Read and hear all about Chaddesden's history in over 150 articles and interviews listed on this page.

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 Recent Additions and Updates to this page

St Philip's Church 70th Anniversary
St Philip's Church was consecrated 70 years ago on 17 December 1955.
This article describes the expansion of Derby that changed rural Chaddesden into large housing estates within thirty years and the creation of new parishes and churches to serve the growing population. The construction of the church is described, including the use of structural reinforced concrete and walls faced with Davie concrete blocks to give the effect of a limestone rubble wall. It is thought to be the only church built in this way.
 

St Mary's Parish Magazine March 1944
Mr C Smith
If you had ancestors or friends living in Chaddesden in the 1940s you may find their names here in the long lists of prize winners. For other readers the advertisements of local traders, which occupied seven of the twelve pages, may be of more interest.

Chaddesden Park revised.
Now includes a photo of the formal garden at Chaddesden Hall.

 Estates and Houses

The Oldest Road in Chaddesden
Peter Barnes
The oldest road in Chaddesden is older than Chaddesden itself and it is still in use today.

Chaddesden Hall
Peter Cholerton
For two centuries Chaddesden Hall, the Wilmot family home, was by far the largest and grandest property in the village. However, in 1917 when faced with heavy death duties and failing health, Sir Ralph Henry Sacheverel Wilmot (6th Baronet) decided to sell the entire 2,000-acre Chaddesden estate including the Hall. Sir Ralph died the next year and his family's long connection with Chaddesden came to an end. The Hall lingered on for a few years more before being demolished in 1926-1927. This article, which looks at the likely origins of the Hall and attempts to give an account of the various stages in its development, is largely based upon a talk given by the author to Chaddesden Historical Group in September 2023.

Death in the Ice-house
Peter Cholerton
Like many grand country houses, Chaddesden Hall once possessed its own ice-house, a semi-subterranean structure designed for the storage of perishable foodstuffs. Sited in the park a short distance from the Hall, the ice-house would have comprised an earth mound some 30 or 40 ft in diameter covering a barrel-vaulted or domed brick-lined chamber half-filled with ice. Access to such an ice-house was usually down a flight of steps and through one or more doors, tightly-sealed to stop the ice melting. It was the duty of the Hall's servants to keep it stocked with provisions. In October 1788 one man tragically died just a few minutes after entering the ice-house.

An Early 19th-Century Plan of Chaddesden
Peter Cholerton
Looking through the oldest register of St. Mary's Church almost half a century ago, the author came upon an intriguing sketch plan showing the principal homesteads of the village, the names of their occupants, and the distances from each house measured in yards back to a central point. Associated with the plan was a table with the distances set out in chains and links, evidently the result of some laborious work with a 22-yard-long surveyor's chain. The obvious questions remained, however, what were the plan and distance table for and how old were they? In 1985 he undertook a detailed examination of the various features shown on the plan and distance table, and also analysed the surnames of the householders in order to answer these questions. The results of the investigation were first published in "Derbyshire Miscellany", the local history periodical of the Derbyshire Archaeological Society, in Autumn 1985, this current article being a slightly modified version more suitable for a website.

The Wilmot Almshouse Charity
The charity was established in 1638 to provide housing on Bridgegate, Derby, for ten poor people of good and honest life, and housing for another six in Chaddesden. The Derby almshouses were demolished in 1934 but those in Chaddesden lasted until 1961.

Tales from the Almshouses
Peter Cholerton
The six diminutive Chaddesden Almshouses built by Robert Wilmot in the seventeenth century provided much needed accommodation for the poor and elderly of the parish. Situated only a few yards from St Mary's Church the almshouses were a familiar part of Chaddesden until their demolition. In this short article you can read a couple of stories relating to life in the Almshouses a century ago.

Almshouses
Gordon Bowley, Oswald Rees
Recollections of the six small dwellings for older residents that were located near the church.

Butts Yard, Chaddesden Lane
Peter Cholerton
Butts Yard was a short, private drive leading off Chaddesden Lane providing access to Hall Farm and two ancient cottages.  The cottages went unseen by most people in the village until the construction of Maine Drive in the late 1940s resulted in the demolition of the surrounding buildings, effectively removing Butts Yard in the process but opening up a completely new view of the cottages.   Unfortunately this state of affairs only continued for a few years, for the two cottages were themselves demolished in the 1960s to make way for new properties.

Water Supply in Chaddesden
Peter Cholerton
Chaddesden's water was drawn from wells prior to the installation of water mains.
This article refers to many, now disused, wells, also the Derwent Valley Aqueduct which crosses the parish on its way to Leicester.

