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- the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia
Elmton with Cresswell is a town and civil parish in the Bolsover District of Derbyshire, England. It covers the villages of Elmton, Cresswell and Cresswell Model Village. According to the UK census of 2001, Elmton with Creswell parish had a population of 4,755, and in 2011 a population of 5,550. The town lies on the border with Nottinghamshire.
The following description from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72 is provided by the website A Vision of Britain Through Time (University of Portsmouth Department of Geography).
- "ELMTON-WITH-CRESSWELL, a parish in the [registration] district of Worksop, and county of Derby; on the NE verge of the county, 5 miles E by S of Staveley [railway] station, and 8 ENE of Chesterfield. Post town, Clown, under Chesterfield. Acres: 2,970. Real property: £4,421. Population: 469. Houses: 91. The property is divided among a few. Limestone is found. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Lichfield. Value: £120. Patron: the Duke of Portland. The church is good. Buxton, the calculating day-labourer, was a native."
History
The parish now known as Elmton with Cresswell began as a medieval settlement. Elmton was not recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086, but if Creswell existed then it would have been a small outlying hamlet or farm. Elmton didn't grow much; in fact it has not done so over the past 150 years, but Creswell might have become a small hamlet in the Creswell valley consisting of yeoman farmers. In 1722 an Estate Map shows what this post-medieval settlement may have looked like with buildings spread along the valley and a nucleus of buildings at the southern end of the village around an open space called Creswell Green, part of which is now known as Fox Green. Further development of Creswell took place in the 18th century in response to the construction of a turnpike road (today the A616) along the valley linking Chesterfield and Mansfield.
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In 1854 the Duke of Portland acquired the Rodes estate in Elmton and Creswell resulting in a significant development of Creswell Village. Over the next 40 years comprehensive improvements to the estate followed with further development of the enclosed landscape, new farm houses, improvements of Elmton Church and at Creswell a school and church. By 1884 Creswell had grown into a hamlet of 30 - 40 houses. The Midland Railway was constructed west of the hamlet in 1875 and the Beighton branch of the Lancashire, Derby and East Coast Railway was constructed a little further west in 1886/97. The overall effects of these changes was to bring about a profound change in the relative importance of the two settlements of Elmton and Creswell between 1841 and 1881. The population of Elmton remained largely static at just over 200, whilst that of Creswell grew from 222 to 300. Over the next two decades it was to rise to over 2,000. Between 1894 and 1900 northeastern Derbyshire was transformed by the Coal Industry and there were associated increases in population and housing. The Bolsover Colliery Company was formed in 1894 and trial sinking of shafts in Creswell began in the September of the same year. A good seam was found and coal-turning commenced in 1897. Construction of the Model Village in Creswell began in 1896 on land purchased from the Duke of Portland and the village was built to provide cottages for the colliery workforce. After completion of the "model village", Creswell began to grow.
Research tips
- Derbyshire Record Office website
- British History Online (Victoria County Histories) does not appear to cover Derbyshire geographically. A History of the County of Derby: Volume 2, edited by William Page is a part-volume covering the religious houses of the county. No further volumes have been found.
- GENUKI main page for Derbyshire which provides information on various topics covering the whole of the county, and also a link to a list of parishes. Under each parish there is a list of the settlements within it and brief description of each. This is a list of pre-1834 ancient or ecclesiastical parishes but there are suggestions as to how to find parishes set up since then. GENUKI provides references to other organizations who hold genealogical information for the local area. There is no guarantee that the website has been kept up to date and therefore the reader should check additional sources if possible.
- The FamilyTree Wiki has a series of pages similar to those provided by GENUKI which may have been prepared at a later date and from more recent data. The wiki has a link to English Jurisdictions 1851 which gives the registration district and wapentake for each parish, together with statistics from the 1851 census for the area.
- A Vision of Britain through Time, Derbyshire, section "Units and Statistics" leads to analyses of population and organization of the county from about 1800 through 1974. There are pages available for all civil parishes, municipal boroughs and other administrative divisions. Descriptions provided are usually based on a gazetteer of 1870-72 which often provides brief notes on the economic basis of the settlement and significant occurences through its history.
- For a more detailed view of a specific area try a map from the following selection. The oldest series are very clear at the third magnification offered. Comparing the map details with the GENUKI details for the same area is well worthwhile. Sections of the 1900 map showing parish boundaries only have been reproduced on some (but not all) parish pages here in WeRelate.
- Map of Derbyshire illustrating urban and rural districts in 1900 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time. Parish boundaries and settlements within parishes are shown.
- Map of Derbyshire urban and rural districts in 1944 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time. Parish boundaries and settlements within parishes are shown. This is not a repeat of the first map. There were some changes in urban and rural district structure in the 1930s.
- Ordnance Survey map of Derbyshire for 1967 This is the last in this series and was made while Derbyshire was experimenting with the non-metropolitan district structure adopted in 1974. It is a much cleaner map for reading the names of the civil parishes, but the smaller villages are no longer visible.
- These are only three of the series of maps to be found in A Vision of Britain through Time.
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