The names of some roads in Cropwell Bishop were not chosen by Councillors; they evolved from everyday conversations by people who used them when they were little more than dirt paths.

St Giles Church was built in 1215 and it must have been only natural for people to refer to a street next to it as Church Street.

So, no secrets to reveal about name of the street but lots to tell about the buildings — past and present, that line it.

Let's explore it, starting at The Turn.

The Turn

The space in front of the Church, where Church Street, Nottingham Road and Fern Road meet, was for centuries called The Turn.

Look at this photograph taken in the 1920s and you will see why. There was a grassy roundabout where horse-drawn carts, and then carriages and bicycles could easily turn around.

The name stuck, even after the roundabout was replaced with tarmac and the pavement in front of the church wall was extended. Whilst the name is less well known nowadays, there is no better one for this spot.

It is interesting to compare photographs of Church Street taken from The Turn. Compare the one above with the others taken at later dates.

Inspect the vehicles, the pavement on the right-hand side, the number of telegraph poles (and wires), the gap after the cottage on the left, the telephone box, and the power lines.

In 2018, The Turn was as crowded as it has probably ever been when the Tour of Britain cycle race swept through Cropwell Bishop for the first time ever.

The Turn to the Postbox

The white cottage at The Turn is well over 200 years old.

The house next to it, No.5, is a modern home. It replaced the old cottage that was still standing in 1970: it can be seen in the photograph of the Easter Parade in 1919.

After the twitchel or, to use its old name, Little Lane, stands Ebenezer House which was built for Sam Heasleden in 1904. He was the founder of the Heaselden Company that employed over 80 men to mine gypsum in the village during the first half of the 20th Century.

The house was built on the foundations of the previous building, Fillingham Farmhouse which, in later years, became Shelton Farmhouse.

Some of the farm buildings were left standing and remained a colourful view in summer until their demolition for the building of Stackyard Close in 2018.

The demolition of Fillingham/Shelton Farmhouse was accompanied by the demolition of Cropwell Bishop's original Post Office.

The small white thatched cottage stood in, what is now, the front garden of Ebenezer House. The path on its left still exists – it is the twitchel, Little Lane.

The Postbox to Stackyard Close

Where the bus stop, phone box and postbox stand was, until fairly recently, one of the busiest spots in the village.

At that time, the bus service to Nottingham was regular and reliable and the phone box had a phone. Beside it was The Cabin (a newsagent, general store and post office) where, it seemed, everyone called in at least once a day.

During 50 years, I think only four different teams ran the shop – with the help of local part-timers and paper-boys and girls.

It started with Ken and Enid, followed by Lesley and Norman, Michelle Woodward, and, lastly, Chantelle and Mark — who still provide a newspaper delivery service to Cropwell Bishop and local villages.

Before The Cabin was built in the 1970s, the Post Office was on Nottingham Road at The Turn. The site where The Cabin would be built, was occupied by other businesses.

There was a fish & chip shop: it was next to the post box and you had to climb steps to its door. In years to come, it become part of The Cabin and was used for the sale of cards, stationery and diy items.

As well as the fish & chip shop, there was a black hut. We don't know its original purpose but at one time it was a Barbers, run by a Benny Snowden.

Then it became a shoe Repair Shop as well as a hairdresser. A man named Ernie Parnham did the shoe repairs and his father did haircuts.

In 2019 Stackyard Close was completed. The phonebox remains as a reference point for comparing the view with old photographs.

In the 1970s, the building across the road from The Cabin was the Mace grocery store.

In those days it was run by Val and Wilf Bellamy. In the distant past is was run by other families and, long ago, by a John Eastwood. Below is a photo which shows his shop in the background.

This building is still there but is now a family home.

On its right is an old house that has been greatly modified in recent decades. At one time it was called The Homestead, and then Hyson Cottage.

On its right, effectively in the churchyard, is the building we now call the Parish School Room. This building was the first school for village children. Built in 1850, it was then called the National School.

At that time, education was not compulsory and many poor children would leave school as soon as they were able to work — at 10 or 12 years of age.

Attendance declined for another reason; the Vicar at that time kept an eye on the curriculum while many local people felt the school should be non-denominational.

In 1875 the school closed but in 1878 children had a big, new school to go to on Fern Road. We now refer to that one as The Old School. Its history is described in the Parkin Close Street Story.

The Parish School Room is now used by the Cropwell Bishop Heritage Group.

Views from the Church Tower

Over the years, photographers have made use of the tower of St Giles Church to capture views of the village. In the photos here, we can see the changes that have occurred on Church Street during the last 80 years.

If only cameras had been invented 800 years ago, we would now have an even more complete history of the street.