Cowsley House
Peter Cholerton and Vince Mills
Now just another one of Derby's vanished buildings, Cowsley House once stood on Nottingham Road a short distance outside the old Chaddesden parish boundary.  A substantial property, it was home to a variety of different families over the years – Pountain, Aulton, Evans, Brayshaw, Bates and Kerry – and older residents of the area may still recall Cowsley Stores, which operated from the rear of the building and first opened its doors to the public in the 1940s.

Highfield House, Highfield Lane
Once known as Highland House. This house and Highfield Lodge adjacent are the oldest on Highfield Lane.

House Names and Numbers
Peter Barnes
When Chaddesden was a village it was possible to identify each house only by name and for the postman to know the name of every house and who lived there. House numbers were first used to identify the Midland Railway Cottages on Highfield Lane but their general use did not begin until 1928 when the growth of the estates and the proliferation of names was making addresses hard to identify. Some residents were attached to their house names and it was not until the Second World War that house numbers were universally accepted.

The Growth of Chaddesden
Gordon Bowley, Oswald Rees, Barbara Fibiger, Catherine Rees
Changes to the village in the 1920s and 1930s after the Wilmot estate was sold in 1918. Refers to Roe Farm Estate, Max Road, the older buildings on Morley Road, and the first house built after the estate was sold.

Houses on Chaddesden Lane
including photographs donated by Audrey Bennett and Margaret Poyser.
Photos of houses on Chaddesden Lane around 1930-35 and a modern scene for comparison.

Margreave Road
Peter Barnes
Margreave Road is a street on the Chaddesden Park Road Estate built by John Henry Greaves. It was originally named Suffolk Road but renamed at the request of the Post Office to avoid confusion with nearby Suffolk Avenue. The name is unique in Britain and probably commemorates Greaves' marriage to Monica Marian Pearman in spring 1936 (Marian Greaves).

Aerial view of Northwood Avenue, Madison Avenue and Chaddesden Park Road
D Arnell Collection
Believed to have been taken in the 1980s as it shows the doctors' surgery at 5 Northwood Avenue with extensions to the original building.  The building with the white roof opposite the surgery is the scout hut.

Wood Road Estate Plan c.1936
Alex Wilson
If you live in a pre-war house on Rupert Road, Max Road, Buxton Road, Haydn Road, Wollaton Road, Marjorie Road, Wilson Road or Ashfield Avenue, you may be able to find your house on this plan which shows how the estate might have been laid out if construction had not been stopped by the Second World War.

Aerial view of Wood Road Estate
The pre-war estate is nearer the camera with (left) Marjorie Road and (right) Haydn Road.  Wollaton Road runs diagonally across the middle of the picture to the circular junction with Taddington Road that looks as though it was intended to be the centrepiece of the estate.  Post-war Taddington Road runs across the top of the photo.  The two large buildings in the centre near the top are St Philip's church and vicarage completed in 1955.

Blossom in Chaddesden Park Road
Andrew Bailey
Each spring the flowering cherry trees of Chaddesden Park Road provide a wonderful reminder that warmer days are on their way.  Enjoy this short photo tour taken on a Sunday morning in April 2011.

Stanley Building Block brochure, 1937
T.H. Anthony
Thomas Henry Anthony (1888-1980) began building houses in Chaddesden around 1927 using distinctive hollow concrete blocks that were manufactured at his own quarry in Stanley. Around 1935 Anthony went into partnership with Frederick Henry Turner of Burton Road, Derby.  Trading as Anthony and Turner, the partnership bought a large building plot on the south side of Harvey Road, Allenton and this brochure describes mainly houses being built at Allenton.  Anthony's own house appears on the front cover and a house on Morley Road, Chaddesden built for his daughter and son-in-law is on page nine. The partnership ended with the death of Turner in January 1938.  The estate at Allenton was left incomplete and the Stanley quarry closed.  Housebuilding with Stanley blocks ceased as cavity wall construction for brick walls was in widespread use by then, offering the same benefits of a warmer, dry house as the Stanley concrete block.

 Shops and Other Businesses

Along the Front
John Bennett
The Shops at Chaddesden Lane End.
The writer recalls the numerous small shops on Nottingham Road near the junction with Chaddesden Lane and those on the opposite side "over the road" as they were in the 1960s.

