Places Pevsner Forgot – Hardstoft & Astwith

Hardstoft and Astwith lie atop a pair of west-east ridges, with the Dawley stream rising in between and running down to the Doe Lea, above which towers Hardwick old and new halls, which visually dominate both hamlets from the east.

We first made the acquaintance of Hardstoft around 1980, when, with my colleague Mick Stanley and his wife, we were moving about the county looking at the country houses whilst preparing the first edition of The Derbyshire Country House. After visiting Newton Old Hall at Tibshelf, we headed north but needing lunch, stopped at the Shoulder of Mutton, Hardstoft, which lies at the end of a row of 18^th century cottages on Deep Lane, leading off the B6039 towards the heart of the hamlet.

Then, the pub was a fairly run-of-the mill local one, and if Pevsner saw it in 1951 he perhaps did not require a pint and a sandwich and pushed on in blissful ignorance of the delights of the invisible settlement, in which case he missed a treat, albeit a gentle, unassuming, one. Yet it is not without interest, as there are two listed buildings in Hardstoft and one in the adjacent but far more sequestered hamlet of Astwith. The name commemorates one of those Norse settlers of the ninth century whose name is found nowhere else in the annals of the English Danelaw for it means ‘Hjǫrtr’s farmstead’, in contrast to Astwith, which is also a Norse derived name but means merely ‘east clearing’. Both are part of the parish and manor of Ault Hucknall, held by Steinulf of Calow under Norman grandee Roger de Poitou in Domesday Book (1086) and, from the 16^th century, if not before, were long part of the Hardwick Hall estate. Indeed, when the late Duke of Devonshire gave Hardwick to the National Trust in 1950, the Chatsworth estate quite probably retained the working part of the estate, less whatever the Trust required as an endowment.

So much for history: we started at the pub which, we were amused to see, had dumbed down its name to The Shoulder, which, let’s face it, sounds more like a painting by Salvador Dali – odd, even in the context of pub names. It is the end element of a row of three 18^th century double fronted estate cottages built, like most houses in the two hamlets, of Coal Measures Sandstone, but with most engaging paired chimneystacks with chamfered angles in 18^th century brick – no doubt a conceit of the Hardwick estate foreman of the time. We were able to trace the inn back to the 1820s, but it may well have flourished before that. From the early 19^th century until the First World War, it was run by the Clay family, several of which were called Sampson; after the war the Tagg family took over for a couple of decades at least. Nevertheless, it was pleasant within and welcoming, and our modest requirements were met with creditable aplomb. 

We then set off along Deep Lane, which runs from the main road towards the heart of the settlement but turned off right along Farm Lane, a tributary running off it, parallel to the main road and behind the inn with its attendant buildings. At its south end this afforded excellent views south to Biggin Lane and over a declivity in which stood a white painted former farmhouse called Whitton Lodge, about which we were able to discover little other than it is now a roomy holiday let. It boasted a good cartshed or barn, now converted. A much more unspoilt seventeenth century farmhouse lay on the east side of the lane with Hardwick Old Hall across the valley seeming almost within touching distance. The fenestration had been modernised, but otherwise it was charming and largely original; how it escaped listing we couldn’t work out. 

Further east, on Deep Lane, The Green presented us with a group of engaging stone houses and farms with a neat row of cottages bookended between two of them. Slightly north, was The Yews (alternatively Yew Tree Farm), another farmhouse, one of Hardstoft’s listed buildings, under restoration and empty when we saw it. Historic England reckons it’s mid-18^th century, but we reckoned that, with its paired mullioned lights and elegant simplicity it could be late 17^th century with an extension to the east.

It was probably amongst the buildings on The Green that much of the working life of the hamlet took place, for in 1827 one William Haslam is listed as a gunsmith there and a succession of William Halsams continued the tradition of white-smithing into the 20^th century and latterly as ‘hot water engineers.’ Indeed, George Haslam was still pursuing this trade in 1928. There was also a shoe and boot maker, estate gamekeeper and, on the main road further north, the New Inn (a beerhouse long closed) and a school. 

One of the most notable craftsmen to have graced Hardstoft was Joseph Kirk (1681-1735) who made exceptionally fine clocks, including one at Hardwick and another in a chinoiserie lacquered case. He seems at first to have been based here, but later signed clocks from Nottingham (eg. that in Derby Museum’s Prince Charlie Room) and latterly from Skegby, where his London-trained father, John, had also lived latterly, where he died. A Kirk clock made in Skegby was sold from Chatsworth a decade or so ago, and he also made the stable clock there which survived to be transferred into James Paine’s new, bravura, structure in the 1750s. The old directories mention that the Wesleyan Methodists once had a chapel here, although we couldn’t work out which building it had occupied, but the school, founded as a Church of England School in 1858 (and so dated) lies on the main road between Deep Lane and Astwith Lane.  Built of hand-made brick and stone dressings, it has a steep gabled portico with the date, and a bell turret. This pretty little building with its iron railing, long derelict, was for sale when we visited. It is Hardstoft’s other listed building.

Leaving the school, we motored to Astwith Lane, and proceeded along it for some way before finding an area where we could park. The hamlet is far smaller than Hardstoft and is very scattered, but with most houses gathered along the lane, those nearer the main road being virtually invisible from the road. As the lane turns sharply north, though, one can enjoy the sight of a good stone farm with outbuildings, whilst the original alignment continues as a farm track towards Astwith Dumbles, a wooded slope on the south side of the Dawley. 

The only listed building is Manor Farm Cottage, slightly further along on the east side, a 17^th century farm house set facing south, extended in 1730, a fact deduced from the discovery of an almost uncirculated coin bearing this date found during renovations. Part of the original build was lost in the process, but the ensemble has much charm, especially with the lane still decorated with red, white and blue flags when we visited, commemorating the ‘Platty Jubby’ as one wag termed the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations. The house had once been part of the Wass family’s Manor Farm, the family having been tenants there from the early 18^th century, William Wass being tenant there in 1827 and his son John followed him from before 1846 until the 1880s. 

Beyond the cottage, the lane turns east again and descends, very narrow, between high hedges to the old main road, now Mill Lane, tucked in the lee of the M1. We continued along a track northward, past Manor Farm, a good early 18^th century stone farmhouse (not unlike The Yews at Hardstoft and perhaps built by the same Hardwick estate foreman), six bays wide facing west, again with two storeys of two light mullioned windows but with a substantial addition at the north end, which gives it an opulent, if slightly institutional air.

Beyond again was another good farm with what looked like a much more interesting building, but not reachable without having to knock and ask permission. We did meet a friendly goat, and took in a stunning view north east toward Bolsover Castle, clearly discernable on its spur overlooking the M1, the roar of which was the only really negative aspect of both settlements, although of course, when Sir Nikolaus Pevsner visited, there was no M1 and peace drenched the still air of the valley. 

Astwith boasted but three farms in 1827, along with a joiner and boot and shoe maker in 1846, not to mention a beerhouse, long gone. Of course, if you ever encounter someone called Hardstaff, you can be confident that the surname is a mutation of Hardstoft, a unique place name and thus once home to his remote ancestors!