The three storey medieval dovecote still has the original inch thick Elizabethan glass in its windows. It's a lovely building.



It is still used for its original purpose and is home to these beautiful white fan-tailed doves.


We were really here to see the house and learn about its history but there was also time to look around the lovely garden and spot charming inhabitants like this cockerel. Isn't he great?



There are many reminders of Fanshawegate's farming past around the garden, here you can see six beautiful old staddle stones topped by enormous stone beams and then wooden planks laid across the beams. This would have been the support for a great hayrick which would be built on here to protect it from vermin and to keep it dry.



I would give my eyeteeth, as the old saying goes, to have just one single staddle stone in my garden. At Fanshawegate they are all over the place, all the real thing, leftovers from its days as a working farm.



Other relics of farming days include this magnificent stone horse trough which has been turned into a water feature with a Green Man watching over it.



Behind the house is the stack yard complete with a marvellous medieval tithe barn, the photograph doesn't do it justice as on this side it was largely hidden behind the parked cars of members of our group and on the other side the sun was shining straight into the camera lens.



At the bottom end of the stack yard is the old farm pond complete with ducks.



A sight that would have been as familar 700 years ago as it is now, a comfortable looking hen pottering about in the sunshine.

The most thrilling part of this visit for me(apart from the scrumptious homemade cakes that Mrs Ramsden provided for us in the 13th century dining room!) was that I was able to fulfil a long held ambition. Every time I have visited the garden I have thought to myself 'I'd love to see what it's like inside the house'. The Hall itself isn't open to the public but on this occasion we were fortunate enough to be invited in and allowed to wander at will both upstairs and down. There are no photographs as it's a private house and I wouldn't want to abuse the privilege we were given but it's great to know that next time I go to a 'Garden Open' day I shall know exactly what lies behind those ancient stone walls!

Lost in the Past

January was a month that I spent very happily delving into the past hence the lack of both posts and comments from me. Towards the end of last year I joined the local history group that has recently started up in Totley and it has made me see my local area from a totally different perspective. We live right on the boundary of two parishes but I've always been drawn much more to Dore which is an attractive little village. Local history has always interested me as my version of family history research involves finding out about the places where my ancestors lived as well as lists of names and dates. Dore has an oral history group but there hasn't been a local history group in this area at all until last year. I've always thought of Totley as being rather dreary and boring with no real character to it. I'm now discovering how wrong I was to dismiss it so lightly. All the photographs will enlarge if you click on them.



We are fortunate to have Brian Edwards living in our area, he is a wonderful artist and also a local historian who has been publishing books filled with his drawings and all kinds of interesting information for many years. The Cricket Inn is still there at the end of a country lane, there are horses in the fields next door and a beautiful old farmhouse opposite.



The real catalyst has been the local history class that started in January and every Friday morning I've been turning up to this and getting more and more engrossed. The most recent session was about Census Returns which I've been familiar with for years but only from a family history point of view. I'm now beginning to realise that the information in them can be used in many other ways too. My plan is to print out the whole of the 1891 census for Totley and follow the Census enumerators route pinpointing exactly who lived where. Happily I have also made a new friend who shares my fascination with the subject and who also shares my enjoyment of walking and we are going to do this together once the weather gets better as it will certainly take at least one full day to do it. A picnic lunch has been mentioned :)
I've known P slightly for some time as her dog Bertie is a friend of B Baggins and we met occasionally in the woods or by the river. We were surprised to see each other at the November History Group meeting but that happened to be the night I put forward my idea of researching the names on the War Memorial and asked whether anyone would be interested in helping. P was one of two people who wanted to join me and hey presto! an acquaintance is now becoming a friend. We are attending the classes together and spent a happy evening last week pouring over local maps.



I've been doing a little more work on my soldiers too but there's a lot more to do yet before we can publish anything. It's proving to be very interesting and,in a couple of cases, not as straightforward as you'd think. The photograph above shows an image of the Cambrai Memorial at Louverval where Tom Brown Fisher is commemorated, he's one of those men who, sadly, have no known grave.




The first local history class was about old photographs and these two were among the examples our tutor gave us, the Cross Scythes still looks just the same apart from not having too many horses and carriages standing outside it these days. The other one shows Totley Rise, the cottages were originally built for the navvies working on building Totley Tunnel and the shop at the top began life as the Tally shop, now it's the local newsagents. When I first came to Totley over 30 years ago many of the cottages had been turned into shops including a butcher( in the same place as the one in the photo but minus the pig and cow carcases hanging outside!), a fresh fish shop, greengrocer,a cobblers, a little haberdashery where I bought all my knitting wool, a chemist, post office and several others. Only the greengrocer,cobbler, chemist and post office are left now. Today the greengrocer is the young lad who worked in the shop on Saturday mornings when my children were young, his mum and dad ran the shop in those days. As for the cottages - don't imagine one little family in each, there were twenty to thirty men living in each of these small houses, they worked 24 hours a day in shifts and as one lot got up and went to work the next lot tumbled into the same beds. The state of these places must have been appalling, there were certainly outbreaks of typhoid, diphtheria, smallpox and scarlet fever though these were partly due to the dreadful working conditions in the tunnel as well as the pretty much total lack of hygiene.



These pages are taken from two Trade Directories which are the equivalent of today's Yellow Pages in the UK, I'm sure there are equivalents in other parts of the world too. They are intriguing to dip into and as well as giving details of the trades and occupations in an area they eventually also listed the names and occupations of most of the heads of households in each street. There was also at the beginning of the entry for each town or village a little description of the area, times of the arrival and despatch of the post and when and where you could catch the carrier's cart or the stage coach along with other intriguing little snippets of information. I found it interesting that between 1833 and 1911 Totley changed from being 'a poor village' to being 'pleasantly situated' - which indeed it is. It might be worth trying to find out the reason behind these statements.


This is the 1876 Ordnance Survey map showing the village of Totley as it was then with the main orientation of the village running from north to south. Those roads are still country lanes and the orientation of Totley has changed completely with almost all the houses and shops now on either side of the road running from east to west. This is now a busy road and one of the main routes out of Sheffield into Derbyshire. It was originally opened in the early 1800s as the Greenhill to Baslow Turnpike. It's only in the last couple of years that I've discovered the layout of the original village.
The school to the left of the word 'Totley' is the one my children went to and it is still going strong. The original School built in 1824 still exists as a private house but the current school dates from 1877.



This map is from 1923 and the site of my house lies in the field numbered 702. The line of trees between the fields and the building plots is still there and three of those trees are in my garden. The single tree just above the line is the oak tree that is also still alive and well in my garden. This afternoon it had a greater spotted woodpecker, a treecreeper and two nuthatches running up and down it all at the same time. It shaded my baby daughter one hot summer when she had mumps and I made her a little makeshift bed outdoors, all my babies slept in their prams under it and then when they were older they all climbed in it and finally four years ago one of them got married under it so there is quite a lot of personal local history connected with that little dot on the map.



Family history hasn't been forgotten in all the excitement of local history, now that all the London Parish Registers are coming online on the Ancestry.com site I've been having a lovely time delving further into my husband's family and have added a fair amount of information since Christmas. They lived in the City of London (the Square Mile) for several generations and I plan in the Spring to go and visit and photograph some of the churches where they were hatched, matched and despatched. St Botolph's, Bishopsgate has strong family connections and is an interesting church as well. The poet John Keats was christened there and another ancestor of my husband was christened in the church which Samuel Pepys attended and where he is buried - St
Olav Hart St. I think you'll be reading more about these later this year!