Boots the Chemist
Tony Bowler
Boots first shop in Derby, at the junction of St Peter's Street and East Street, featured statues of Jedediah Strutt, John Lombe, William Hutton and Florence Nightingale.  It is now a listed building.  In the 1930s a shop was opened on Nottingham Road, Chaddesden Lane End. Although Boots occupy neither of these original premises, they still have several branches in Derby.

Shops
Catherine Rees, Gordon Bowley.Barbara Fibiger, Oswald Rees
Shopping in Derby, by horse and trap or by tram before the shops were built on Nottingham Road followed by recollections of the Nottingham Road shops and the Park Hotel, also the shops on Chaddesden Lane next to the Jubilee Club.

Milk Deliveries
Barbara Fibiger, Gordon Bowley, Oswald Rees
Mr Lummas the milkman with his horse-drawn cart, Gordon Bowley doing weekend milk deliveries and Oswald Rees delivering milk from the Willett's herd in competition with the Co-op milkmen.

The Majestic and The Gloria Cinemas
Three luxury cinemas opened in Derby in 1938 and two of them were in Chaddesden.
The arrival of television in the 1950s led to falling audiences and their eventual closure.
Supermarkets now stand on the site of both.

Sunnyside Cafe, Chaddesden Common
Peter Cholerton
Long before the vast Oakwood estate was built, older residents of Chaddesden will remember the Sunnyside Cafe on Morley Road as being a relatively isolated property set amidst local farmland. Built in the years immediately following the First World War, Sunnyside was run for some years as a smallholding, and it was only after several changes in ownership that it became a cafe and store. Although it was demolished some years ago, its name has been retained to mark a short length of drive leading to a small group of properties on Morley Road.

Do you remember these businesses?
A compilation of adverts for local businesses that featured in St. Mary's Church Parish Magazine in 1959.

 Post Offices

Chaddesden Post Offices
Peter Cholerton
The Penny Post was introduced in 1840 and thanks to this innovative idea communication became easier and cheaper than ever before.  The first known reference to the regular delivery of letters at Chaddesden occurs in 1843 and a postal receiving office was opened in late 1850, enabling villagers to leave their letters at the receiver's premises to be forwarded on to the sorting office in Derby.  Over the years the Post Office operated out of various local properties, and while Chaddesden remained a village all the Postmaster or Postmistress needed was a small room in their own house which could be easily accessed by members of the public wishing to conduct basic postal business, for example buying stamps, weighing parcels and posting letters.  From the 1930s onwards, as Chaddesden expanded, new and larger Post Offices were opened in various locations, but in more recent years new technology and changes in shopping patterns have reversed this trend resulting in the closure of some of our familiar Post Offices.

Post Office photographs
Peter Barnes
Photographs of Chaddesden's three remaining Post Offices.

 Public Houses

Wilmot Arms
CHG Collection with photos by Gregg Marley and Peter Barnes.
Chaddesden's oldest public house is on Chaddesden Lane near the junction with Morley Road and Wood Road.

Chaddesden Park Hotel
Toby Carvery
Chaddesden's first new public house in the 20th century was opened by Alton's brewery in December 1931.

The Rhino, Max Road
Peter Barnes / Gregg Marley
The public house formerly on the site of Holmegate Close.

 Healthcare

A History of the Derwent Hospital
Donald Singleton
The author, who was a clerical officer at Derwent Hospital between 1950 and 1959 and then Hospital Secretary until 1974 researched the early history of infectious diseases hospitals in Derby mainly from records in what is now Derby Local Studies Library.  The later history is from hospital records to which he had access. Derwent Hospital closed in 1985 and the buildings were demolished a year or so later. The Derwent Heights housing estate now occupies the site.
An appendix contains a page from an unidentified report which describes the hospital as it was c.1970.

Chaddesden Doctors
Margaret Poyser
A look back at some of the local doctors in an era when appointments were not necessary – if you needed to see a doctor you simply went to the surgery and waited your turn.

The Park Medical Practice
Link to the practice history page.
The practice was established in Borrowash around 1895.  Their first surgery in Chaddesden was opened around 1943 on Spinney Road then moved to 79 Chaddesden Park Road.  They occupied the first purpose-built surgery in Chaddesden at 5 Northwood Avenue between 1957 and 1991 before moving to the present premises on Maine Drive.

 Schools and Libraries

Cherry Tree Hill School Photographs
Multiple contributors
A selection of class photographs from 1940 until the mid-1960s.
If you are a former pupil, you might recognise some of the faces.  You might even appear yourself!

