2. The Market Place.

Hope first held a market in 1715 when John Balguy of Hope Hall procured a licence for a weekly market and four fairs. However, it seems to have had fluctuating fortunes and was “long discontinued” only being revived in 1843.  In 1855 it became a monthly cattle market and each year on May 13^th a hiring fair was held when those seeking employment would stand in the marketplace with the sign of their trade.

The Market Place would have looked rather different in those days. There would have been open fields to the north with views of Win Hill. There were houses standing at the edge of the current churchyard and down what is now School Lane.  These later disappeared as the churchyard was enlarged, but their remains can be seen in the church car park.

The first house on the left, Daggers House, was the home of the Greaves family. One of the oldest houses in the village it was at one time the “Old Stone Daggers Inn”. Its heyday as an inn occurred when the new turnpike road brought coaches and carts through the village between Sheffield and Manchester but by the 1840s it had ceased to be an inn and was owned by the Greaves family.

  In 1851 it was lived in by William Greaves, described as a “landed proprietor”.  He was an elderly widower with an unmarried son and daughter living with him and a granddaughter of school age.  The son’s trade was that of a druggist but whether he worked locally is not recorded. William and his daughter owned five fields between them in Hope which would hardly justify them calling themselves landed proprietors, but maybe they held land elsewhere. 

Robert Unwin and his wife Mary and their young family of four lived next door. Their house is also old with a vaulted cellar, a cool place to hang up bacon and other food for the grocer’s shop they ran. Many of the old buildings in the centre of the village had similar cellars. There was a barn attached to the property, still distinguishable as part of Loxley Hall.  Robert was also a corn dealer and farmer. He ran a carrier service to and from Sheffield on Tuesdays and Saturdays.  All these different occupations would help him to provide for his family.

Sources; 1847 Tythe Allotment. 1851 Census Returns. Hope Archive information

3. School Lane

School Lane is part of an old route way. From ancient times the road had crossed the Peakshole Water by ford and later bridge and followed the lane to the Market Place and so over to Aston and Derwent.

In 1851 there were several houses fronting onto the lane, the remains of some of which are visible in the church car park today. Thomas Deville owned one of the houses and had an annuity. Other occupants were Joseph Hallam, an agricultural labourer, Elizabeth Marsh, described as a pauper and charwoman and Elizabeth Siddall who farmed 11 acres. We think that at one time one of these buildings would have been the schoolmaster’s house as the original founding of the school allows for a house and garden for the schoolmaster.

The school was built in 1658 when Thomas Bocking was vicar and would have contained within its walls the remains of Hope’s Saxon Cross. It was a “Free” school, administered by the church and providing some free education in reading and writing. The teacher was Robert Eardley. The church wardens’ accounts at various times show the following items.

“Pd to John Slack and William Nowell for mossing and pointing ye Schoolhouse 12 daies – 16 shillings”

“Paid William Ibbotson for fire range, Oven and boiler to continue in the Schoolhouse – £2.12s.6d.

 Paid Joseph Hill and Micah Holme for stone leading and walling school garden wall – £1.9s.

 Thomas Siddall for the use of his house while the schoolhouse was repaired – £1.1s.

Moss appears as a building material for the school in several instances. Was it used on the roof or to plug gaps in the walls I wonder?

By 1851 the schoolhouse was almost two hundred years old and would have been showing signs of dilapidation. It was replaced on the same site in 1858 by the present “Old School”.

By Watergates Bridge, hidden by the encroaching ivy, is the remains of a sheep wash.  The sheep would be gathered and perhaps held in the field by the bridge before being driven down the narrow passageway into the river and out via a similar route on the opposite side. This exit disappeared at the time the bridge level was raised.  Stray sheep would have been put in the Pinfold nearby until their owners could be traced.

Source:  Notes from a Peakland Parish by William Smith Porter

4. Pump Street

When you turned right out of School Lane by Watergates Bridge you would have entered Pump Street (now Pindale Road).  A pump was situated on the left where the telegraph pole stands today.  The villagers would have collected their water from this and other pumps around the village as there was no mains water supply.

The vicarage and the Manor House both belonged to the vicar, the Rev Cave Brown Cave. At the time of the census in 1851 the old vicarage building was still in use. It is described by Dr Orton, the previous incumbent as

“an old but (now) comfortable parsonage, having been made so at between two and three hundred pounds expense, by the present incumbent, at his sole expense. It contains two parlours, a study and three lodging rooms, exclusive of one for the servants, kitchen, back kitchen, pantry and cellar, but no outbuildings except coach house.”

The Rev Cave Brown Cave borrowed £600 from the governors of the Queen Anne’s Bounty to build a new vicarage but when Rev. John Daniel took possession in 1856 he describes it thus:-

“It was simply a carcase, the floorboards, sashes and doors were on the premises but not fixed, no plastering on any of the walls and ceilings or any painting and papering.”

He also had to put it right at his own expense and the parish had to pay the interest on the building loan.

Whilst re-building the vicarage the family would have lived in the Manor House, which had also had a makeover. It seems to have been empty at the time of the census in 1851 and is described as “The Doctor’s House” – presumably after Dr Orton, the previous vicar with whom Rev Cave Brown Cave exchanged parishes in 1843.

On the corner was the home of the Woodroffe’s. Members had served as church wardens for several generations and they looked after the Parish Registers. As they ran a pub the first register became a little battered, with beer stains and Woodroffe signatures practised in odd corners. The current landlord was Nathan Woodroffe aged 77 who describes himself as a farmer of 60 acres. He was helped by his son-in-law Stephen Shirt. The household also contained his daughter, Martha, grandson William who helped on the farm and two granddaughters, Mary, who was a barmaid, and Jane and also a new great grandson, James.

