Some Dove Holes History

Mr. Fred Green

I would imagine that anyone who has spent much time in Dove Holes will have known Fred Green who lived at Meadow Lane Farm and who died quite recently.
Fred was certainly not frightened of hard work and was a really nice man.
As well as his farm he was also a coal merchant which took its toll on him in later life as he could only walk bent double. There was no way he could straighten up and he cut a sorry figure.
He also had an allotment on the other side of the road below Ladylow but only grew gooseberrys and rhubarb. As lads we used to sneak up and eat what we could but Fred wasn’t daft he often seemed to know we were there and would suddenly appear out of nowhere. We would scatter as fast as we could diving under the barbed wire fence but Fred would always catch one of us and a thick ear was swiftly delivered to his young prisoner.

Later in life we became good friends and I used to meet him at Chelford Market where he always took his duck eggs to sell. I would help him in with them.
It was during one of these market days that he told me about delivering coal in the dreadful 1947 winter.
German and Italian prisoners had stayed on after the War and were put to work digging the main road out. They dug a single track passageway all the way from Horwich End in Whaley Bridge up to Buxton and back down Long Hill and it was a strict one way system.
One teatime Fred had just come home and a lady was sat in his front room. Fred knew her; she lived at Lower Bibbington. She said that her family were shivering to death, they had no heat and could he drop her 6 bags of coal off. Always the gent Fred put the bags of coal on his truck and after a bit of tea he set off. Now Lower Bibbington wasn’t too far from his farm but it wasn’t an easy drive. There was no salt and grit in those days.
With the coal dropped off Fred had to stick to the one way system and you couldn’t turn round even if it was possible. So he had to drive all the way up to Buxton, down Long Hill and back to his farm over the railway bridge.
He told me it was midnight before he got home.
Poor Fred, a very nice man.

Tony Beswick.

This is an old photo of Black Hole Cottages in Dove Holes going down towards Barmour Clough. Not a very appealing name really.

I don't even know where the name came from. Some folk say they were railway houses but they are quite a distance from Dove Holes Station and why would the station need all those houses and employees? More likely they were houses for quarry workers as the track leading to Beelow Quarry was directly opposite on the other side of the A6.

But where did the name Black Hole come from? There used to be a mine near Eyam called The Black Hole Mine but that's a long way off and makes no sense anyway.

TheThomas Beckett Church down the road in Chapel-en-le-Frith had an incident hundreds of years ago when The Scots marched against the English in 1648 and were defeated and brought back from Preston and locked in the Church for 16 days without food or water. When the Church was unlocked 40 men were dead and the Church earned the dubious nickname 'The Black Hole of Derbyshire'. Well that's my bet anyway but as always stand to be corrected.

I went there with my Mum to visit her friend Margaret Cotterill. The only other person that I know lived there and was born there was Noreen Abbott who in later life became the landlady of the Shepherd's Arms in Whaley Bridge.

John French has kindly allowed us to reproduce his photograph which shows Black Hole Cottages in closer detail.

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This is a very old photo of the Dove Holes Chimney. The tallest in the area by a long way. However the photo is a bit misleading as regards location. In the foreground you can see the gate that used to be the entrance to Frank Marchington's farm and just before the gate you can see the beginning of the track that connected Meadow Lane with Hallsteads.

But in actual fact the chimney was directly opposite Fred Green's Farm and at the back of Hallam's farmhouse also on Meadow Lane but down towards the station. In the track opposite Fred's Farm which is on the side of the road is exactly where the chimney was situated. I believe it was a chimney used in the manufacture of cement because old maps show a cement works further back into the site. The cement works was the long single storey building that later became the Shirt Works. My Mum worked there for a while. It is still there to this day but I have no idea what it is now used for.

The chimney was demolished many years ago and somewhere I have some better photos of it. When I can turn them up I'll add them to this post.

Tony Beswick

Arthur Fletcher's hay cart turned over at the top of Meadow Lane just where the Old Saxon Cross stood.

More about that famous cross later. That is the reason the row of houses just down the road were called Cross Cottages.

But for now a great photo of the chimney.

Tony Beswick.

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Lots of replies to my topic of Black Hole but all on Face book which I don’t use so I am not able to reply. So I will have to rely on David to add my comments.

Firstly nobody seems to have come up with a reason for the unusual name as far as I can see.

But back to Black Hole Row for a moment.

Margaret Taylor posted that her father Harold Cartledge demolished the cottages. So that is very interesting. I knew Mr Cartledge when I was a young lad but more of him later.

Roy Holland mentions a horse trough just down from the cottages. This was Lodes Well and never ran dry. A few years ago I went to look for it but it was so overgrown I couldn’t see it but even if the trough has gone the water must still run there. I am not 100% certain but I am fairly sure that the cottages were not connected to mains water and I think they got their water from the well.

I understand the last house in the row, the one nearest Barmour Clough had a little shop in the owner’s front room and they sold provisions to the rest of the residents. Basic items such as bread, cheese, corned beef and such like.

The house at the other end, that is the one nearest to Dove, had a fantastic gooseberry bush at the top of the back garden. It is now obscured by wild bushes that have seeded themselves.

Long after the demolition I used to go and gather the fruit for my Mum. She made it into jam and pies.

I quite liked the jam but hated the pies and have never had a gooseberry pie since

The fruits might still be there to this day I suppose.

Tony Beswick.

