by Brian Spencer
A quick look at the Ordnance Survey 1:25000 scale map of the White Peak shows that the region has a history going back thousands of years. Gothic lettered map symbols indicating tumuli, stone circles, field systems or cairns tell us that our forefathers lived and farmed on what are now the high moors of the White Peak, but for some unknown reason abandoned their handiwork for pastures new.
There are many reasons why habitations became lost features in the landscape. There are still farms here and there whose early owners would have slaved for their Roman overlords, or worked as lay employees on monastic granges. Later farms, the source of this monastic wealth as huge sheep walks, were split into the comparatively smaller units that became modern farms. Ethnic cleansing and medieval pestilence like the Black Death did far more damage than the Covid 19 pandemic is ever likely to do.
Clearances have gone on right up to comparatively modern times, be it flooding pretty villages to create reservoirs or open cast coal mining. Major landowners a couple of hundred years ago moved whole villages simply to improve the look of ducal landscapes. And, of course the most up to date subject of climate change has been around for millenniums in one form or another.
Armed with that wonderful aid for exploration, the Ordnance Survey 1:25000 map of the White Peak, we can start to look at our countryside with enquiring eyes. The best way to do this is to try and follow change under a number of headings, i.e.
Mythical Accounts.
Prehistoric settlements
Climate change.
Roman influence.
Ethnic cleansing.
Pestilence.
Monastic clearances and later changes in farming patterns.
Improvements to ducal estates – the NIMBY syndrome.
Inundation during reservoir construction.
Urban expansion.
MYHICAL ACCOUNTS AND FOLKLORE
Children attending Ashover Junior School were reminded of their ancestry when the modern version of an Iron Age roundhouse was built on the site of its prehistoric predecessor. Accurate in many details it told the children that this was just one memory of a bygone era.
Some villages have celebrations based on past events, but probably the one that provokes the greater response is one where there is no longer any hint of past habitation. This is Leash Fen, an area of damp moorland on the Chesterfield side of the A621 Baslow/Sheffield road. Apart from a much later preaching cross in Shillito Wood to the north-east, there is nothing left of Leach Fen, but local children do remember it when they sing:
“When Chesterfield
was heath and broom,
Leash Fen was a
market town.
Now Leash Fen is all heath and broom,
And Chesterfield a market town.”
Dunsley near Bonsall no longer exists, but it is mentioned in the Domesday Book and Bonsall folk still accept there is a lost village above Marl Cottage in the via Gellia. Dunsley Spring water has been bottled and sold in the past.
CLIMATE CHANGE IN PREHISTORIC TIMES
When Neolithic people lost interest in hunting and gathering, preferring instead to lead a more settled life, they opted to farm on high ground, such as Big Moor and around the Upper Padley Gorge, no doubt in places where marauding carnivores could be avoided. The map of Big Moor has many indications of simple farming techniques – words like ‘enclosure’ or ‘field systems’, tell us that farms once dotted the moor. Remembering that the earliest settlers must have arrived not all that long after the comparatively rapid dispersal of ice that once covered the land, it is possible that this form of climate change continued, eventually making the land less suitable for agriculture.
THE ROMAN INFLUENCE
The abundance of lead and copper first attracted Imperial Rome to invade England in AD43. Between then and when they left around AD476, they left their indelible mark across the land, mostly by their road network and well laid out cities and forts. Place names with ‘Chester’ in their title, such as Chesterfield, are still with us, but only a few of their settlements can be traced to this day, if only by name. Modern Derby has shifted a mile or so to the south of DERVENTIO, Little Chester, a fortress which stood at the junction of Rykneild Street (Leicester to York) and their road from Derventio (Derby) to Mamucium (Manchester), known in later times as ‘The Street’. This road also reached AQVAE ARNEAMETIA, a place now known as Buxton and where naturally warm water still draws devotees. An administrative and lead smelting district known as LUTUDARUM is thought to have existed, and now lies beneath the waters of Carsington Reservoir. Pigs (ingots) of lead stamped LVT ex ARG found as far away as Italy, tell us that the silver had been removed when the ingot was cast at Lutudaron.
In order to consolidate their search for lead, often aided by captured slaves, and control movement through the district, forts were built at strategic sites such as Bradwell where only traces of the fort remain, the village or ‘Vicus’ that once sheltered in its protection is long gone. When a Roman soldier completed his service, he was allowed to remain in England where they often married local girls. One of them took on Roystone Farm below Minninglow and the High Peak Trail. The present farm buildings are well away from the foundations of the Romano/Celtic farm’s footings, but they are still there lost in the mists of time.
THE NORMAN CONQUEST & ETHNIC CLEANSING
When King William, the ‘Conqueror’s’ scribes toured his new kingdom in 1086, collecting data for what became the Domesday Book they found that tax income was a fraction of what it had been under King Edward III, the Confessor. Time after time the comment ‘Wasta Est’ appears after a once wealthy place. Wasta Est indicated the ‘all is waste’, in other words, the place was deserted, all the crops ruined, the stock slaughtered and the inhabitants either murdered or fled. This had come about by the systematic clearance of rebellious Saxons, mainly in the Midlands and the north of England.