Sources; – St Peter’s Church Terriers 1840 & 1870. 1851 Census Returns

5. Hope Marsh Smithy

Local residents may remember Cyril Wainwright’s smithy on Castleton Road which stood just beyond the gates of the telephone exchange. It was demolished in the 1960’s as part of a road widening scheme, but it was thought to be one of the oldest buildings in the village.

In 1851 it would have been the last building before the road crossed the Hope marshes to Castleton.  It wasn’t a smithy then but was described as a weaving shed and John Robinson, a weaver of Edale Road, may have worked there.  It is thought that the cloth would have been sacking for agricultural purposes.

Earlier title deeds described it as a workshop known as the Village School in Marsh Lane.  This was possibly the building in which Francis Langton taught in 1559 before the erection of a new school in School Lane.  Another use ascribed to it was as a toll bar cottage on the toll road to Castleton. Unfortunately, there are no records to prove the accuracy of these assertions, just folk memory which often contains more than a grain of truth.

It became a smithy sometime around 1870 when Joseph Wainwright moved there from Castleton. His son George and grandson Cyril later carried on the business.Gordon Randles remembers hurrying from school to help Cyril Wainwright blow the bellows to ensure the metal ring for a new wheel was glowing white hot and then dousing the wheel with water to shrink the iron tyre into place. Horses were shod there, and it was an exciting place for local schoolchildren to congregate. The smithy harks back to an age when horses and carts were of primary importance in an agricultural community and the wainwright or cartwright was an essential part of the village.

Photos from Jane Bramwell’s collection, HHS photo archive.

Continuity in the use of a site is always interesting. Where Stuart Reid’s garage now stands, in 1851 Thomas Rowland and his two eldest sons, George and Ellis traded as blacksmiths, keeping the transport of their day in good repair. Thomas was also a farmer with 25 acres and he was helped to work this by his brother, Ralph. Their land consisted of the croft which ran alongside Castleton Road as far as the stream under the road, three fields off Aston Lane rented from Jacob Darwent, Hall Head off Castleton Road rented from the church wardens and the wonderfully named “Peas Bongs” (which roughly means a river embankment) rented from Millicent Greaves. This field can be accessed off Eccles Lane by the stile leading to Brough and is the large field down by the river. These fields were all scattered which must have made farming difficult, and rent would have to be found for all but the croft.

The Rowlands were a large family and like many other people of the time had a side line to help the family finances.  This was a beer house, run by Thomas’s two eldest daughters,

Ann and Hannah and was known for many years as “The Three Horseshoes”, with an appropriate sign above the door no doubt made in the smithy. It was later called “The Blacksmith’s Arms”. There were also two school age children at home, Sarah Ann and John. 

The other two cottages which form part of the terrace belonged to Thomas and were rented out. The middle one was the home of the Pollard family. Elizabeth, the head of the family was 64. She was a charwoman and her son William was a farm labourer. Also living with her were her daughter, Grace Pollard, who was a dressmaker and Grace’s three children, Elizabeth, Ann andWilliam, all of whom were at school. The children were all born in Manchester, so apparently Grace, who was unmarried, had brought her children back home to mother.

The third cottage in the group was lived in by 74 year old Margaret Ashton, who ran a small shop.

The photograph is dated later than 1850 but shows the group of buildings much as they would have appeared then.

Sources:  1847 Tythe Allotment, 1851 Census.  Photo from Hope Historical Archive courtesy of Jane Bramwell

7. The Middleton farmhouse  

In 1851 Middleton’s farmhouse stood squarely in its farmyard opposite the end of Pindale Road. The family were one of the larger landholders in the village, farming 175 acres. In 1850 Robert Middleton had inherited the land and property after the death of his father William two years earlier.

He lived in the house with his wife Elizabeth and their children.  John, aged 13, was at home, but Mary, Elizabeth and Alfred were all at school.  We know the farmhouse today as “Spar” grocers.  The Indian restaurant and Valley Ramblers were all farm buildings around the farmyard. There was a barn down Pindale Road and the family owned or rented property in Edale Road.

The farmhouse was one of the older buildings in the village.  It had a cellar, now filled in, and people may remember the old oak beams and the hooks for hanging meat and other goods, now hidden by later renovations

The photograph shows the farm as it would have looked in the late 1800s. The property that now houses “Hope Deli”, “Eighteen Bikes” and the café was not built until after 1906 when the Middleton family sold up. At that time the farmhouse was bought by A.F. Hancock, the grocer and David Bramwell from Tideswell bought the farmyard and buildings and built a house and shop in the space.

Opposite the farmhouse was a set of lock up shops on the edge of the churchyard known as “the Shambles.” One of them was a butcher’s shop run by Joseph Watson, the “Shambles” being the traditional name for an area where butchers operated.  John Proctor ran his saddlery business from another of the shops. Sarah Bolsover was a dressmaker, and the other resident was Abraham Bolsover who was described as a former agricultural labourer and now a pauper. Behind the shops ran a footpath to a stile in the corner opposite the Woodroffe Arms.

The buildings built around the churchyard have long gone, demolished to make more room in the graveyard. The Shambles do not appear on the 1880 OS map although the footpath is still shown.  Other houses round the graveyard on School Lane are marked on the 1898 OS map but not after that.

Sources: 1851 Census Returns

Photograph from Edwin Chapman Collection, Hope Historical Society Archive

11. Nos.1 – 4 Edale Road

Much of what we have learned about local houses stems from a Historical Society project in which members researched the history of their own homes. I am indebted to Christine Davies for the information about the houses that are now 1- 4 Edale Road.