Derwent School Photographs
A H Padley Collection donated by Julie Cokayne
Group photograph of teachers 1952/53

Programme for Derwent School for Boys, Coronation Garden Party, 27 June 1953
A H Padley Collection donated by Julie Cokayne.
The programme was a single folded sheet with the back page being blank, presented here as a single page.

Primary School
Catherine Rees, Oswald Rees, Barbara Fibiger, Gordon Bowley
The village school in Chaddesden, using the Memorial Hall as an extra classroom, until Morley Road School opened. Mr Dowling was headmaster of both.

Spondon House School
Spondon Historical Society
Increases in the school leaving age to 14 in 1918 and 15 in 1947 together with the growing population of Chaddesden led to a need for secondary education that was not met in the parish until the opening, in 1954, of the school now known as Lees Brook. Before then children from Chaddesden attended Spondon House School. You may see some of them in this extensive collection of photographs.

Secondary School
Catherine Rees
The village school taught pupils up to age 11. Older pupils walked to school at Spondon

Chaddesden Libraries
Photographs and histories of some of Chaddesden's libraries.

 Churches

A Short Guide to the Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin, Chaddesden
Peter Cholerton
Do you know how many Grade I listed places of worship there are in the city of Derby? The answer is just three – the Cathedral, the Bridge Chapel and St. Mary's Church, Chaddesden! Almost half a century ago (in 1976 to be precise) the author was asked by St. Mary's Church Army Captain, David Ruddick, to write a brief history of the church. Thanks to a generous anonymous donation from a lady who wished only to be referred to as 'an old scholar of St. Mary's Church & Day School, Chaddesden' it was published as an eight-page booklet later that same year. This account of the church, which has kept the same title, is largely based on that publication. Some photographs have been added, a few corrections made and a limited amount of new material included. For anyone seeking further, more detailed, information about this fascinating church and its history, it is suggested they read the book, 'The Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Chaddesden – A Guide and History', which the author wrote in 1997.

St. Mary's Church, Chaddesden – Graves Plan and List
Peter Cholerton
In the 1980s the author recorded all the memorial stones of the 280 or so marked graves in St. Mary's churchyard, Chaddesden, prior to the removal in late 1983 of some 90 sets of kerbstones that were preventing routine grass-mowing.  This article includes both a simplified plan showing the locations of the graves and a listing which details every name recorded on the memorial stones, together with the deceased's year of death and age.  This new resource should be of particular interest to anyone trying to locate the grave of a relative or working on genealogical research.

St Mary's Parish Magazine March 1944
Mr C Smith
If you had ancestors or friends living in Chaddesden in the 1940s you may find their names here in the long lists of prize winners. For other readers the advertisements of local traders, which occupied seven of the twelve pages, may be of more interest.

Winding the Church Clock
Peter Cholerton
Commissioned by Rev. Arthur Ellerton and installed in 1904, the turret clock mechanism of St. Mary's Church was made by John Smith & Sons of Derby and has been counting the hours and minutes at Chaddesden for well over a century.

A Canadian Mystery
Peter Cholerton
Back in 2011 St Mary's Church in Oak Bay on Vancouver Island, Canada, celebrated its 100th anniversary and the parishioners decided it was time publish an account of its history.  Whilst looking through their archives in search of interesting material, they were somewhat perplexed to find an ancient key, clearly predating the building of their own place of worship, which bore a label stating that it came from Chaddesden Parish Church, Derby, England.  In due course a letter was sent over here to see what, if anything, we might be able to tell them about the key and its long journey of some 5,500 miles.

St Philip's Church 70th Anniversary
St Philip's Church was consecrated on 17 December 1955. This article describes the expansion of Derby that changed rural Chaddesden into large housing estates within thirty years and the creation of new parishes and churches to serve the growing population. The construction of the church is described, including the use of structural reinforced concrete and walls faced with Davie concrete blocks to give the effect of a limestone rubble wall. It is thought to be the only church built in this way.

The Parish Church of St. Philip, Chaddesden
Anne Sherwood
A Celebration of Forty Years of Parish Life  1955 - 1995.

Photograph of St Philip's Church from Taddington Road
Janet Ireland
Shows the unusual separate bell tower that is linked to the main church building only by the entrance porch.

St Alban's Church
Tony Bowler
The provision of a Roman Catholic church for the growing population of  Chaddesden was considered in the 1930s.  Thanks to  Mgr James Hargreaves a temporary church was opened on Roe Farm Lane in 1948.  The present church was completed and used for worship from June 1955.

