Aston History – The Village Farmsteads And Other Buildings

The old village farmhouses continued to be used for some time after the enclosures of 1757 and 1763, as it was only very slowly that new farmhouses were built out in the fields. A map of the Holden estate in 1795, then covering about a third of the township, shows buildings at Rider Hill, possibly farm buildings and by 1835 there was a scattering of buildings outside the village at Rectory Farm, Aston Hall, Marsh Flat, Aston moor, Hanger Bank and Riding House. Of these the Rectory farm certainly and Aston Hall, Marsh Flat and Riding House (Riden of Royden Hall) probably were farms, and perhaps one of the buildings at Aston moor, but there was probably only cottages at Hanger Bank. Yet there were undoubtedly more than four or five farms in Aston at this time, so the other farm buildings must still have been in the village. By 1857, at least two more farm names came into existence, Fox Covet and cottage, but the latter’s farmhouse was on the outskirts of Aston village. So were the Manor Farm buildings in 1924, so both probably utilized old premises at least in part. It would seem then that only seven farms were ever built outside the village of Aston; these being Glebe, Ridenhill (Royden Hill), Fox Covet, Moorside, Marsh Flat, Rectory and Aston Hall (the knob).

There is no doubt that some of the village farmhouses began to go out of use before the building of new farmhouses outside the village, probably because of an increase in the size of the farms and a consequent decreased in the number of farmers. Sometimes the old houses were pulled down, sometimes converted to other uses. Thus Robert Clarke, A Derbyshire gentleman (later of Aston) bought in 1763 a messuage with its homestead and orchard adjoining which must have been an old farmhouse with its yard and orchard, and before his death in 1782 had built messuages on the land, each with a garden. He left the original house standing, Jacob Botham of Aston yeoman bought a messuage with three homestead in 1775, and again one suspects that this was a farmhouse and yard, and either he or his son, Joseph, had new building and alterations, converted it into five cottages with a room used as a schoolroom by 1834. Today, there is probably just one village farmhouse left, 16 The Green, the tablet in which suggests it was built by a Christopher Wright; it says ‘ W ‘. It is two stones high in red brick with ‘ C H Lozenge ’ diapering, in black brick. Some of the 1690 windows are modern.

In the late 18th and early 19th century there was a considerable amount of building in Aston – some of it has already been mentioned, but there was plenty more besides. The Daykins, first Mary in her widowhood between 1785 and 1803 and then her son William 1805 and 1839, built four houses between them of which we have descriptions, all using the old words houseplace, parlour and chamber for the names of the roads. Lovatt Frearson of Aston joiner purchased together with a house already on it. He built three more houses, leaving the existing house still standing in this case, so that at his death, in 1817 he was able to leave his five children two houses each. Altogether, there is evidence of the building of over 20 cottages or houses in the papers of the Holden family (and undoubtedly further building took place in the 19th century of which no evidence survives). Probably, some of these cottages still exist, but further research and examination of some of the older cottages in the village would be necessary to establish this. The Moorside developed a tiny community in the 18th century though there was one cottage there in the 17th century. One of the Moorside houses in 1833 was the house of schoolmaster George Daykin and consisted of house place, parlour, two chambers, and a large garden.

This building activity was presumably related to an increase in the population. According to Pilkington, there were about 92 houses and 452 inhabitants in 1769. By 1811, the Census shows there were 111 inhabited houses, 2 in the process of being built and 2 uninhabited, 112 families and 532 people. Sixty-one of the families were engaged in agriculture, 31 in trade etc., and 20 in other pursuits. The numbers of inhabited houses and the population rose to a peak in 1851, when they reached 150 and 191 respectively, after which they declined, though somewhat more slowly than they had risen. In 1911 the population was only 493 but in 1931 a dramatic 645 was recorded presumably Aston was already becoming a commuter village. However, it took 20 years for the population to rise by a comparable number to 796 in 1951. At the last census, Aston had over a thousand (1067) inhabitants for the first time in its history. Now housing developed along the roads out of Aston to provide for the increased population, whilst old cottages were demolished in 1967, to make a green space in the centre.