The whole of the terrace on this side of the road is confusing in its make-up. The house on the corner seems to have varied from being part of the Durham Ox on Castleton Road and part of the terrace on Main Street.

  This photograph of the row of houses at the start of Main Street shows that at one time there was a doorway with a sign above it leading into the Durham Ox.

The next door gives on to a passage leading to the back of the properties and there are four houses in the rest of the terrace.  If you look closely at the stonework today you can still find evidence of doors and windows that have been altered.  In 1851 the Durham Ox and the houses were owned by George Nuttall and there were four homes. Number 1 had been lived in by William Watson who had died recently and this was empty.

George Rowland and his family lived in the second of the houses in the terrace.  He was a blacksmith, brother of Thomas Rowland who owned the smithy on Castleton Road.  His wife, Mary and three children, Mary (16), Charles (7), at school and Elizabeth (3) lived with him and also his mother-in-law, Martha Harrison who is described as a pauper, late a farmer, born in Aston.

Robert Shirt and family lived in the third house in the row.  Robert was an agricultural labourer and he and his wife Rachel had five sons. The eldest two, Isaac (16) and George (12) were “at home” as were the youngest Henry (6) and Joseph (3).  Only Robert (10) was at school.

William Thorpe lived in the last of the houses at the time of the Tythe apportionment in 1847 but there is no record of any Thorpes in the Census three years later, so two of the houses may have been empty.

Sources Ann Price & Christine Davies

13. Changes in Edale Road

Beyond the Tythe Barn our knowledge of Edale Road in the 1850s becomes rather confused.  A photograph taken in about 1900 shows that there used to be a small house in the corner of the Tythe Barn garden, then a gap, which was the entrance to the back of the Durham Ox.  Next comes a house the lower part of which is today Watson’s Farm shop and then the property which was the Watson’s former shop.     

There is a story that the small house was the home in the 1920s of Mrs Bowden’s gardener.  His wife complained that the habituees of the Durham Ox woke her baby as they left the pub in the evenings. Mrs Bowden re-housed her gardener and had the house demolished. 

We can only make a rough guess as to the occupants of that house and its neighbour in the 1850s.  Likely contenders are Edwin Hobson and his wife Charity with two small children.  He was an agricultural labourer and she was a dressmaker and milliner.  In the larger house may have been William Rowland, born in Youlgreave, and his son Jacob, both of whom are described as “tinmen” together with four children aged between fourteen and seven, none of whom seem to have been at school.

Nearby lived Peter Rowland, also a tinman born in Youlgreave.  His wife, Mary, was a mangler and they had three small children, two of whom were at school.  Tinmen were tinsmiths and would have made pots and pans and other similar items.

We do know something of the next house (Watsons’ former Farm Shop) which has what the late Frank Money described as “a cat-slide roof”. This is an unusual building, unlike any other in the village and one of considerable antiquity.  Some of the interior walls are very thick and the wooden roof trusses may well have had an earlier life elsewhere.  

In 1850 it was owned by John Tym but was tenanted by Joseph Dakin and his wife, Hannah.  They were described in the census as shopkeepers and Joseph was also a farmer of 12 acres. 

16. Bolsover and Kenmuir Cottages (40 & 41 on the Tythe map of 1847)

These two buildings, beyond the old Butcher’s shop, are set sideways to the road and would originally have had a long piece of land or croft beyond them.

Bolsover Cottage was occupied by two families.  There are deeds that go back to at least 1785 when Thomas Wilcockson bought it from Francis Ingleton, a spur maker, and Benjamin Longden of Hope Woodlands.  By the 1850s Mary Wilcockson, Thomas’s granddaughter, was living there.  She was aged 73 and described as an Annuitant but at one time she ran a school there, as remembered by John Hadfield, one of her former pupils. His testimony was found amongst the house deeds.

In the other half of the cottage were Mary Wilson and her son Robert.  She is described as a farmer of 6 acres and her son as an agricultural labourer.  At the time of the census her grandson, Hugh Greaves, aged 5, was living there too.

Kenmuir is probably the same age as Bolsover.  It was divided into three houses and was owned by John Robinson who lived there with his wife, Elizabeth, and two sons.  All three men were shoe makers.  If this sounds familiar it is because I have had trouble with the number of Robinsons who are shoe makers and in my last article attributed them to Chapel Walk.  My apologies.  There are at least two Robinson families who are shoemakers and it is not clear from the census where they live.  I have been able to use the Tythe map information to fix this Robinson family at Kenmuir as John Robinson actually owned the house.

One of the other houses in the row was occupied by Joseph Siddall, a glazier.  He is the only glazier mentioned in the census return.  We are beginning to build a picture of the different trades and occupations that occur in the village.

Sources: 1847 Tythe and 1851 Census returns.  Additional information from the Watson family.

19. Killhill Farm and beyond

Our journey continues along Edale Road, taking in a series of farms, each of which is built sideways on to the road at the head of a parcel of land.

The first of these is Kilnhill (or Killhill) farm, one of the older buildings in the village.  The name is intriguing.  Was there a kiln in the area at one time?  A former owner, the late Hubert Eyre, was proud of the fact that the property had belonged for many generations to his relations, the Wilcockson family from Hope Woodlands.  In the 1850s the farm belonged to Joseph Wilcockson and consisted of forty five acres divided into five fields.  The tenant farmer was Levi Hadfield who lived there with his 60 year old mother, Mary and his 14 year old nephew, Henry who was an errand boy.