Programme for St Mark's Parochial Garden Party, 18 June 1960
A H Padley Collection donated by Julie Cokayne.
This event was opened by the wife of the headmaster of Derwent School for Boys. The attractions included "shie" which is an archaic spelling of a verb meaning "to throw" as in coconut shy. Perhaps more interesting than the activities are the advertisements for local traders which include one for Bates & Kerry at 3 & 5 Dorset Street, once known as Cowsley House.

Chaddesden Methodist Church
Peter Barnes
A Wesleyan Methodist chapel was built on Chapel Lane in 1838.  Services were moved to the village school on Chaddesden Lane when this chapel became too small for the growing congregation and moved again to a new church on Chesapeake Road in 1957.

New Homes bring a New Church
Tony Bowler, revised by Peter Barnes
Mayfield Road Methodist Church, opened in 1928, was the first church in the new housing estates.

The Church of Christ, 1920-1970
The Church of Christ was formed in 1920 in the Osmaston area of Derby. In 1937 the church moved to a new building on Reginald Road, Chaddesden, being the second church built in the new estates. A Sunday School building was added on the same site in 1956. This book in the Chaddesden Historical Group collection celebrates the Golden Jubilee of the church and its members. Following the union with the United Reformed Church in 1981, the church was known as the Chaddesden United Reformed Church. Falling attendances and a lack of money forced its closure in 2015. Its conversion into two houses, 42a Reginald Road and 35a Oakleigh Avenue is described in Newsletter 55. The Sunday School was later converted into a house and is now 35b Oakleigh Avenue.

The Convent of the Holy Name, Morley Road
Peter Cholerton
Originally known as Chaddesden Moor House and built as a gentleman's residence in the first half of the nineteenth century, the property was home to a succession of well-to-do families (Wilmot, Heathcote, Bateman, Smith, Girardot, Whinyates and Craven) down the years.  In 1922, Charles Arthur Carlin married Ethel Lilian Birkin, the daughter of Sir Thomas Birkin, a lace manufacturer, and the couple moved into the house, which they renamed as Moor Grange, or more simply, The Grange.  A frequent visitor to their home was Prince Alexander Obolensky (1916–1940), who attended schools in Derbyshire.  Mrs. Carlin's nursing background led to the couple transforming their home into a temporary Red Cross Hospital during the Second World War.  In the 1950s the Carlins moved into a cottage in the grounds and gave their large house to a Roman Catholic order, the Sisters of the Presentation, who renamed it as the Presentation Convent Novitiate.  By the late 1980s the sisters had sold the property to the Community of The Holy Name, an Anglican order, whose sisters decided in 2018 that it was now time for them to leave the area and move into smaller premises at Hessle in Yorkshire.

 Transport

The Opening of the Colliery Tramway between Stanley and Chaddesden
A report from the Derby Daily Telegraph of the formal opening, on 20 November 1894, of the Derby Kilburn Colliery Company's cable-hauled tramway between Stanley Footrill Colliery and a wharf at Chaddesden. It was the longest cable-worked line in the UK at the time of opening, yet it had an operational life of just over twenty years and little remains on the ground to show that it existed.

Footrills, Derby Road, Stanley
Photographs by Deryck Morley
Photographs of the buildings of the former Stanley Footrill Colliery, some of which survive over a hundred years after the colliery closed.

Stanley Colliery Railway
Ossie Rees, Gordon Bowley
Recollections of the remains of the former Stanley Colliery tramway, but note that it closed about 10 years earlier than Ossie Rees suggests.

Chaddesden Sidings - Tracks Through Time
Peter Cholerton
For more than a century from its inception in the 1860s, Chaddesden Sidings formed a crucial component of both the regional and national railway network. Its sorting and marshalling tracks handled an impressive number of wagons each working day, and by the 1870s it is recorded that over one million individual wagons were being dealt with annually. Performance such as this naturally attracted quite a lot of attention and details from contemporary reports are given here, including one translated from a major French publication! For many years horses were used to shunt the wagons and they were accommodated in a block of stables close to the Derby Canal. With so much activity going on all day long, Chaddesden Sidings was not the safest of places in which to work, and over the years many members of staff would unfortunately suffer serious or fatal injuries. By the 1960s, changes in the way railway freight was handled, coupled with an ever-increasing use of road-haulage would eventually spell the demise of the sidings. Recent years have seen new retail and commercial developments built on the site and in 2021 the demolition of the remaining portion of the old Wagon Repair Workshop effectively brought the history of Chaddesden Sidings to a close.