Village Industry

Industry in Aston has been small-scale and of local significance with the exception of gypsum (also called alabaster of plaster) quarrying and mining. There was a stocking framework knitter in Aston 1766, called John Whyman; in 1789, there were three stocking frames in the parish (then including Shardlow and Wilne) and forty years later there were a few stocking frames and two lace machines. The evidence for brick making is as sparse; a brick-kiln Close is marked on a map of 1795, north of the village and beside the London Road, two brick makers were named in Bagshaw’s directory of 1857, a brick and a tile maker in White’s directory of 1857, and the Brickyard Plantation, one of the properties sold at the break up of the old Holden estate in 1924. However, by 1932 the Derby Brick Company was mentioned in Kelly’s Directory and was still in Aston in 1941.

There is evidence of some plaster quarrying in the 17th century by John Hunt, (with reference to a plaster delfe) on 1630, and in the early 18th century, when no doubt the gypsum was used locally for white washing and flooring, but it was only at the end of the 18th century that it seems to have been quarried in commercial quantities. Richard Brown and sons in 1796 announced the opening of an alabaster quarry near Shardlow, probably the pits shown on the Holden estate map of 1795. Humphrey Moore, a Shardlow merchant, was paying a rent on the pits in 1809 and he built a railway from the plaster pits on Aston Hill to the canal near Hicken’s bridge. Charles Holden spent £500 building it for Moore acting on Holden’s behalf. The railway was ‘now making’ in 1811 and was probably completed and opened in 1812. Farey records that Samual Storey was working the pits in 1811 and he was probably the first leaser of the railway. John Brookhouse of Derby ‘plasterer’ and Joseph Johnson, coal dealer, leased both pits and tramway in 1818, but by 1825, the closed line was being offered for sale. It seems to have been revived and extended to other pits nearer Aston, and finally closed sometime before the First World War. In its later days, trucks were horse drawn along the line to a small cottage near the Shardlow Road called the ‘Whey house’ where the trucks were weighed before continuing to the Wharf. There the gypsum was transferred to the canal and travelled to the plaster mill at Kings Mills. Meanwhile, other pits were opened near Chellaston and are shown on the 1835 one-inch ordnance survey map. In 1857 Pegg Harper and Co. of Derby and Robert Meakin of Chellaston and its offices, engine houses, shafts etc., together with land and mines, were leased by Winterbottom to the Derby Plaster Co. in 1919 and sold as the Glebe or California mine to the Gotham Co Ltd, in 1924, together with the plaster mill, its engine of dynamo rooms, stone dressing sheds, head to mine shaft, winding house, kiln house with four large plaster and cement kilns and several other rooms. A pre-cast concrete works has now succeeded the plaster works on the site.

The Village Community

In the 19th and early 20th century, Aston was a self-sufficient community. The ancient church in the 1820 at least, was well attended and from 1929, there was a Wesleyan Methodist Church (replaced in 1967). In 1823–4 there was a subscription day school for fifty boys and a Sunday school for fifty boys and fifty girls. Perhaps as in 1829, the Rector provided the schoolhouse, but in the 1830’s and until 1844, a Joseph Botham owned a room used as a schoolroom. In the following years, contributions aided by a grant of £54 from the National School Society; it had a boy’s room of 80 and a girl’s room for fifty according to one source, but others say it could accommodate 160. Only about 40 boys and 30 girls attended at first, but numbers rose to an average attendance of 150 in 1904, by which time it had become a Public Elementary school. A music teacher lived at Aston in 1846 and there was a mistress in addition to the National School master and mistress in 1857 but the only real evidence of private schooling is of a private school at the White House in 1895. From 1870, there were eight almshouses (four built and two purchased) whilst by 1924 there was a village hall.