Cossall - Family Roots - Part 02
w/e 05 April 2020
All of this week's pictures were
taken with a Kodak DX6490
Leaving St Catherine's Church we continued through
the village and down the hill to Cossall Marsh.
We passed Church Cottage, the home of D. H. Lawrence's fiancee
to reach Cossall Community Hall. This is also known as the Old
School Room which is thought to have been built in 1813 even
though the date of the porch shows 1850. Current thinking is
that the later date relates to when to porch was completed. It
served as a school until 1891 when a new school was built on
Coronation Road. See the Community Hall's website for more.
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Next to the Community Hall are the Grade II* listed Willoughby
Alms Houses that were built in 1688. The original school in Cossall
was in an upstairs room in the Alms Houses until the building
next door was erected as the population grew. The Alms Houses
were founded by George Willoughby, nephew of the Lord of Wollaton,
in 1685. and were originally for "four single poor men over
60 years of age and four single poor women over 55 years of age".
My distant relative Thomas Wheatley, the one who fought at the
Battle of Waterloo after returning to Cossall, lived in the Alms
Houses. (Cue Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody - I'm "just a
poor boy from a poor family.") The trees were obviously
not that big when Thomas lived there but since I last photographed
the Alms Houses some years ago, the gardens have become quite
overgrown and are in need of some TLC. Apparently according to
the Parish Council website the Alms Houses "were sold into
private ownership in 2016. We hope in the near future to hear
plans to develop this treasured building that will give it a
new lease of life."
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As we made our way along the winding Church Lane, we passed the
former Post Office and also an old telephone kiosk which now
has a new lease of life as the home of a defibrillator.
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At another bend in the road is a bench where at this time of
year you can sit among the daffodils and watch the world go by.
It's also the location of the village notice board.
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Church Lane now continues down the hill and more daffodils were
flowering in the hedgerow.
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The flowers were on the banks on both sides of the road and became
more abundant as we went down the hill.
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What more can I say - daffodils.
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At the end of Church Lane the area is known as Cossall Marsh
and there are more flower displays which will still be there
long after the daffodils have died back.
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There's also an entrance here to what is now called Millennium
Park. When I was a child I would often go by bus with my parents
to visit relatives in Kimberley on Sunday afternoons and would
often see this area filled with crowds watching motorbike scrambling
on the muddy or dusty bank (depending on the weather conditions)
that is now the park.
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It was also here that we ended this walk and waited for the bus
to take us home but this is Coronation Road and the aforementioned
new school stood a little further along on the right. It would
have been quite a walk back up the hill into the village centre
for the schoolchildren but it was built here to also serve the
children who lived at the far end of the road in Ilkeston Junction.
the school closed about 1980. For a time it was Chatterley's
Hotel/Restaurant and has had various uses but is now a private
dwelling. To the left of the road which is now an industrial
estate was Cossall Colliery - but that's another story for another
time.
Back to Part 01
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