Part 01 - Chapel Street to Derwent Street
w/e 18 August 2013
All this week's pictures were taken
with a Kodak DX6490
The Heritage Walk No. 1 in Belper is a circular walk
from the Visitor Centre in the North Mill and this second Heritage
Walk covers some of the same area also concluding at the Visitor
Centre but this is a linear walk and it begins at the De Bradelei
Mill on Chapel Street. Like the first walk a downloadable leaflet
describing the route is available from the Derwent Valley Mills
website - click here to view.
Although Jedediah Strutt is a name integral to the industrial
heritage of Belper, there are other names too that played an
important role in the town's development. One such name is that
of Brettle and the building that is now called De Bradelei Mill
was once the headquarters of renowned hosiery manufacturers George
Brettle and Co. Built in the classical style in 1834 the warehouse
is still an imposing structure in Chapel Street.
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The company which had its origins in 1786 employed
large numbers of the local population during the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. The Brettles brand is still available today
but is produced by another local company, Slenderalla, set up
in 1998 by a former sales and marketing director with twenty
five years service at Brettles. The Brettles company had become
part of Courtaulds group in 1964 and production moved to nearby
Alfreton in 1987. Following restoration the building on Chapel
Street was transformed into a retail outlet, entrance to which
can be gained from a free car park at the rear. An information
board just inside this entrance records some of the history of
the company.
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The rear entrance leads to a small courtyard where different
units sell, according to the De Bradelei Stores website, ladieswear,
menswear, shoes, outerwear, gifts and much more. With other outlets
at the Courtaulds Factory Shop in Nottingham and the De Bradelei
Wharf in Dover, the company name "Bradelei" relates
to the time of the Domesday Book when that was the name by which
Belper was recorded. It was the Normans who renamed it 'Beaureparie'
meaning beautiful retreat which eventually became Belper.
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The building is no longer used as it was originally intended
but whilst in the courtyard it is worth recalling the history
of the place. Stockings were produced here for King George III
and his granddaughter Queen Victoria and it is said that Admiral
Lord Nelson was wearing a cotton vest made by Brettles at the
Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. It is for those bits of trivia alone
that we should be grateful to the De Bradelei company for ensuring
this historic building is still in use and preserving the heritage
of Belper. We left the courtyard via the large arch leading to
the main road.
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A glance to the right reveals another historic building - that
of a large gritstone warehouse of 1850 which belonged to Wards,
another major hosiery company based in the town. It was John
Ward and George Brettle who were instrumental in starting the
manufacture of hosiery and cotton goods in Belper.
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The route of this walk though is to the left along Chapel Street
which follows the line of the turnpike road of 1816 - 1818 between
Derby and Manchester.
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Opposite the De Bradelei building is the newly restored building
that was originally a private school on land bought in the late
1820s by Henry Perkins, a schoolmaster from London. It became
known as the Grammar School by 1900 but closed in 1913 following
the death of the headmaster, George Wright. Latterly it was adapted
for manufacturing and retail use but stood empty for over ten
years and by 2011 was in a dilapidated state. Although not a
listed building, it is nonetheless important as part of Belper's
heritage and has been sympathetically restored and recognised
in 2013 with an award from the Belper Civic Forum. The award
to Chevin Fleet Solutions who have relocated their staff from
Belper's East Mill which had been their base for some twenty
years, recognises "the very best in architecture, design,
planning, landscape and public art". It has now been renamed
"The Old School House".
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Standing next to the De Bradelei outlet is this Georgian building
that was first opened in 1807. Home to the Central Methodist
Church it was built on land adjacent to a site now called The
Cottage where there had been a Wesleyan chapel since 1782 when
a local farmer, Thomas Slater of Shottle, had donated land for
the construction of the chapel. John Wesley himself preached
in Belper in 1786 and legend has it that he had previously visited
and preached in the little chapel before the roof had been added
but evidence of this is scant to say the least. The new chapel
built to accommodate 1400 people had a schoolroom added at the
rear in 1841 and other improvements in 1871 including the addition
of the porch. Worship still continues in the Central Methodist
Chapel to the present day.
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The route now from the chapel continues along Chapel Street passing
the end of King Street (above) and into Bridge Street. The Heritage
Walk can easily be broken here for a detour into King Street
which is the main shopping street in the town. Despite the current
economic climate that pervades, King Street still has a respectable
number of independent retailers spread amongst the national chains
and supermarkets in the shopping area.
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Continuing our Heritage Walk though we turned left from Bridge
Street into Derwent Street and sought out the former factory
of the chocolate and toffee manufacturer Thorntons who first
arrived in Belper in 1948 after beginning their business with
shops and toffee manufacture in Sheffield earlier in the century.
Expansion of the business resulted in Thorntons moving production
to a large new factory at Somercotes, near Alfreton which was
opened by the Queen in 1985. The Derwent Street factory finally
closed in 2004 but was in the news again in May 2013 when a warehouse
on the site was destroyed by fire. The final link with Belper
was severed earlier this year (2013) when it was announced that
Thorntons would be closing their shop on King Street in the summer.
Only time will tell what will become of the Derwent Street buildings
- maybe a lesson could be learnt from the De Bradelei building
- but a change of use is not beyond the realms of possibility
as the factory had previously produced blouses before Thorntons
moved in and had begun life as a theatre that had once seen actress,
singer, comedienne, cinema and music hall star Gracie Fields
(later Dame Gracie Fields, DBE) perform there.
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