I wonder if any artists sketched or painted the scene in earlier times. Could a drawing be hidden in the attic of a Cropwell Bishop cottage.

Stackyard Close to St Giles Way

An earlier Street Story on Stackyard Close described how the Cart Shed came to be built and the high quality of its brickwork, even after 130 years, does not look out of place beside new buildings.

After the Cart Shed is a narrow lane at 90° to the road.

The houses are numbered from 19 to 13, with number 19 being the first one. They are all Church Street homes but the top one, number 13, has presented delivery people with a problem ever since Stackyard Close was built.

Full access to number 13 had long been via the old stackyard but this stopped when building began. Fortunately, the home can be accessed from St Giles Way but this has resulted in the house having a number plate on St Giles Way stating, "13 Church Street". Imagine the problems for delivery people!

The owner of the village slaughter house once lived at number 17 and adjacent to it was the slaughter house itself. It doesn't look like one nowadays.

Here are some pictures of the cottages long ago.

Back to the road and we come to two semi-detached houses, 21 and 23 Church Street.

The building looked quite different about 30 years ago: it had a flat roof. You can see it in the 1940 photos taken from the church tower.

Number 21 was once occupied by Tom Simpson who was a baker and a member of the Simpson family that ran the Corn Merchants, 'H, Simpson & Son', further down the road.

Church Street is not a long road but as one of the four ancient roads in Cropwell Bishop is has a lot of history. In this article we have only covered about 50m of its length: the next one will continue its story.

Tony Jarrow

Note: Thanks to Anne Terzza, Pam Barlow and Lynda Hatton for their help with this article.

Following reports of inappropriate and inconsiderate parking and in order to ease traffic movements in the village, it is proposed to introduce ‘No Waiting At Any Time’ restrictions (Double Yellow Lines) along parts of Nottingham Road, Fern Road, Church Street, Kinoulton Road, Old Lenton Close, Hoe View Road, Field Lane, St Giles Way, The Maltings and Stockwell Lane, Cropwell Bishop.

The proposals have been designed to retain some on street parking, which will have a chicane effect and act as a traffic calming measure and have the agreement of the local County Councillor and the Parish Council.

It is also proposed to introduce 2 new Bus Stop Clearways, No Stopping Monday to Saturday 7am to 7pm at the Bus Stops on Church Street.

The proposals will be advertised and notices displayed on site. A plan showing the proposals (Drawing number H/SLW/3534/01) is attached, along with a copy of the site notice.

Any observations on these proposals should reach me in writing, either by letter or email, by 16th November 2020.

If your comments are in the form of an objection to the proposals please clearly state this and the reasons for your objection.

If the objection cannot be resolved, it will be reported through the County Council’s procedures at the appropriate time.

Any details you provide may be shared with Nottinghamshire County Council as appropriate. If you’d like to find out more about how we use your data, please see our Privacy Notice:
www.viaem.co.uk/privacy-notice-for-the-public/

Yours

Steph Walford (Mrs)
Senior Improvements Officer (via)

Via East Midlands Ltd is working on behalf of Nottinghamshire County Council to deliver Highway Services.

We lived on Hall Drive for 40 years and in all that time I believed that the street got its name from the farm that used to be in the field where Springfield Close now is. It was called Old Hall Farm and Hall Drive pointed towards it – it seemed obvious.

It will not surprise you when I say that I was totally wrong. As you are probably aware, Cropwell Bishop streets are, by and large, named after people.

So, with that in mind, I knew I only had to search for a notable person named Hall. Surely, that wouldn’t prove difficult.

I had heard of Vic Hall, who had lived at The Yews farmhouse on Nottingham Road. I discovered that he had done a lot for the village community and so seemed a deserving character to have a street named after him.

Whilst gathering information on him, alarm bells began to sound.

First, he died in 1975 which was 2 years after Hall Drive was built: no other street was named after a living person.

Second, he was a Parish Councillor himself at the time they would have been choosing names.

Third, he hadn’t owned farmland in 1804 whereas most other people with streets named after them, had.

I had to start my search again.

I needed to look again at the 1804 map of the village which shows the owners of all the fields in the Parish. I have gained the impression that the Parish Councillors of the 1970s did exactly the same thing when faced with giving names to the tens of new roads being built in the village at that time.

There are 3 fields labelled W. Hall – a promising start. Now I only had to find out something about him.

For tasks like this, the resources I find most useful are: ‘The Chronicles of Cropwell Bishop’ booklet by Aubrey Harper, ‘Our Local History’ booklet by Anne Terzza, ‘St Giles Churchyard Survey’ by Denis and Edith Smith, ‘Ancestry’ online, and the people who live in Cropwell Bishop today.

