Ilkeston Town Walk - Stage 07 - Nottingham
Road & Stanton Road
w/e 23 March 2003
We left Stage 6 of the Town
Walk at the bottom of Graham Street but have now progressed to
the top end and turned left into Nottingham Road.
A little way down Nottingham Road we cross Orchard Street seen
here on the right and from a pedestrian refuge in the middle
of the road we can look back on our route and take in the view
of the Catholic Church of Our Lady and St Thomas. (Shame about
the telephone wires!) Continuing across the road we now head
along Field Road (left) and turn right into Havelock Street to
reach Stanton Road.
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On the corner of Havelock Street and Stanton Road this building
was formerly the town's first purpose built Fire Station. From
here we make a little detour from the main route of the walk
to explore a little further down Stanton Road.
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There are two places of interest I want
to point out, the first we come to being Stanton Road Cemetery.
A population explosion in the 1860s and a growing number of Non-conformists
and Catholics unhappy about the lack of a non-denominational
cemetery eventually resulted in the opening of this cemetery
in 1866.
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The last burial took place here in the
late 1940s since when it has fallen into a state of disrepair
(inset top right) but a group of people known as the Friends
of Stanton Road Cemetery are now actively involved in restoring
and tidying the grounds. They are also attempting to secure a
lottery grant to assist with the restoration work. The cemetery
contains several notable headstones and monuments and they are
a valuable reminder of Ilkeston's past. Set against a soft focus
backdrop of a general view of the cemetery here are just three
of them. They are:
Top left - Builder's tools on the tombstone of George Henry Manners
being reminders of his trade.
Bottom right - The headstone of 23 year old James Tilson's grave
(Tilson of Ilson) features stumps, gloves, a bat and a ball marking
his cricketing prowess tragically cut short by "inflammation
of the brain".
Centre - A simple S.T. in the footstone of Samuel Taylor's grave
hides the story behind the his career as an entertainer. Known
as the Ilkeston Giant - he was 7 feet 6 inches tall - he entered
show business at the age of 16 and died in Manchester in 1875
aged 59.
I am indebted to the Ilkeston
and District Local History Society
for the above information gleaned from their publication entitled
"Stanton Road Cemetery" and published in 1999.
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Adjacent to the cemetery is this building that is now a Day Centre.
Not so very many years ago it housed The Pines Youth Club which
was a local haunt of Ilkeston's modern day entertainment equivalent
to Samuel Taylor, Robert Stevenson. Better known as Robert Lindsay, this Laurence Olivier, Tony,
Fred Astaire and BAFTA (among others) award winning actor and
star of many television, screen and stage productions is as proud
of his roots as the Ilkestonians are of him.
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But now we return up Stanton Road almost
to the old Fire Station to continue our planned walk. With the
tower of St Mary's Church in the town centre straight ahead,
our perambulations will eventually lead us there but we now turn
left into Union Road and we'll pick up the route again there
in the next stage.
Other stages of the "Town Walk" may be seen by following
the links from the Archives page.
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