Beyond Kilnhill it becomes very difficult to work out occupancy.  The land around Weir Cottage appears to have been owned by Micah Hall, but there is nothing to show that he lived there.  Upper Weir Cottage and Mill Farm give a similar confusing picture.  Some of the land was owned by Robert Howe Ashton of Losehill Hall.

It is not until we come to “Greenwood” that we can more certainly identify the occupants.  They were the Waterhouses.  Jabez Waterhouse describes himself as an agricultural labourer, but according to the tithe allotment he owned the property and land surrounding it.  He lived there with his wife Emma and two small daughters, and the census return shows that the family had a house servant, 14 year old Mary Grafton, who is described as a daughter in law, which seems strange. Also living here were two lodgers.  James Greaves was a retired mercantile clerk aged 60.  Walker Hardy was 26 at the time of the census and describes himself as a tea dealer and draper. 

What is now Chapman Farm was owned by James Brown.  The building was divided into two dwellings.  In one of these lived Sarah Brown, a dressmaker.  The other was the home of widowed Hannah Watson who describes herself as a farmer of 3 acres.  Her eldest son, John, was a butcher and there were four other children. Two of the boys were at school.  The eldest daughter and the youngest son were “at home”.

Sources: Tythe Allotment 1847, Census Return 1851     Photo by David Price for HHS.

20. Around the Cheshire Cheese 

The occupant of Rose Cottage, George Pearson, was a factory bookkeeper, which was unusual amongst the farmers, agricultural workers and tradespeople of the rest of the village. He rented the cottage from Richard Burgon and lived there with his wife Martha, daughter Charlotte and son Benjamin. There was also a lodger, 23 year old Mary Ann Hadfield who had private means.

Next door is the Cheshire Cheese Inn which has been a pub for many years and was said to cater for the pack horse trains carrying salt from Cheshire. The landlord was Robert Cotterill, a widower with three daughters, Sarah, Ann and Elizabeth, all at school.  To help him run the pub, shop and farm, his daughter–in-law, Mary Burdekin, acted as housekeeper and waiter with Maria Marshall helping her in the house.  Joseph Pollard worked on the farm.

The old photograph shows the pub in 1877 after it has had a new frontage. The cutoff suggests that the remainder of the building formed a second dwelling.

It is thought that what is known as “Toll Cottage” across the road and the adjoining barn were also part of the Cheshire Cheese.  The Toll house served as a dining room to the pub at one time and the barns would have been stabling for the pack horses.

The present owners of Greaves cottage have done a lot of research into the history of their house.  Until as recently as 1965 their home was two cottages, possibly 17^th century in date.  The smaller cottage was one up and one down and may originally have been a barn.  The larger had four rooms and a larder and two fireplaces, one with a range.  An interesting feature of the larder was a stone trough in which brooms were “pickled”.  The story is that these were later sold at Barnsley market.  In the 1850s George Hall owned the building and the surrounding fields and we think that one of the cottages was occupied by George Ashton, a young agricultural labourer, with his wife, Catherine, and baby daughter, Harriet.

Sources: “A History of Greaves Cottage”By John & Aileen Booth. 1847 Tythe Allotment & 1851 Census returns.

21. Continuing up Edale Road

Next to Greaves Cottage is a building with an old date stone from the 1600s.  We have been unable to work out whose home this was in the 1850s, or even whether it was a dwelling at all.  It may have been one of two barns adjoining Greaves cottage.  It would be interesting to know whether anyone has any further information.

However we do know that the next house, Bower Cottage, was owned by Micah Burdekin at this time and that it was lived in by James Burdekin, an agricultural labourer and his wife Mary.  Their 17 year old son, Josiah, was also an agricultural labourer.  Their three daughters, Martha, 11, Louise, 7 and Elizabeth, 5 are described as “at home”.  Maybe the wages of a farm labourer did not rise to school fees, particularly for daughters.

Beyond Bower Cottage is Bleak House, which faces the road, unlike other properties along Edale Road.  It is thought to have been built in the early 1800s by Betty Ward whose family owned the land around what is now called Mead Far.  It takes advantage of the natural slope of the land to give views across the valley.

In 1837 Sarah Ward at Mead Farm was appointed guardian to George Samuel Ward from Bleak House when his father, George Ward, died.

By 1851 George Samuel was farming 11 acres on his own account at Bleak House.  He was helped by his brother Charles Ward, who also lived there with his wife, Caroline and their two small children

At age 68 Sarah was still running the 15 acre Mead Farm though it was not called that until much later.  She was helped by her son, Henry, and employed a live-in servant, Hannah Woodroffe, aged 16.

Sources: 1847 Tythe Allotment, 1851 Census Return. Booklets “Bleak House” and “Mead Farm” by Margaret Hawson for Hope Historical Society Archive.  Photo of Bleak House from Jayne Fox. (HHS Photo Archive)

22. Edale Road – Town Head

At the end of Edale Road is a cluster of cottages known as Townhead.  Croft Head, the first of these, was probably built in the late 17^th or early 18^th century.  It was a farm of 48 acres owned by the Earl of Newburgh (of Hassop Hall).  The tythe map allotment shows George Bocking as tenant. He was at this time landlord of the Old Hall Hotel and seems to have lived there with his family rather than at Croft Head. He describes himself as an innkeeper and coach proprietor so perhaps Croft Head is where he kept the horses and coach for the transport business. There were two farm servants as part of the hotel establishment who may well have worked here.

I am indebted to Di Curtis for the following information on the property now known as Townhead Cottage. It was originally called Townhead Farm and was also owned by the Earl of Newburgh. It is one of the older houses in the village, probably dating to the early 17^th century (Andrew Bower).  The building consisted of a house and attached barn and fits the description of a Derbyshire Croft and Toft. 