I often find it useful to start by constructing a family tree. Once you start linking the people, dates, and information in, say, Census documents (if you can read the fancy writing!), many things become clearer.

On the other hand, some things become more confusing. When that happens, you have to search contemporary Trade Directories, take photographs of gravestones, study history books, and so on. Only then do things start coming together – helped by a bit of imagination or guesswork.

The ‘W. Hall’ on the 1804 map stands for William Hall. He was a farmer and lived in a house on Fern Road. The house no longer exists but another stands in its place.

The farmhouse was located opposite where the Old School now stands and was probably already over 100 years old then. It was demolished in the 1960s and replaced with a new house by farmers Tom and Kate Barlow. It had become known as ‘Crumbling Towers’ and was in need of replacement.

The map below shows, in yellow, the plot that the farmhouse occupied. It also shows, in pink, one of the fields that William Hall was allocated in the 1804 Enclosure Act. Being allocated some land that butted up to his farmyard was not a matter of luck.

When the Enclosure Commissioners made land allocations, one aim was to ensure that some of a farmer’s land adjoined their farmyard.

At that time, it was normal for farmhouses and their outbuildings to be located near the village centre; isolated farmsteads only appeared after Enclosure. It made sense to enable farmers to travel from farmyard to land without going on public roads.

So much for William’s farmhouse, what about his background and family.

He was born in Long Clawson in 1755. Before we examine his life, let’s just absorb how long ago 1755 is.

The English Colonies in North America were prospering, 1½ million people lived there and it would be another 20 years before they fought for independence. Richard Arkwright invented a machine to spin cotton and a condensing steam engine was invented in Scotland.

Meanwhile, in nearby village Long Clawson, William and Ann Hall had a child, William Hall, the person we are interested in.

William grew up in Long Clawson and when he was 36, he married Millicent (maiden name unknown) in 1791. They married in Long Clawson and continued living there until 1801 when we know their 3rd daughter were born there.

William owned a house and bakehouse at Long Clawson but moved to the farmhouse on Fern Road in Cropwell Bishop around 1801. Imagining a character who lived over 200 years ago is not easy, but the footprints of his life can be detected with a bit of effort.

He made his will in 1815 when he was 70 years old. He died just a few months later, all of which suggests he knew he had a fatal illness.

From the items in his will, we know that he had become a very wealthy man. To each of his 4 daughters he left both a house and over 20 acres of land.

To his wife he left a house and bakehouse at Long Clawson, and a farm at Colston Bassett. Both were to be held in trust by fellow farmers until Millicent decided otherwise. Millicent also inherited their current house and property.

At the time of his death, his daughters were teenagers so probably continued living at home with their mother, Millicent.

Of the 4 girls, we know most about the second eldest, Ann.

Nine years later, in 1824, she married Cropwell Bishop man John Smith and they began their married life together at The Yews farmhouse on Nottingham Road.

John was also wealthy and, in time, both he and Ann would inherit more land and property and move on to another grand house. In 1850 they were the biggest land owners in the village. But that is another story and will be covered in another Street Story.

Millicent Hall was only 50 at the time of William's death and she continued to farm for the next 20 years until her death at the age of 70. As a lady farmer, she became known as 'Madam Hall'.

Hall Drive was built by Wimpey in 1973-74 and as a housing plot was sold, the builders would allocate all their resources to complete that house – not just to please the buyer, but also to get their money in.

This could result in the haphazard completion of houses on a road with unbuilt homes standing next to occupied ones. As a result, there were at least 12 months between the first and last family arriving.

Ian and Rita Smith were the first to move in and are still there, 47 years later.

In 1977 it was Queen Elizabeth's Silver Jubilee and people all around the country celebrated with street parties. Hall Drive residents made banners and stretched them across the road from upstairs windows. At the bottom of the street tables of food and drink were laid out for an evening of partying and dancing in the street

In the coming years, more new roads will be built in Cropwell Bishop. I wonder how Parish Councillors will approach their task of allocating street names.

Tony Jarrow

Note: Thanks to Anne Terzza, Pam Barlow, John Greenwood and Kate Barlow for their help with this article.

The Memorial Hall Committee are sorry to announce that the Hall is now closed until further notice.

Over the lockdown we became concerned about some movement cracks in the building, particularly to the front elevation along with some defects in other areas.

The Committee commissioned a survey and report by a Chartered Structural Engineer, and this concluded that extensive immediate and extensive repair works were required.

Our insurers have advised that we should now close until the works have been completed so that we can ensure peoples’ safety.

Following advice from our lawyers we have taken the decision to fence the Hall off to ensure public safety and would ask that if you see anyone interfering with the fencing or signage that you let us know or ring the Police straight away.

