Derbyshire 80 Clay Cross - the other side of the A61/the industrial side of Chesterfield

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Sometimes you have to try something different . Chesterfield area is not all Peak District pretty . Nor is full to the brim with pretty stone cottages . Stone walls, fields and Bluebell Woods . There is another side . The A61 divides the two halves . The Peak District side where it only takes minutes to walk from our village into the countryside . The other side was highly industrialised . The Avenue - once the main entrance to Wingerworth Hall became the most polluted site in Europe . This 240 acre brownfield site once housed coking works and has been cleaned up ready for redevelopment . It took 15 years to clear the solil and decontaminate it before planning permission was given for 469 properties . That number of properties mean another 1000 inhabitants for our village. A new school will be required and a pub together with a nature reserve for leisure . 700 trees will be planted. The original colliery on the site opened in the 1880's and expanded into a lime and iron works . By 1938 it was all cleared and returned to agriculture . However by 1952 the construction of the coking works began producing smokeless fuel together with natural gas . 800 people worked there . It closed in 1992 with a loss of many jobs . That is the story of this side of the A61 .

So why did I end up this side of the A61 when there are so many beautiful walks the other side ? . It was shopping day and I made the decision to combine a walk with the shop. So come with me as I park the car at the supermarket an hour before it opens . I have that time to kill so make the decision to walk around Clay Cross . Let's head down the town past the Victorian housing . Rows of terraced houses with alleyways or jitties or gennels as they known in various parts of our country . Fancy brickwork over the arch of the gennel. We are walking through the council estate of pensioners bungalows . I find myself walking past our old house . The cherry trees show signs of the deep crimson buds which have yet to open. Two , three or four cars on the drives . Some houses have the same front doors that were fitted 20 years ago by the builder . Our second house looks the same as it did when we left it 13 years ago . A road named after a cardboard box manufacturer , Another after the boiler manufacturer Worcester Bosch and the last after the furnaces that once were part of the local area.


We are not going to see much today . More houses built on the old cricket ground . Its a sad walk and not one we will do again . Shopping done . Time for coffee. What shall I do today ? Wash the car perhaps .

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