Ilkeston Town Walk - Stage 12 - A Detour To The Past
w/e 17 August 2003
We leave South Street at this point for a short detour into the
past, first of all heading along West Street.
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A few steps in and this building comes into view. These days
it hardly deserves a second glance but it is within living memory
that horses were shod here as it housed the last working smithy
in the town. Run by Mr. George Lloyd and his son, the smithy
was also the place where the gates to St Mary's Church on the
Market Place and St John's Church on Nottingham Road were made.
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From the side of the smithy the other end of West Street and
its junction with Albert Street comes into view. Directly opposite
is another link with the past for it was here that the Rutland
Foundry stood for many years and on the right the former premises
of Price's painting and decorating business still advertises
its services from the gable end. Don't try ringing the phone
number though - that's long gone.
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A right turn into Albert Street reveals two nursing homes standing
on the Rutland Foundry site and another right turn takes us into
Queen Street. Here the Baptist Church has stood since being built
in 1858 to a design by W Booker of Nottingham and externally,
it has changed little in all those years. If you compare this
image with one from a similar position taken about 1901 on the
"Picture
The Past" site (search for ref DCER000003) you
will notice that the wall is lower today, the gates and overhead
lamp have gone but little else has changed.
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Yet another right turn takes us back down South
Street to the end of West Street where we can cross the road
to continue along Gladstone Street. Sandwiched between the refurbished
properties on the corner and the newly built doctor's surgery,
Gladstone House, and partly hidden by a tree is the remains of
another old workshop that only ceased business in the early nineteen
fifties.
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This plus the chimney above is all that remains of a wheelwright's
forge. Now within the grounds of Gladstone House, to the unsuspecting
passer-by it would surely go unnoticed but thankfully it has
been preserved as part of the town's heritage.
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