Old Whittington One Place Study

Leafing through British Newspapers this advert from the Derbyshire Courier 6 June 1899 jumped out. Never heard of Revolution Mixture before, my first thought was it must be a cough linctus how wrong I was!

Lovely story about an Old Whittington character.

I have just bought this photo (its not the clearest) from Ebay and I think it is the top of Church St, on the corner with the turn to the church on the right. The steps are there which still exist.

I have never seen another picture of this cottage on the corner wonder if it the start of the row I have highlighted on the attached map.

Derbyshire Victoria County History have posted a wealth of information on their website about Whittington it can be read here http://derbyshirevch.org/draft-text/

It is still a work in progress but contains a variety of information relating to Whittington, Old and New and Whittington Moor.

This from the Sheffield Evening Telegraph 12 October 1915.I have never heard of the Rifle Range that was opened the same time as the Swanwick Memorial Hall. Has anybody else heard of it or know where it was?

Finding the article on Mary Swanwick playing fields reminded me that 18 months ago I was asked to jot down a few facts about Mary Swanwick for someone who was giving a talk about her.For some reason I never posted the ‘jottings’ on here or the webpage. I have now rectified that and this can be read at https://oldwhittingtonops.com/mary-swanwick-13-july-1841…/The story is by no means a full biography of Mary Swanwick, but there may be some information in there for people who wonder who the lady was who had a school named after her.

Picture on display at Elder Yard Chapel Chesterfield

This report taken from the Derbyshire Times/ Chesterfield Herald 17 June 1933, shows how strongly people felt when the Mary Swanwick Playing fields were changed from public playing fields to school playing fields, only to be used during school time. I dont know if they ever went back to public use again after this protest. Perhaps someone may know.I love the fact that whoever did the deed replaced the ground and place another message there!

I found this interesting story in the Derbyshire Courier from 1910. Its about Sarah Shepherd who lived in the Revolution House in 1910, when the interview took place. She has some interesting tales to tell and it can be read in full at

THE LADY OF THE REVOLUTION HOUSE – Old Whittington One Place Study (oldwhittingtonops.com)

Further to my post re Samuel Hinde yesterday. As I mentioned he owned many pieces of land and wooded areas in Whittington in mid 1700. I have now been joined by my friend and fellow researcher Elizabeth Pemberton in trying to plot on old maps (both working from our separate homes !) where these pieces of land actually were.Names like Far Dam Close, Piper Hole, Hollow Meadow, Near Brown Holme and many more have disappeared from recent maps.It is difficult to imagine that the whole area around Whittington had very few houses at this time. However, the good thing is that the two rivers appear on all of the maps and are a good starting point to work from.

I am currently researching a gentleman called Samuel Hinde who lived in Old Whittington mid 1700’s until his death in 1809. He owned much of the area on Newbridge Lane down towards the canal, including the Foxley Oaks area, many other pieces of land in Whittington and it is not a name I was familiar with. Imagine my surprise yesterday when I visited the churchyard at Old Whittington to look for the Hinde graves and bumped into two ladies who were looking for the same graves. They are descendants of Samuel Hinde and we were able to exchange information about him. It was a coincidence that we should all have chosen the same time to visit the churchyard.We found the graves and I hope to be able to post more information about Samuel Hinde and Foxley Oaks in the next week or so.