Wagon Repair Workshop - Chaddesden Sidings
Jean Moss, Peter Barnes
In 1873 the Midland Railway built a wagon repair workshop at Chaddesden Sidings, a location that was served by goods trains from all over the Midland system and sorted over a million wagons in a year.  After the closure of the sidings, the building was used by the Interior Stone Features company as a fireplace factory until most was destroyed by fire on 14 April 1994.  The business resumed from 1996 until 2016 as The Derby Fireplace Co. after which the building stood empty until demolished in July 2021.

Chaddesden's Five Forgotten Railway Cottages
Peter Cholerton
You may well be familiar with Highfield Cottages on Highfield Lane, which were originally built to provide accommodation for railway workers, but did you know that in this same part of the old village five other cottages (one alongside the Derby Canal and four on Meadow Lane) once served a similar purpose?  Over the years many of their occupants would have worked at the nearby Chaddesden Sidings, but when much of the railway work was transferred away from Chaddesden the sidings quickly became surplus to requirements and all five properties were demolished leaving nothing behind to mark their site today.

Chaddesden Sidings
Neil Johnson
Neil came to live in Chaddesden in the winter of 1964/65 just as he entered his teens. He loves Derbyshire and has twice lived in Cherry Tree Hill. Here he reminisces about Chaddesden Sidings, once such a prominent feature in the local landscape.

Tales of the rails and other minor indiscretions
Neil Johnson
A miscellany of railway recollections

To Chaddesden by Balloon
Peter Cholerton
For many residents of Victorian Derby and places as far afield as Birmingham and Sheffield, the town's annual Arboretum Anniversary Festival was a spectacular event not to be missed. In 1857 the main attraction was the well-known balloonist, Mr Henry Coxwell, who was advertising a parachute descent, balloon races and a special late afternoon ascent in his balloon. Enticed by these and other displays on offer, many residents of Chaddesden must have gone along to see the amazing sight of a large balloon ascending into the skies above Derby. What they didn't know, however, was that the balloon's flight, propelled by a westwardly breeze, would send it straight to Chaddesden, where Coxwell decided to land in the parkland adjoining Chaddesden Hall.

Holme Ford
Peter Cholerton
Centuries ago reliable bridges in our part of Derbyshire were few and far between and, for many people wanting to cross the River Derwent, a ford was the only option. The first of such river crossings below the town of Derby was Holme Ford between Chaddesden and Osmaston and by the sixteenth century it was much used by merchants and individuals from Derby and the many villages to its south who wished to buy coal from the pits in the Ilkeston and Heanor area. The ford would also have been used by the different branches of the Wilmot family to keep in contact with each other, for their grand residences of Chaddesden Hall and Osmaston Hall lay on opposite sides of the river. The increasing prosperity of Derby brought with it a demand for better water-borne transportation and in 1720 Parliamentary approval was given to make the River Derwent navigable from the River Trent to Derby. It seems that Holme Ford had already fallen into disuse prior to that time and any remnants of the old ford were doubtless swept away when the river was dredged in order to expedite the passage of boats.

End of the Road for Felix and its Successors
Peter Barnes / John Bennett
The Felix Bus Service was founded by local man Norman Frost, born at Stanley.  Frost was apprenticed to a garage on leaving school but his apprenticeship was interrupted by the First World War.  His Derby - Ilkeston bus service through Chaddesden began running in 1924 and continued to do so until the company was sold in 2012.  Notts & Derby operated the same route until withdrawing in 2018.  Evening and Sunday journeys continued under contract to Derbyshire County Council but that arrangement ended in February 2020. Since October 2022 the route is covered by Trent Barton 32 between Derby and Ilkeston only.

Meadow Lane Bridges
Peter Barnes
Meadow Lane is one of the oldest roads in Chaddesden, once crossing the Derby Canal by a hump-backed bridge.  When the course of the canal was used as the route of the A52 Nottingham Road diversion, a concrete footbridge was built close to the site of the original bridge.  The footbridge was demolished in 2019 to make way for a shared foot/cycle bridge which was opened exactly 18 months after the previous bridge closed.

 Agriculture

Map of Field Farm 1918 - 1936
This map shows the extent of Field Farm as it was when the Chaddesden Estate was broken up and sold in 1918.
Wood Road can be seen running north-south on the eastern side of the farm.  Field Lane, Morley Road and the Wilmot Arms also appear on the map.  These are the only features to survive since the farm was sold for house building in 1936.

