DISCOVER DERBYSHIRE

AND THE

PEAK DISTRICT

 BYGONE DAYS - KIRK IRETON

FEATURE

Following the publication of the Kirk Ireton Feature, I received a very interesting email from Chris Radford who lives in Hampshire, which I am sure will be of interest to people with close connections to this lovely old village. I replied to Chris and he very kindly emailed me some old photographs. The original message is set out below together with the pictures and a later email providing a description of the photographs. Please wait for them to open.

ORIGINAL MESSAGE AND PHOTOGRAPHS

Message : Not possibly so much an error as incomplete information. My mothers side of the family, the Whittakers, came from Kirk Ireton and in the 1940's/50's we used to stay with our great uncle during the summer in his cottage behind the Wesleyan chapel, there was then no piped water to the cottage and I remember my sister and myself fetching the water from a tap at the end of the lane, the water was then stored in an earthenware "panchion" which was kept in the scullery. My grandmother was  "in service" at Alton Manor and my grandfather, who left school at the age of eleven, started out as a ploughboy at one of the Dean family's farms and having progressed to a four in hand beer dray, eventually became a woodman running his own team in Derbyshire and even down to Devon and Somerset. He then became head forester on the Strutt estate in Belper where the familt eventually settled. My great uncles name was Joe Hodgkinson. I have many photographs of parts of Kirk Ireton and of  some of the old inhabitants going back to Victorian times. I hope this is of interest.

LATER MESSAGE

I have at last invested in a new scanner so I have attached some photographs, if they're no good on one page then let me know and I will scan them individually, The cottage with the Gothic style windows is the one we used to stay in and the two women are my grandmother and my great grandmother, family names were Whittaker and Hodgkinson respectively, the couple are my grandparents Jim and Elizabeth Whittaker the second cottage is at the top of the Hemp Yard where it joins the other road coming behind the Weslyan chapel and going down the hill towards, would it be Hopton? My grandfather became eventually the head woodman on the Strutt estate at Belper and the tree is one that he and his team felled somewhere on the estate.

Please feel free to use them on the site and my original comments and email address can certainly be mentioned, I would welcome any feedback. (EMAIL CHRIS RADFORD AT: RADFORD1940@aol.com )

 NOTE

I am aware that the above are the first bygone photographs I have published, courtesy of Chris Radford, but I do hope similar opportunities will occur in the future. If anyone is able to forward me a few old photographs relevant to this website, that other people would find of interest I would like to publish them. Pictures of old buildings that no longer exist and those with groups of people on (ie. school photo's) are always very popular.

I will be delighted if Chris gets some feedback from visitors to this page. See email address above - later information - unfortunately Chris no longer seems to be available at the above address and I have no other means of contacting him.

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