The house roof was supported by two cruck trusses, one of which has been truncated during the many alterations which have since taken place. The land holding consisted of approximately 4.5acres and is still intact today.

The Ashton family lived there around this time. We cannot say with certainty, but it was either George Ashton, an agricultural labourer and his family, or Nathan Ashton, a gardener.  George Ashton is described as a water bailiff in the 1861 census and his memorial in Hope churchyard records that he was “Head keeper of Peak Forest Angling Club for 40 years.”

The Hall family who also live at Townhead have been associated with Hope in written records since at least 1585, when Thomas Hall’s name appears in the muster book taken at the time of the Spanish Armada. Thomas and Robert Hall were local volunteers during the Napoleonic wars.  In more peaceful times the family are recorded regularly in the Parish Records during the 17^th and 18^th century as churchwardens and charity trustees.  In the 1851 census their home was occupied by Thomas Hall, who farmed 55 acres with help from his elder brother, Micah and nephew, George. His sister Hannah kept house for them helped by niece Harriet and Mary Frith.

Sources: Di Curtis – “Townhead Cottage”.  1847 Tythe allotment, 1851 Census return.

Hope Townhead had several notable families living there.  We have already met the Hall family, but living nearby at Bridge Cottage was Jonathan Longden and his family. Jonathan was a stalwart of the Methodist church in Hope and one of the original signatories to the purchase of the land to build Hope chapel. He was 58 at the time of the census, a farmer of 34 acres. Mary his wife was 54 and his daughter Sarah was 18.  Robert the eldest son was 16 and 12 year old George was still at school.

Another Longden family at Townhead was John Longden aged 64, farming 30 acres of land. He had a full household, with Mary, his wife, his two grown daughters Mary and Maria aged 23 and 21 respectively and his son, 17 year old John, together with two small grandsons Walter Allott (5) and baby Wilmot Burgon.  It is intriguing to speculate on how such an assortment of surnames could occur.

Woodroffe is a very old name in the annals of Hope. Besides being church wardens for several generations, a Woodroffe was overseer of the poor in the early 1800s and also Surveyor of the Highways responsible for seeing that the Hope inhabitants repaired the roads throughout the parish.

There were two branches of the family in Hope at this time. We already know of Nathan Woodroofe,  who kept the Woodroofe Arms. Living at Townhead was another Nathan Woodroofe, a married man aged 40, who farmed 74 acres and had 3 labourers to help him. He had seven children – John aged 18, 4 daughters, Jane, Mary, Ann and Maria  ranging in ages from 14 to 6 and all at school and two small sons Benjamin (4) and George, newly born.  Nathan’s wife is not included in the census, but the household also contained Fanny Ashton, a cousin as housekeeper and an elderly aunt, Martha Bagshaw, as assistant housekeeper. 

24. More on Townhead

Following   last month’s piece about Townhead I received an e-mail from Moira Monteith, who lived at Bridge Cottage for over 40 years. Her memories of the house and other farms are so interesting that I have her permission to quote them here.

“I was, of course, particularly interested in Townhead. It always did seem like a small community on its own, not quite Hope. Did Vivienne Taylorhave any ideas about the Green? Basically the field behind our house I think. I always wondered if it had been common grazing or something like that. I would imagine the old Ibbotsons’ farm, where Leslie Edmonds lives now, must have been quite old. It was in the pattern of the old farmhouses in Scotland and Ireland and possibly England, a long line of single rooms, leading one from the other.  Mr Ibbotson had built a large stone fireplace in each room so they all looked rather top-heavy.  The kitchen was the first room. Mrs Ibbotson had bad arthritis and asked for a Feverfew plant from our garden and apparently ate leaves from it each day. She described her grandmother who had lived in Hathersage as ‘a stone age woman in a stone age kitchen.Very graphic.

There was a building above the farm, up Losehill, which Mr Ibbotson said had been lived in during former times.  It was more of a dilapidated barn as I remember but I suppose people might have lived in it previously.

The interesting items about Bridge Cottage were the railway connection and the bankruptcy. It was built by one of the Longdens, perhaps Jonathan, who came from somewhere near Derwent. I don’t know where he got his money from to buy the land.  He built it of limestone which is different from all the other houses round about and I think left it to his daughter. It was handed down from one family member to another without any will, so when it finally was sold, in 1959 I think, they had to write an account of the owners and get this signed by some official in Sheffield.  At some point however, they must have let it, presumably to make money, to a Mr Moon. A Moon descendant came to the house once and said her sister had been born there.

Joan Clough looked up the census (1891) and said the house had numerous occupants, far more than could have slept in the rooms, so they must have had sheds, and presumably were working on the railway. They weren’t Irish, Joan said, but came from different parts of the UK.

At one stage the owner (of Bridge Cottage) went bankrupt and the Squire person who lived in the Old Hall, Balguy, did his best by whichever Longden it was and organised a public hearing in the Cheese (think of the excitement!) and I think he escaped the term ‘bankrupt.’ Maybe that was when they let the house.”

Personal Comunication, Moira Monteith

25. Farms around the Parish

Recently some members of the Historical Society have been working in the churchyard, clearing overgrown corners and removing encroaching ivy and vegetation as part of their latest research project.  Tackling an area under shrubs next to the churchyard wall we came across three gravestones propped up and hidden.