Brook Farm, Chapel Lane
Rita Bailey
Brook Farm was one of the last working farms in Chaddesden. The farm buildings have been converted into private houses. Some of the land was bought by Derbyshire County Council as the site of a new secondary school, now known as Lees Brook Academy. Despite attempts to build houses, the remainder of the farm land is currently disused.

The Dumble Hole
Peter Cholerton
Until the 1980s when it was flattened during the construction of Acorn Way, the Dumble Hole could be seen in a field off the bridle path on Morley Road. It was a curious tree-fringed, roughly semi-circular depression some fifty yards across, perhaps five yards deep at its east end with a shallow approach directly opposite. This article explores the meaning of its odd name and suggests that it probably originated in the early nineteenth century as a marl-pit, used by Chaddesden farmers of a bygone era who wanted to improve the texture or quality of their land.

The Chaddesden Sheepwash
Peter Cholerton
A familiar countryside scene in many villages in years gone by was the local sheepwash, where the sheep from local farms could be washed to clean their fleeces prior to being shorn.  Chaddesden's sheepwash seems to have been a fairly substantial structure in Chaddesden Brook, adjacent to the Nottingham Road bridge and was apparently in use until the late 1920s or thereabouts.

The Remains of an Old Corn-Drying Kiln in Wilmot Avenue
Peter Cholerton and Ian Burton
When Ian Burton was working in his new greenhouse, the last thing he expected to find was a large, mysterious, and completely forgotten piece of Chaddesden's agricultural history. A small hole in the ground caught his attention and as he investigated this he revealed a brick-lined cavity leading to an even bigger hole going deeper still. After much arduous work in very cramped conditions he found himself in an underground chamber, but what was it? Ian took photographs of his discovery along to a meeting of Chaddesden Historical Group to see if it could be identified. Various ideas were put forward, but it was eventually decided it was probably the drying chamber of an old corn-drying kiln built into a barn that had once stood on the site of Ian's garden from at least the late eighteenth century until the land on the east side of Highfield Lane was developed for housing in the 1920s and 1930s.

Chaddesden Watermill – Beaumont Acre
Rita Bailey
Throughout its history Chaddesden is now known to have had three watermills on different sites. This account of the watermill at Beaumont Acre in the extreme south of the parish begins with the translation of a remarkable two-part Latin document of 1293-4, which recounts how William le Herberjur of Chaddesden sought the permission of King Edward I to construct a weir across the River Derwent and make a leat 220 yards long to take the water to his mill. Further investigation revealed a document of 1770 referring to proposed works at Beaumont Acre; perhaps significantly mentioning the presence of structures that might conceivably have been related to the original mill.

Chaddesden Mill
Peter Barnes
The last mill in Chaddesden had a working life of around 80 years and then stood disused for nearly as long although the miller's house was occupied until early in the 20th century.  It was driven by water from the Chaddeden Brook taken through the fishponds in Chaddesden Park and then stored in a millpond.  The houses at the bottom of Carol Crescent now stand on the site.

Bradcar Watermill
Peter Cholerton
In 2011 documentary evidence of a previously unknown watermill at Chaddesden was discovered.  Situated on Lees Brook, the corn mill had fallen out of use by the early eighteenth century and in 1717 its site was acquired by William Turner, a Derby attorney, who already held the lease of a mill in Derby, although whether he intended to re-establish this Chaddesden watermill is not clear. Originally written in 2013 this article now has a postscript providing further information and photographs.

The Village Windmill
Peter Cholerton
This short article investigates what little is currently known about Chaddesden's windmill, which once stood on the high ground at what is now the north end of Oregon Way behind Washington Avenue.

Walking the Chaddesden Footpaths
Peter Cholerton
Chaddesden once possessed a significant network of public footpaths, many created centuries ago.  However, the residential development of the village in the twentieth century destroyed substantial lengths of these rights of way.  Here we can read about the very last time the Chaddesden Parish Council formally inspected the footpaths back in 1967, as well as looking at the Definitive Footpath Map and Definitive Footpath Statement that were prepared in 1953 when it was still possible to walk many of the old paths.  The article concludes with details of a 1970s walk along two of the paths that were later lost to the Oakwood development.

Chaddesden's own Penny Long Lane
Peter Cholerton
You may well have heard of Penny Long Lane at Darley Abbey, but this unusual name was also shared with a footpath at Chaddesden which once provided a popular short-cut between the village and Nottingham Road until the residential development of the post-Wilmot era removed the need for it. The footpath was created at the end of the eighteenth century at a time when Chaddesden was very much an agricultural village and indeed until the 1920s a walk along it was to take a pleasant countryside ramble and enjoy the scenery of Chaddesden's green fields.
How times change!

