Cutthorpe Tour (Page 5)
Continuing along the main road beyond Rosene Cottages and past a couple of fields is a pub called the Peacock Inn. The village blacksmiths premises used to be next to this pub (it is marked on an 1883 map being on the road side of the building) but it is thought to have closed in about 1918. The Peacock is possibly the oldest of the three pubs in the village today, though it is believed that originally only part of the existing building was used as a pub and the remainder was cottages. Evidence for this is the 1881 census in which four families were living at the address the Peacock, the publican was Mr Sidney Salt and in the other dwellings were Mr William Johnson (coal miner) and family, Mr George Simpson (coal miner) and family, Mr George Collis (coal miner) and wife.
It is believed that the Salt family were licensees at the Peacock Inn from at least 1851 until 1881. The 1851 census has the licensed victualler as Henry Salt age 63 with wife Harriett and family including son Sidney. On the 1861 census Harriet Salt, widow, is the innkeeper and Sidney her son is employed as a Master Shoe Maker.
In Chesterfield Library is a short article written in 1985 by B.J. Middleton about a former
licensee of the Peacock, called Thomas Fletcher. He took over the pub in 1914, having previously been licensee of another pub in Chesterfield. In 1914, states Mr Middleton,
the Peacock Inn was owned by a local landowner who leased it to the Tadcaster Brewery. He says the pub was not very busy in those days. He confirms that there was a forge next door
to the pub, and also tells that there was a large apple orchard in front of the Inn. Mr Fletcher died in 1921 and his family left the Peacock in 1924.
Behind the Peacock to the left is a wood known as Kitchenflat Wood. A public footpath leads into this through the
field in front of the pub. The 1883 map shows quarries in this wood. Shortly after the Peacock, on the right hand side of the road is Cutthorpe School, built in 1884 to replace the old school which is now the village institute. There is a large house or two opposite the school.
A little further on is a row of terraced cottages called South Terrace, which is pictured here on the right. Living there
in 1881 were three families, and there were 3 uninhabited houses.
The families living there were Henry Wilkinson (coal miner), and family, Edward Cocking (coal miner), and family, and Hannah Millington, widow, and family.
Bernard Millington has kindly provided information on the family of Hannah Millington, former resident of South Terrace, and other relatives from Cutthorpe and district. Click here to see the article.
Next on the left hand side of the main road is Barber Lane, leading down to Linacre Reservoirs pictured here. Two Reservoirs were constructed in the 1800's and a third in 1904.
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There are no houses in Barber Lane today, but in the past a grand Medieval house
'Linacre Hall' stood here in an area which today is one of the car-parks for visitors to the reservoir.
A notice board in the car-park, pictured right, tells the visitor a little about Linacre Hall, which was the home of a Dr. Thomas Linacre (1460-1524) the first president of the Royal College of Physicians.
Eventually Linacre Hall was replaced on the same site by a farmhouse 'Linacre House' which on the census returns was sometimes described as Linacre Farm.
On the census of 1841 lived in Linacre House Sarah Rodgers, farmer, with family, and in the same place or next door was Hannah Heathcote, a servant.
In 1851 the son of Sarah, named Richard Rodgers was the head of household at Linacre House 'farmer of 132 acres' and Sarah was living in the same household together with Richard Roger's sister and brother and nephew and two staff, Joseph Hallam (errand boy age 11) and Jane Booth (house servant age 13). In 1861 the same family were farming at Linacre House.
The farmer at Linacre Farm in 1881 was John Wragg, and the farmer at Linacre Farm in 1901 was Mr John Riggott and he had two sons also working on the farm, as well as three other staff named Henry Tomlinson, William Margerison, and William Cutts.
A book "Chesterfield's Rural Fringe" by Roger Redfern (1995) contains a photograph of Linacre House taken about 1900. It was a tall and fairly plain looking stone house. In the photograph
are ten Shire horses and their owners, local farmers who had assembled there for a ploughing match.The photo on the right shows a Shire horse, at the 2005 National Shire Horse Show.
Linacre House was vacated by the Riggott family in 1938 because the reservoir authorities claimed that drainage from the farm was polluting the reservoirs. The farmhouse then became derelict and was eventually demolished in the 1960's.
A booklet by Old Brampton W.I. titled "The Pratt Hall Walk" gives information about Linacre House and Farm provided by Mr G.A. Riggott, son of John Riggott the Linacre House farmer from the 1890's to 1938. 'The farm had about 110 acres, which, with the house and Linacre Woods, belonged then to the Duke of Devonshire, whose Chatsworth Estate is five miles to the west. It was sold to the Water Board in the 1930's'. The book describes the farmhouse which had three storeys, and large cellars where meat was cured.
Mr Riggott also says that there were two farm cottages down the lane near the old quarry. He recalls Mr T.W. Hall, a historian of Sheffield, who published an article on Linacre House after visiting it in about 1929. He considered Linacre House to be 200-300 years old, but in the cellar he found an old mullion window which appeared to be part of a much older house, probably the original Linacre Hall.
In 1881, according to the census of that year, in a cottage in Barber Lane lived the Goodson family headed by Thomas Goodson an agricultural labourer originating from Leicestershire. In the 1901 census this cottage does not appear to have been inhabited.
The reservoir keeper at Linacre Cottage in 1881 was William Woodhead. In 1901 there were two reservoir keepers living at Linacre Wood: William Woodhead and Luther Liversedge.
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| LINACRE RESERVOIRS |
| Reservoirs are constructed under permission given by Acts of Parliament. |
| 1856 Act - Lower Reservoir 9.45 metres deep, 3.44 hectares in size, 140.9 million litres. |
| 1885 Act - Upper Reservoir 18.75 metres deep, 7.29 hectares in size, 575 million litres. |
| 1904 Act - Middle Reservoir 12.9 metres deep, 6.98 hectares in size, 410.9 million litres. |
| Until 1909, the water was simply stored and piped to customers, but complaints about taste and odour led to the installation of filter beds. A quote of the time read: 'The appearance of the public water supply was such that the poor used it as soup, the middle class for washing their clothes and the elite for watering their gardens'. In 1909, water was supplied to 70,000 local people in the area. By 1991, Chesterfield alone had 98,308 residents so today its drinking water comes from other places in Derbyshire. |
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