Clearing away some of the moss that covered one of them a familiar name was revealed.  Recently I wrote about Jonathan Longden at Bridge Cottage.  Here was his gravestone.  It was like meeting a friend – a happy coincidence that makes researching Hope’s history such a rewarding and interesting occupation.  The two other gravestones were for members of the Middleton family, a well known name in Hope.  All the gravestones were in a fragile condition and will need care in cleaning them before we can decipher their full inscriptions.

Continuing with our house-to-house survey.  In 1851 the census enumerator started in Hope parish by recording the farms that lie in the hills surrounding the village beginning with Nicholas Woodroffe at Townhead, whose family we have already met.  There are over eighteen farms of varying sizes scattered along spring lines on the slopes of Loose Hill and Win Hill, with more on Eccles.  Together with the residents of the village who proudly declare themselves as farmers on the census form, however small their acreage, agriculture is the primary occupation locally.

The tythe map has set us a few puzzles when it comes to identifying some of the farms.  This is not helped by the fact that the census enumerator did not keep to any particular order when visiting properties, and did not always identify a house by name.

The next place that we can identify with certainty is Oaker, or Oakwood as it appears on the census. It was a farm of 56 acres, most of the land being owned by the Middleton family whose farmhouse was in the centre of the village, and is now the Spar shop.  Oaker was run by John Wilson for his 90 year old father, Joseph, with help from 24 year old grandson, Thomas Barker.  The house would have been pretty full, because besides Dolly, Joseph’s 85 year old wife, there was Susannah, John’s wife and an assortment of young grandchildren, Joseph and Fanny (scholars) and Charles and one year old twins George and Georgianna.

Sources – 1847 Tythe Allotment and map, 1851 Census

28. Farfield to Lane Side.

Thomas Broomhead was an absentee landlord who owned both Farfield Farm and Crabtree Meadow.  His tenant was 57 year old Joseph Eyre who lived at Farfield with his wife Charlotte,  Joseph Wright, a farm labourer and an eleven year old house servant, Mary Shallcross.  There was also a lodger, Martha Craven.

Joseph farmed 32 acres, part of which would include the land at Crabtree Meadow.  There was no grand house at Crabtree then, just a small farmhouse and accompanying barns.  The house was lived in by Thomas Hall aged 85 who is described as an ex-farmer and pauper.  There were also his daughter, Elizabeth, a charwoman and his grandson, John, an agricultural labourer who no doubt helped Joseph Eyre on the farms.

Thomas Hall must have grown too old or infirm to work on the farm and would have applied to the parish for poor relief.  This was a pot of money raised by a levy on the inhabitants of the village and was administered by the Overseer for the Poor.  At this time the overseer was Nicholas Woodroffe from Townhead.  Thomas may have appeared on the census as a pauper, but he proudly proclaims that he had been a farmer. The Poor Law will be an interesting further study.

North of Crabtree Meadow, on the edge of Hope parish lies Kings Haigh, at this time a farm of 22 acres owned by the Hassop estate.  There has been a property on this site since at least the 13thC when it was held for the King by members of the Eyre family as sheriffs of the Kings hunting forest. See below to access more information about the history of this land.*

At this time it belonged to the descendant of that early Eyre, the Earl of Newburgh.  The tenant was John Marsden, a bachelor, farming the land and also running a wheelwright’s business.  He was assisted in this by his nephews John and Henry Ashton.  His sister, Sarah Ashton, and niece Emma completed the household.

On now to Laneside, a farm of 55 acres, large by Hope standards.  According to the Tythe allotment it was owned by William How and the tenant was Thomas Elliot.  He was helped by his brother, Joseph and his son, Thomas. Also living there were Mary, Thomas’s wife, Robert Hallam, his eight year old grandson and Harriet Oddy, aged 15, a servant who came originally from Hathersage.

As we visit each household it is interesting to imagine what the lives of these people would have been like one hundred and seventy years ago. The farms would have been dependant on horses for their main power in the fields. Water would come from wells and lighting would be by oil lamps or candles. More about life in Hope anon.

Sources: 1847 Tythe Allotment. 1851 Census Returns.

29. Brough to Loosehill

Brough looks a very compact village – easy for the Census enumerator you would have thought.  In fact it would have been complicated because four separate parishes join in the village, Aston, Hope, Shatton and Bradwell, with the boundaries being defined by Peakshole Water and Bradwell Brook.  Only two properties are listed in Hope – that of Thomas Middleton at Hope House in the centre of the village and Charlie Pearson on Eccles Lane. Thomas owned one large field, the Halsteads, adjacent to the house and described himself as a farmer of 12 acres.  He lived in Hope House with his wife Nancy and two small daughters, Mary Anne and Elizabeth.  Charlie Pearson did not rely solely on farming but was also a Cotton doubler, perhaps working in the Bradwell mill.  He was 62 and shared the farming with his brother Benjamin who owned fields adjacent to Eccles Lane.  He had a house servant, 25 year old Mary Richardson.

The name Eccles derives from Ecclesia or “of the church” and the fields around this part of the village have appeared on land deeds under this name way back to the 12thC.  Hope church was an important missionary centre and the extent of the Hope ecclesiastical parish dates from this time.  On the lane side near Eccles Farm there used to be an old preaching cross which now sits near the north door in Hope churchyard.

Eccles Farm and its land was owned by William Fleming and worked by two brothers, Alexander and William Greaves.  Alexander was unmarried and farmed 63 acres, with the help of two labourers whilst his older brother, a widower, worked 136 acres with help from one labourer.  Benjamin Hallam aged 44 was a farmer’s assistant, and Martin Kennedy, (25) and John Hallam (17) were farm servants.  Ruth Dakin was the housekeeper.  Alexander wrote a diary about the farm which we hold in our archives.