Beating the Bounds
Catherine Rees
Checking the parish boundary to ensure that nothing had been lost.

Countryside
Gordon Bowley, Oswald Rees
The countryside around Chaddesden before it was built on, mentioning Crow Wood, the Methodist chapel on Chapel Lane, field names, horse-drawn ploughs and the sheep dip.

 Parks and Gardens

Chaddesden Park
Multiple contributors
Chaddesden Park once occupied six per cent of the area of the parish, extending along the north side of Nottingham Road all the way between what are now Chaddesden Park Road and Parkside Road.   House building during the 1920s and 1930s covered half of the former parkland and all that remains in this area are a diminishing number of mature trees.   The 1929 town planning scheme protected the remains of the park as an open space.   The park has been open to the public since 1936, its conversion into a leisure park being the largest project undertaken by Chaddesden Parish Council.   The library built here in 1954 was the venue for the first meeting of the Chaddesden Historical Group in 2006.

Sir Charles Markham's Abstract of Title to Chaddesden Hall and Chaddesden Park
Starting from the Will of Sir Henry Wilmot dated 23 May 1891, this document records the ownership of the hall and park, through the sale of the Chaddesden Estate in 1918 until purchased by Sir Charles Markham in 1926.  Introductory text explains Sir Charles' interest in the park and how it was saved by the 1929 Town Planning Scheme.

Chaddesden Park in the 1920s and 1930s
Catherine Rees, Ossie Rees (not related), Gordon Bowley, Barbara Fibiger
Four older residents describe Chaddesden Park in the last days of the Hall and after it was demolished in this recording made in spring 2007 by Rosalind Allen of Groundwork Derby and Derbyshire as part of the Past on Your Doorstep Project. The children asking questions were from Chaddesden Park Junior School.

Mosey Plantation
Catherine Rees interviewed by Rosalind Allen, Barbara Fibiger
The woodland near Chaddesden Hall (not Mossey Plantation as on some maps), the fishponds, public access to the park and the grave of Greyman the horse.

The Demolition of Chaddesden Hall
Catherine Rees, Oswald Rees, Gordon Bowley
The demolition of Chaddesden Hall in the 1920s, also demolition of older houses in the village.

Chaddesden Park Activities
Gordon Bowley, Ossie Rees, Barbara Fibiger
Three older residents recall their activities in the park in the 1950s and 1960s.

Flooding
Catherine Rees, Oswald Rees, Gordon Bowley
Flooding in the 1930s washed away a wall in the park. Flooding of the park remained a problem until 1970. Oswald Rees felling big trees in the park in 1971 to improve the flow of the brook.

The Chaddesden Hall Kitchen Garden
Peter Cholerton
Today no trace remains of the Hall's kitchen garden, which once grew all the fruit and vegetables for the Wilmot family and their household.  Its origins lie back in the eighteenth century at a time when the grounds of grand country-houses were being landscaped and the productive but utilitarian kitchen gardens were moved some distance away from the big houses they served, so as not to spoil the views.  At Chaddesden, the kitchen garden was about one-and-a-quarter acres in size and occupied part of a larger area of trees and shrubs on the west side of Chaddesden Lane, about 300 yards away from the Hall itself ... nowadays its site is marked by the houses of Woodthorpe Avenue, Sherwood Avenue and Tudor Road.  The walled kitchen garden was well shielded from winds and frosts to ensure its temperature was always a few degrees higher than the surrounding land, thereby providing the optimum environment in which to grow all the produce required by the cook over at the Hall.  The article also gives biographical details about four of the gardeners who would all have known and worked in the gardens at some time.  After the sale of the Wilmot estate in 1918, the old kitchen garden and some adjoining land were acquired by Jeremy Hurd, who ran the site as a nursery garden – Old Hall Gardens – for over thirty years, but inevitably it succumbed to residential development in the late 1950s.

The Oakridge Allotments
Peter Cholerton
Prompted perhaps by the austerity of rationing in the Second World War, allotments became a popular and profitable form of recreation in Chaddesden.  Until they were lost to building development in 1965, the Oakridge Allotments on the south side of Morley Road were used by local residents mainly for growing fruit and vegetables, although other allotment holders also kept rabbits, chickens, ducks and pigeons.  A simple sketch plan of the allotments drawn up by Frank Cholerton many years ago provides an insight into the layout of the Oakridge plots in the 1950s or thereabouts.

 Nottingham Road Cemetery