Chesterfield’s Remarkable Women by Janet Murphy tells the stories of 50 women who have links with Chesterfield. It’s still available, priced at £8.50, all proceeds from sales will go to Ashgate HospiceCare. Published by Bannister Publications it is available from them either over the counter or online, or from Chesterfield Visitor Centre, Ashgate Hospicecare shop […]
Category: History
Paul Allonby has very kindly sent us the results of his research on New Whittington’s Harry Young. We’ve published this on our Facebook page and placed it in our ‘History Resources’ section on this website, where you can download this sad story. You can also download it as a pdf from the bottom of this […]
Categories
Dunston Hall history
Our colleagues over at the Chesterfield & District Civic Society have been looking at the history of Dunston Hall, as part of a planning application response. Part of the out-buildings, the subject of the application, comprise a number of cruck frames – a type of timber construction. The civic society concludes that: ‘the survival of […]
You may well know that David McPhie – our society chair – has wide-ranging interests including music. You might also know that he published a book ‘Sounds in the shadow of the Crooked Spire’ with Ian Lee in 2018. But in case you don’t know all this – a reminder that a few copies are […]
Our July 2022 meeting heard about how the Avenue Carbonisation and Chemical Plant, Wingerworth, was decontaminated in the 2000s. As a background this post looks at the opening of the works in the 1950s, through to closure and decontamination. A slightly edited version of this account is available to download as pdf form the page […]
David McPhie As a child, I travelled the length and breadth of the northern half of the extensive railway system of the time in my pursuit of engine numbers (a pastime frequently known quite derisively as trainspotting). However, my more mundane everyday outings were reserved for Chesterfield itself, either from one of the three stations […]
Categories
Chesterfield district in December 1962
As we gear up (or perhaps start to relax(?)) for the Christmas period we thought a brief look at how things were 60 years ago, in December 1962, might be of some interest. This is courtesy of that once well-loved Chesterfield institution, the yearly TP Wood’s Almanac. Time to get your almanac It’s around this […]
Can you help Ben Hawkins in his restoration of an Ernest Shentall lorry of 1914? In 2008 Ben, from the Birmingham area, purchased a Dennis chassis from Mick Giles (another Dennis enthusiast). The chassis is stamped number 3539; revealing it was supplied to Ernest Shentall of Chesterfield for his wholesale fruit business. The lorry – […]
We think that these three photographs were taken during reconstruction of the former Midland Railway’s Horns Bridge structure in 1932, though we’d welcome your comments. We don’t know who the young lad is, being watched by the railway worker above, in our second photograph, but the third photograph gives a view, from the track of […]
We’ve published a new historical trail of the town centre. You can download this two-sided full-colour A4 leaflet at the bottom of this post and via the page we’ve created, accessible by our menu above – ‘Town walking trails’ Written by our Vice-Chair Janet Murphy and designed by CADLHS member David Charlesworth, the new trail […]