In 1847 the next farm, Pindale, was rented from the Earl of Newburgh by Adam Howe but by 1851 a new family had moved in.  There was no quarry then and Joseph Eyre would have farmed all the 108 acres of land around the intriguingly named Pouchmouth, with help from Elijah Hallam.  He and his wife Hannah had five children ranging in age from eight to two.  The eldest, Thomas would write his own accounts for the farm twenty years later giving us an interesting glimpse of how life on a small farm was organised.

We have nearly completed our circle of farms around the village.  Fields farm was again owned by the Hassop estate and Godfrey Hall and his wife Mary farmed there with help from George Rowsley (14).

Spring House, a farm of 22 acres, was owned and farmed by William Wills Gould with his wife Abigail and schoolboy son Walter living there too.

Lose Hill farm, the last on the census, was owned by Thomas Barker and its 65 acres were farmed by George Barker.  His wife Rachel and three children, John (10) at school, Henry (7) at home and baby Mary completed the household.

Sources: HHS Archives, 1847 Tythe Allotment,1851 Census Return.

30. Farming in Hope

In the census of 1851 there were 91 households in Hope. Of those 45 people called themselves farmers or ex-farmers. 21 farmer’s sons and daughters are listed individually, and there were 12 farm servants living-in on the farms. Also listed are 20 agricultural labourers living separately. So there were almost a hundred people directly employed in agriculture. There were also people who made their living from activities associated with farming such as blacksmiths, wheelwrights and saddlers.

Acreage of land farmed varied from the 3 acres farmed by Hannah Watson somewhere on Edale Road to the Greaves brother’s joint venture at Eccles farm of 199 acres.

The Tythe map of 1847 gives us a picture of land ownership in Hope. Every field is named and numbered and there are 741 of them.  I was interested to find that most farmers owned their own farmhouse and barn yard even though they might rent the rest of their land from what was usually an absentee landlord. There are 93 separate landowners listed on the Tythe apportionment and some are unexpected. Hope Church Wardens owned four fields, Hope Sick Club had two, as did Bradwell Chapel Trust and Eyam School Trust. The vicar had three fields, two called Middle Vicars Part and one Near Vicars Part but at some stage he had lost Far Vicars part to the Earl of Newburgh. The Hope Impounder had two fields and these still exist today as places where stray cattle would be impounded.  Other field names describe the land or its history– Six Days Work, Bear Baiting, Noose Croft, Reedy Carr.

By far the largest landlord was the Earl of Newburgh of Hassop. Historically Thomas Eyre had acquired land in Hope to such an extent that local people had complained. However, a local farmer William Middleton, whose farmhouse and barns were in the centre of the village, had the next largest holding.  He died in 1849 so by the time of the census his son Robert was living in the farmhouse (now Spar) and presumably farming the land. Interestingly John Talbot, as part of his research, found an item in the Derbyshire Mercury of February 1858 in which Robert has put land on the market.  I have not had time to look at this in detail but every field has its tythe map name and reference and the sale covers land and also buildings in the centre of the village.

Sources1847 Tythe Map and Allotment, 1851 Census record, The Derbyshire Mercury 3.2.1858

31  More about farming.

Farming was never an easy occupation, particularly if the acreage was small, and many people who called themselves farmers had to find other ways to supplement their income.  George Bocking, landlord of the Old Hall Hotel, ran an Omnibus service to Sheffield on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.  Robert Unwin ran a carrier service from his farm in the market place. Several farmers were corn dealers and others sold cheese or tea or butter in an attempt to make ends meet.  Richard Hobson is listed as a sacking manufacturer in the trade directories.

Other trades associated with farming were those which serviced the farmer’s carts and animals.  John Marsden at Kings Haigh was a wheelwright, with his two apprentice nephews, and there was also a wheelwright in Brough.  The village could support two blacksmiths.  Micah Holmes and his son John and their two apprentices shod horses at the Netherhall end of the village and Thomas Rowland and his sons did so at the other end.  They also both produced iron work.  John Proctor had a saddlers and harness shop in the Shambles.  John Watson had his butchers shop there too whilst Thomas Howe’s butcher’s shop was on Edale Road.  The mill for grinding the farmer’s corn was run by George Woodhouse with help from his apprentice, and of course there was another mill in Brough.

George Wombwell and his son were the resident veterinary surgeons, so farmer’s animals were cared for.  Possibly better than the humans as there was no doctor in Hope at this time.

A market at which to sell their animals and produce would have been important.  Hope first had a market in 1715 when John Balguy of Hope Hall set up the procedure for establishing one.  According to the trade directories this had fluctuated in fortune and by 1850 was in abeyance.  However John Talbot has a poster of 1853 in which farmers from Hope and seventeen surrounding villages are working to set up the market once again.  There were forty seven people involved in representing their villages for this venture, twelve of them from Hope, so let us hope it was successful.

John Talbot has been loaned a set of papers relating to the Market by Alastair Sneddon of Bagshaw’s Auctioneers at Bakewell.  Whether it ran continuously from 1855 we will perhaps find out. I certainly remember it as a going concern, thirty years ago, operating next to the Old Hall car park where the houses now are.

Sources 1851 Census Returns,Bagshaw’s Trade Directory, Kelly’s Trade Directory, John & Esme Talbot (poster)

32. Hope Village.

If you had lived in Hope in the 1850s your needs would have been well met. There were people to make your clothes for instance.  Edwin Bradwell had enough business as a tailor to be able to employ two apprentices.  The ladies were equally well catered for with Fanny Howe, Charity Hobson, Grace Pollard, Sarah Bolsover, Sarah Brown, Elizabeth Waterhouse and mother and daughter Dinah and Mary Gould all offering to make dresses and bonnets and put stays in the dresses for that extra fashionable touch.

