Derby's Heritage Part 09 - Little Chester Detour
w/e 26 September 2010
All this week's pictures were taken with a Kodak DX6490

Since the initial planning stage for this series I have added another leaflet to my collection and this one gives some additional information about locations in the Little Chester area. So in this part instead of continuing directly from Marcus Street to Old Chester Road, we'll take a little detour via Camp Street and Mansfield Road to pick up some of these additional locations. Something adjacent to the Roman well that we overlooked in the previous part were the concrete blocks in the grass marking the line of Ryknield Street (left) but these can be seen as we return down Marcus Street to Camp Street. Kirk Street links through to Old Chester Road and a terrace of Victorian houses (above) in Kirk Street was built by the Ancient Order of Foresters. The spacious houses are notable for being built of machine-made bricks with dressed stone door and window lintels. The 'Little Chester Trail' leaflet produced by the local history group also points out the early twentieth century graffiti scratched into the wall (right) on the corner of Camp Street and Kirk Street.

Turning into Mansfield Road leads to Old Chester Road but I continued past it into Alfreton Road before taking this shot of the 'black and white' houses that are examples of the Edwardian revival of vernacular styles of architecture. A feature of note on the houses on Mansfield Road are the elaborate lintels (left and right). The hoardings in the image above hide the site of an eighteenth century Toll House.

Diagonally across from the hoardings on the corner of Mansfield Road and Old Chester Road is the Coach & Horses, an Edwardian building on the site of the earlier Crown Ale House. The car park at the pub was once a bowling green and customers used to watch matches from the veranda.

We now continue along Old Chester Road where the tree shrouded Victorian house was the first vicarage for St Paul's Church. The modern vicarage next door has another Roman well in the garden but public access is only possible with prior permission.

The white house that stands opposite the junction with Kirk Street is a reminder of the railway age as it was built and owned by the Great Northern Railway. A blue brick wall visible from the road is also a remnant of the railways delineating the route of the tracks.

A bridge carried the railway over Old Chester Road about here and this is where we leave the detour to rejoin the planned route at the end of Marcus Street. Old Chester Road follows the main Roman street into the fortifications that were built about 80AD on the banks of the Derwent and was crossed at right angles approximately where the red pillar box now stands by Ryknield Street.

A small town grew up around the fort and the Romans were here until about 350, After that Anglo Saxons occupied the area from about 500 and burial sites have been discovered nearby. Following the Norman conquest of 1066, the area belonged to the collegiate church of All Saints, which much later became Derby Cathedral. The church was supported by the revenue from seven farms and when the College was dissolved in 1547, the prebendal farms were purchased from the Crown for the town. Today's Derventio Court stands on the site of one of these farms, Manor Farm, which was eventually demolished in 1967. Although there is little remarkable about this scene today, a Roman stone building was discovered where the houses on the right of Derventio Court now stand whilst those on the left stand on the nine feet thick wall of the Roman defences. It was at this point that Old Chester Road passed through the east gate into the Roman fort.

Roman remains had also been found earlier when Sir Alfred Haslam built these houses for his work force in 1886 and a plaque on the wall stating "Roman Camp" (left) commemorates the discovery. The nineteenth century saw much development in the area including Haslam's foundry and many of the houses in the vicinity from this period also have the Haslam diamond (right) built into the brickwork.  Back to Part 08  The Derby Heritage Walk Index Continued in Part 10

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