We would ask all users to be patient whilst we try and find a way forward.

Memorial Hall Committee

It didn’t need Morse, Vera, Lewis or even Miss Marple to solve the mysteryo HRC, just the efforts and cooperation of a bunch of Cropwell Bishop people.

In August, John Greenwood revealed that he was puzzled by a plaque on an old barn near his home. It is next to the Creamery on Nottingham Road and the plaque bears the initials and date: H.R.C. 1880.

At first, no one could help but then a chain of discoveries led to a sound explanation for its existence.

It was Jacquee Lacey who started the ball rolling when she discovered that a house in Clifton village had an identical looking plaque but dated 1879.

However, we still didn’t know who HRC was: maybe a local builder?

Then, a few days later, Paul Pickup got in touch to point out that the initials were the same as a Henry Robert Clifton who lived at Clifton Hall in the late 1800s.
He also discovered that Henry had paid for the building of a school in Clifton village.

Further online searches revealed another house in Clifton village with a similar HRC plaque.

This all pointed to HRC being the initials of Henry Robert Clifton. But why were his initials on a barn in Cropwell Bishop – no one could find any connection between him and our village.

Until, that is, Pam Wregg joined the search.

She found that a Gervais Clifton had once owned land around Cropwell Bishop and then recalled seeing his name on an old map.

The 1804 map of the village is well known and contains the names of numerous land owners but it needed Pam to spot the Clifton name.

I have highlighted in yellow the location of The Yews farmhouse and its outbuildings. The fields painted blue are known to have been owned by “Sir G Clifton” – one contains his name and the others are listed in associated documents provided by Anne Terzza.

I think we can safely assume that this Sir G Clifton was indeed the Sir Gervase Clifton that Pam had found. He was one of the hereditary Baronets that successively owned the Clifton estate – but which one?

Here is a list of the Clifton Baronets (with known dates of birth and death):

1. Sir Gervase Clifton (?-1588)
2. Sir Gervase Clifton (1587-1666)
3. Sir Gervase Clifton (1612-1676)
4. Sir William Clifton (1663-1686)
5. Sir Gervase Clifton (? -1731)
6. Sir Robert Clifton (1690-1762)
7. Sir Gervase Clifton (1744-1815)
8. Sir Robert Clifton (1767-1837)
9. Sir Juckes Granville Juckes-Clifton (1769-1852)
10. Sir Robert Juckes Clifton (1826-1869)
11. Henry Robert Clifton (1832-1896)
12. Sir Hervey Juckes Lloyd Bruce (1843-1919)
13. Percy Robert Clifton (1872-1944)
14. Peter Thomas Clifton (1911-1996)

It should be noted that when a family member ‘next in line’ inherited the estate, they often changed their name to a more appropriate one.

This explains the recurrence of the ‘Gervase Clifton’ name, but also makes it impossible to identify the original owner of the ‘blue’ Cropwell Bishop fields. However, it is enough to know that the Clifton family would probably have still owned these fields in 1880 when the barn was built.

But did they also own The Yews farmhouse and its buildings?

Jonathan Good had the answer.

He found original documents relating to the purchase of houses on Mill Lane in 1909 which show that land to its west (ie. The Yews farm) was owned by Sir Hervey Juckes Lloyd Bruce – the Baronet of the Clifton estate at that time. Can we assume that Sir Hervey also owned the buildings as well as the land? Once again, Jonathan had the answer.

He found documents describing the purchase of The Yews farmhouse in 1920 by Matthew Richards from Percy Robert Clifton, the Baronet of the Clifton estate. Apparently, Percy had to sell it to enable him to pay the death duties due on Sir Hervey’s death.

This then, confirmed that the Clifton estate had previously owned, not only the land, but also the buildings associated with The Yews farm.

So, in conclusion, The Yews farm and its buildings were owned by Henry Robert Clifton when the barn was built in 1880 – which explains why his initials, H.R.C., appear on the barn’s wall.

Thanks to John, Jacquee, Paul, Pam, Anne and Jonathan for their searching, inspired guesswork and tenacity which solved this local mystery.

Now, what else requires the skills of our History Investigators?

Tony Jarrow

NOTE:

As part of this investigation, John Greenwood wrote to the owner of The Forge in Clifton.

A few days after the publication of this article, he had a reply from the occupier, Richard Acock, who had consulted the previous owner, Mrs Bonner, who informed him:

"The plaque was laid at the time of the house’s construction in 1879 by Henry Robert Clifton, who at the time, owned the Clifton Estate, and had the property built to service the needs of the saddlery of the Manor, alongside other constructions".

This dispels any possible doubt about the source of HRC plaques in Clifton.

Tony
24-9-20