Local shops provided items to supplement what you could not grow or rear on your own croft. Robert and Betty Unwin kept a grocers shop in the Market Place and Joseph Andrew at Ebenezer House was a cheese factor and grocer.  The taste for tea was catered for by Charles Hobson and Hardy Walker also dealt in tea in his draper’s shop.  John Cottrill and John Dakin and his wife also had shops in the village though we do not know what they sold specifically.

There were also plenty of people to supply you with footwear.  Two branches of the Robinson family were cordwainers (boot makers) as was Robert Ashton.  We have in our archives copies of the accounts kept by the Hobson family at the Durham Ox Inn who also made boots and shoes for men and women

Other household items were provided by two branches of the Rowland family who called themselves “tin men” and beat out pots and pans and other cooking utensils. When you broke your windows Joseph Siddall as a glazier could mend them for you. Nathan Ashton would keep your garden tidy and if you needed lodgings then Elizabeth Robinson would oblige.

Elizabeth Pollard and Elizabeth Marsh offered their services as charwomen and Mary Rowlands would mangle for you on wash days.  Elizabeth Marsh was a pauper, trying to supplement her meagre income and support her three children. She was aged 28 whereas the only three other paupers in the village at this time, Thomas Hall, Adam Bolsover and Martha Harris, were all over 75.

Other people worked outside the village. John Robinson was a weaver and George Pearson was a factory bookkeeper, both possibly working in Brough.

The other important set of businesses in Hope were the pubs.  In the days when there was no piped water for drinking people relied on ale to quench their thirst and Hope was well provided with places to do just that, either as an ale house, where you took your jug to be filled for the family meal or as a place where you could enjoy a sociable pint.  The Rowland sisters ran the Horseshoe and the Hobsons looked after the Durham Ox. The Woodroofe Arms and the Cross Daggers Inn were the two main pubs in the village, but further up Edale Road the Cheshire Cheese would supply the needs of those in that area.

Sources:  Census 1851.Doreen Sedgewick – Hobson Accounts.

33 Summing up (Part 1)

In the 1851 census we are told that there were 429 inhabitants in Hope, 215 male and 214 female.  Of these 138 were children, but not all of them went to school.   A proportion of them were “at home”, either because they were in their teens and could be said to have finished their education, or because they were under school age. The teenage girls “at home” may have helped to look after the younger children.

There were 66 “scholars” but we don’t know whether they went to the school run by Hannah and Mary Bennett at the Old Hall cottage or to the Free School on School Lane.

The school building on School Lane was built in 1655 and by this time was showing its age. Various items in the parish accounts show that moss was purchased to fill gaps in the walls and a new heather thatch was laid.  By 1858 the building was replaced with a new school on the footprint of the old one.  During the demolition the remains of a Celtic cross were discovered, used as a lintel and building material when Parliament decreed that such crosses should be destroyed back in 1654.  This cross was eventually restored and placed in the churchyard.  There would originally have been a schoolmaster’s house, shown on the tithe map, on the site of the current church car park. The cost of rebuilding the school and furnishing it with desks etc was £263.18.9d, the money raised by public donations.

There were two churches in Hope, the oldest being the Anglican St Peters with roots back to Anglo Saxon times and a building started in the 13thC.  The ecclesiastical parish spread very widely from Fairfield, near Buxton, to Stoke, near Calver and from Hope Woodlands to Grindlow. Not even Bradwell had its own church at this time and people were buried in Hope churchyard from very far afield.  The Historical Society is planning an exhibition in Wakes Week which will show this and many other aspects of our churchyard memorials.

Much more recent was the Methodist Chapel built by local people in 1835 on land given to them by Jacob Darwent and catering for the growing number of non-conformists. Bradwell had at least three Methodist chapels so when Hope’s chapel was built, the vicar’s wife, Mrs Cave Brown Cave, had been known to join the congregation perhaps concerned that her husband’s flock at St Peters was being adversely affected.

Sources 1851 Census returns:1847 Tythe map: Notes from a Peakland Parish: Derbyshire Mercury, Nov. 1860

34. Summing Up.(Part 2)

The 1851 census tells us that Hope had 99 houses and 429 residents. We know that there was no running water and lighting would be from candles and oil lamps. By contrast it is interesting to see what is happening in the rest of the country. The first subterranean cable had been laid under the English Channel, and the Royal Marsden Hospital had opened in London as the first for specialist Cancer. The Arsenic Act restricted the use of arsenic in food and the Window Tax was abolished.

One event which would have excited interest in Hope was the Great Exhibition held at the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park in 1851.  The inspiration for this amazing building came from Joseph Paxton’s lily house on the Chatsworth estate and would surely have been talked about locally.  

In an era when there was little state help if you fell on hard times Hope residents had already started a branch of the Oddfellows Lodges which, as well as the social side, saw that  members received sick pay if they were unable to work. Later in the decade a Sick Club was instituted.  We have already seen how a group of local farmers were working to restart Hope market.

A parish Bull was kept by Benjamin Watson, part of another local charity to help farmers and there is the equivalent today. There is still a Bull Meadow field in the village.

Whilst Hope was self-sufficient in the services and shops it had to offer there was no one listed in the 1851 census as working in the quarry, which had a very good reputation for the quality of its lime.  Nor was anyone working in the lead mines even though they were so close at hand in Bradwell and Castleton.

Sources:/1847 Tythe map and Allotment./1851 Census,/ Hope Historical Society Archives.