Between 1069 and 1071, the north was systematically destroyed. In Derbyshire, the land was so depopulated, that the conquering incomers were able to turn large areas into hunting estates, something they kept only for themselves and their friends. One of these estates, or ‘friths’ was based on Duffield and another in the High Peak with its headquarters at what became the self-explanatory Chapel-en-le-Frith (Chapel in the Frith or Forest).
Access to copies of the Domesday Book record can pick out scores of places that no longer exist. Years of frustrating search could pinpoint villages like Langley near Chatsworth, or Soham near Wirksworth, or maybe Smithycote near Codnor.
PESTILENCE & CLIMATE CHANGE
Bad as it has been, living through the recent outbreak of Covid 19 has been controllable, but still an unpleasant experience for those who were directly affected. What we have been through is nothing like the way that the Black Death frequently scourged its way through society at all levels between 1348 and 1665. Known also as the Great Pestilence, it first reached the country, carried by ship’s rats from the Middle East, to landfall at Falmouth. Here it spread rapidly, city to city, town to town and village to village until, in our case, it reached Derbyshire on more than one occasion.
Many of the villages affected by what was known locally, as the Great Plague, or more correctly, Bubonic Plague, simply sat back and let the disease take its toll. Eyam became the most famous when its inhabitants put themselves into complete isolation for months on end. As a result, even though the population was decimated, the village survived to become the attractive place it is today.
Burial sites, often containing whole families, dot the fields around Eyam are not alone. Hints of past troubles can be seen in the names of other village streets around the county. Blagreaves Lane in Littleover means Black Graves and Louseygreaves Lane in Spondon comes from lice, or infestation.
CLIMATE CHANGE IN MODERN TIMES
Climate change as commented on earlier has been around almost since time began, it is only recently that we have been making things worse by burning vast quantities of fossil fuels. Farming patterns have always been effected by climate variations, frequently so bad that it made farms and villages close down. Hints of these disasters can be found in place names with descriptive words in the main title. A quick look at the map will come up with places like Hungry Bentley, a place where the land was poor, or hungry. Coldeaton suffered from being exposed to easterly winds, making it difficult for the soil to warm up enough to germinate the crops. Several farming villages failed completely, Alkmonton, Sapperton, Bupton and Ash to the west of Derby only exist today as individual farm or manor house names.
MONASTIC & SHEEP CLEARANCES
Small wonder King Henry VIII looked for an excuse to start a quarrel with church dignitaries. Throughout the land the monasteries had become so powerful that they owned more wealth than the king. Whole townships had sprung up around each monastery, providing accommodation for skilled craftsmen, or for farm workers toiling at the monastic grange farms.
After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, their farms were split up leaving the word ‘grange’ as the only hint that this was once part of some famous monastic enterprise. There is a grange not far from Youlgreave, called Meadow Place Grange above Conksbury Bridge about half way between Youlgrave and Over Haddon; it was part of the Augustinian Abbey at Leicester. The map also shows that there was a medieval village here, but no sign of it remain and in any case there is no public access.
SHEEP CLEARANCES
At one time many farms were given over to sheep farming as wool was once almost worth its weight in gold. By a law passed in 1666, every corpse had to be buried in a woollen shroud; wool was so valuable that the official seat of the Lord Chancellor in the House of Lords is traditionally known as the Woolsack.
Many of the groups of farms caring for massive sheep walks developed into villages in their own right. As a result when changes in sheep husbandry came about due to a reduction in the demand for wool, whole villages closed down and simply disappeared. Many only retain their links by including the lost village’s name with that of a local farm.
IMPROVEMENTS TO DUCAL ESTATES
When the fashion came about to improve the design of parkland attached to a ducal estate, if an estate village had the misfortune to be in the way, it was simply removed, lock, stock and barrel.
The sixth Duke of Devonshire when discussing the new layout of his park with Paxton, his gardener, realised that Edensor village was in direct line of sight from the main house. The answer was – ‘tear the lot down and build a new village round the corner’. The duke being a kind hearted sort of man wanted to do the best for his tenants, so he called for a book of the latest house designs. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on the way one sees these things, the duke rather than build the village all in the same design, decided to have one of each. The result was the quirky, but attractive Edensor we know today.
One oddity resulted from Edensor’s relocation. One of the tenants refused to move, but as his house stood in a dip next to the Baslow road, and out of sight from Chatsworth House, it was allowed to stay. From then on, the cottage became known as ‘Nabob’s Vineyard’, an expression taken from an Old Testament passage in Kings 21:1-16, which speaks of Nabob refusing to sell his vineyard to King Ahab who wanted to convert it into a herb garden.
Other great houses where villages in and around Derbyshire were moved, include Haddon Hall, Keddleston and Sudbury Hall; plus Richard Arkwright who moved Cromford away from its original site near the river crossing when he laid out Willersley Castle grounds.
INUNDATION & SURFACE MINING
Villages drowned as part of the construction of reservoirs to provide water for the expanding population of the north Midlands, include Ogston and its old hall. Derwent village now lies beneath the reservoir of the same name, and the pretty village of Ashopton was drowned under Ladybower Reservoir.
URBAN EXPANSION
Villages such as Chaddesden, Littleover, Mickleover and Spondon can just about be traced in the street patterns of satellite towns surrounding Derby. In fact all the villages lost to urban expansion by larger towns and cities, can be traced by anyone with the time and patience.