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I may have been wrong about Margaret Taylor’s post about her father Harold Cartledge who she says was from Sparrow Pit.
The Harold Cartledge I knew lived at the farm on the back road to Chapel; actually behind Black Hole Cottages.
The Harold Cartledge I knew was the grandfather of a Chapel Parish Councillor who does live at Sparrow Pit. I will have to ask her.
But for the moment a bit of a mystery.
As we are almost at an end on Black Hole Row where do you want to go next?
Down the road to Barmour Clough and up towards Sparrow Pit or the other way over the Hallsteads towards brick row and beyond.
You tell me.

Tony.

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 Mr. Ron Hadfield has asked a question about Dove Holes Brickyard just down from Black Hole.

All I can say is this Ron:

I don’t know of any photos of the works but that is not to say there aren’t any.
Without going up to look until I am out on Wednesday I can’t remember whether there were 2 or 3 kilns. But they are easier to see from the main road than within the site itself. When I was just a kid the gypsies used to come and camp in there and certainly used the derelict kilns. They never left a mess despite their reputation of today.
There was a small reservoir at the rear of the works which collected water from the small but steep valley. The front of that has now been excavated to stop recreational activities and most unused reservoirs have suffered the same fate. I have got a few photos of the interior of the site as it is today and with David’s help I’ll put them on here on Monday. However, everything is completely overgrown and it is difficult to imagine what it once was.
In 2001 I did an old church conversion in Harpur Hill and when we took out some of the old windows there was wooden panelling below each window and those had to be ripped out as well.
These were built up with brick on edges and also had to be removed; on the flat side of the back of the bricks was the simple but perfect manufacturer’s name: ‘DOVE HOLES’.
There were about 50 and I decided to keep them and perhaps some people would have liked one to build into the facade of their houses.
When I went up the next day the bricks had gone into the skip and the skip had been replaced. Still that’s the way it crumbles some times.

"Photo 2 This shows how the brick kilns have been filled in"

photo 1 this shows where the dam wall has been ripped out.

Tony

Just a bit on Barytes:
It was quite an industry in its day.
One of the most famous is The Paint Mills Cottages in Goytsclough Quarry in the Goyt Valley which had a waterwheel and 20 employees. I do have a photo but do not want to go off the current topic.
Another large Barytes factory was at Tunstead Milton owned by Adam Morten.
Tony.

 Well Ron,

It looks like you are leading us down to Barmour Clough and on towards Sparrow Pit so that’s fine.
You mention a Barytes Mill and Laundry. Is that up towards Bennetstone Hall?
As you go down towards Barmour Clough you reach the roundabout. If you turn to the left there used to be a big boating lake there. It was very elaborate and even though I have seen a photo of it I don’t have a copy.
On the other side of the roundabout if you stood facing half way between looking up to Sparrow Pit and Dove Holes you will see a massive gouge in the hillside. This was Llodes Knowle Quarry and you can see the track from it leading towards Black Hole. The trucks carted the stone over this track and there was a connecting train line which went across the main road to the tram track.
Incidentally there seems to be a lot of activity on top of the railway bridge and thare is a tremendous amount of heavy machinery about the place. I suspect they may be taking the top off the hill over the railway tunnel and the natural place to dump the soil would be in the old boating lake or some of it at least in the old brickworks. Still I might be wrong. Probably am.

Tony.

To follow photos of the pathway around the hill and Barmour Clough Houses including the now demolished Clough Inn. One of 6 pubs in Dove Holes.

path around the hill by the tunnel

Barmour Clough houses including the Clough Inn

Here is a drawing which shows what I called the boating lake but on here it is described as a reservoir. Nonetheless I have seen photos of it as a boating lake.

It also shows Lodes Knowle Quarry, the Well and Black Hole Cottages. I did carry water a few times from the well to Margaret Cotterill’s house for her.

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 Hello everyone from Dove Holes and anywhere else come to that.

Just to put some flesh on the bones as it were:

My name is Tony Beswick: some of you may remember me and others will not have a clue as to who I am but here goes anyway:

I lived in Dove from 1951 when I was born until I was 13 years old at which point we moved to Whaley Bridge.
Just like all the Dove kids I went to Dove C of E school where I was taught by Mrs Vernon, then Miss Frogatt (everyone's favourite), then Mrs Godber and finally by the headmaster Mr Evans.
I played football and cricket for Dove. At age 11 I passed my 11 plus together with Philip Ratcliffe and we both went to Buxton College, a very scary place for 11 year olds.

I lived at number 4 Cross Cottages with my Mum Norma, My Dad Harry and my younger sister Julie. My Grandad and Nana Tom and Isabelle lived close by on Cowlow Lane.

No 1 Cross Cottages was a house and farm combined and owned by Arthur Fletcher and his wife Queenie; they had 2 children a son called Arthur and a daughter called Marjorie. Marjorie later became a relation as she married my Dad’s cousin Ian.
No 2 Cross Cottages was owned by Mr and Mrs Harrott who had 2 girls Linda and Susan.
No 3 Cross Cottages was owned by Ned Turner and his wife whose name I have now forgotten.
No 4 Cross Cottages was the house we lived in.
No 5 Cross Cottages was owned by Mr and Mrs Riddington. They didn’t have any children. Mr Riddington went to work somewhere but Mrs Riddington rarely stepped out of the door. When she did I was a bit scared of her.
I have always been very interested in local history and Dove Holes is one of my favourite places.
I have loads of old photos and information about the place, as you already might have seen.
Should you need any information about the place and bear in mind I don’t know everything then you can contact me through this website or phone me on 07914 693733
Tony Beswick.