Tales from the Turnpike
This week’s armchair history walk, conducted by history tour guide GEOF COLE, takes us on a virtual walk up Buxton Hill, starting in the Market Place.
AS we continue in the second lockdown, we can still explore Ashbourne from the comfort of our homes.
A road heading north from the Market Place is shown on the 1547 map of Ashbourne, but it was not the main route north from the town.
By 1700, roads were in a very poor condition and Turnpike Acts authorised tolls to be levied on a road to pay for its improvement and maintenance.
The initial turnpike route of 1738 from Ashbourne to Manchester went past Dovehouse Green, through Mappleton and along Spend Lane – it is possible that the Turnpike Trust improved a much earlier trackway running through Ashbourne into the Peak.
By 1762, the turnpike road went up Buxton Hill to Sandybrook before turning left to rejoin the original route and, in 1777, a new stretch was built past Tissington Gates to become the A515 that we know today.
On the corner with King Street – once known as Mutton Lane from what was sold there when there was an agricultural market – there is a set of steps with the date 1712 above.
Here in 1772, John Wesley preached to a large crowd in the Market Place.
After preaching in Derby, Wesley arrived in Ashbourne at 9am but found the house where he intended to preach ‘would not hold quarter of the people’, and so his service was delivered in the open air.
Wesley commented that ‘none offered the least rudeness’. This was not always the case in some towns.
The buildings on the right side of street heading up the hill date from the late 18/early 19th Century. The other side of the road is more varied.
Opposite Union Street, where a modern building now stands, was the White Horse Inn. In its yard in 1890 lived the Moon family in desperate conditions.
The mother was in the workhouse infirmary because she was ill, and Town Police Superintendent Burford appealed for bedding for the family – the current being ‘old, dirty, and unfit for use”.
£2.4s.6d was raised for the house to be cleaned, whitewashed and all the bed and linen replaced.
The oldest building is No 6a, a late 17th Century white house once the White Lion pub.
Nos 6-10 is a large three storey Victorian building with original stables behind. Above this are a pair of fine double-fronted houses (now Carrington House) built in the late 18th century with interesting features: multipaned windows, painted timber doorcases with triangular pediments, decorative eaves, stone-capped roof gables and large chimney stacks. Back on the right side of the street is St John’s Church, built between 1869 and 1871 at a cost of £8,000 - paid for by y Francis Wright of Osmaston Manor.
Wright had da a disagreement nt with the Rev John Errington, the vicar of St Oswald’s Church, who had wanted to introduce e cathedral-style le services with organ, choir and d high church ritual.
Wright was low church and wealthy, being the major shareholder and director of the Butterley Iron Works.
Wrigh Wright solved the p problem of his disagreem ment with E Errington by building his own free church, d designed by Derby ar a rc h i t e c t Hen Henry Isaac Steven Stevens in plain roundarched style.
Over the door are words from Mathew 18.20: “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them” – indicating a place for the gathering of the faithful as opposed to Wright’s opinion of the Parish Church congregation.
Wright did not enjoy his free church for long, dying in 1873.
After his death, the church ran into financial difficulties and in 1883 it joined the established church as a ‘peculiar – a church without a parish and managed by a Board of Trustees.
There are only a handful of non-royal peculiars in England, a status St John’s shares with St Mary-le-bow in the City of London, home of the famous bow bells.
Immediately above St John’s Church is the rather sad sight of the Queen Victoria Memorial Cottage Hospital building, now fenced off.
Opened in 1903 by Princess Christian - Princess Helena before her marriage and Queen Victoria’s third daughter.
It was taken over by the NHS in 1948-9 and closed in 1964.
Sold and initially divided into flats, it has now become derelict.
And there we end our look at Buxton Hill.
In 1772, John Wesley preached to a large crowd in the Market Place, which could accommodate more people