Place:Spondon, Derbyshire, England

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Spondon is now an eastern ward of the city of Derby. Originally a small village and ancient parish, Spondon dates back to the Domesday Book of 1086. It became heavily industrialised in the 19th and early 20th centuries, ans was the headquarters of the British Celanese company. At the census in 2011 Spondon had a population of 12,377.

The community lies on the north slope of the valley of the River Derwent east of Derby and is divided by the A52 major road, which separates the residential Spondon village area at the top of the hill from the heavily industrialised area at the bottom.

History

The name Spondon is Anglo-Saxon and describes a gravelly hill. In about 1333, a great fire, starting at The Malt Shovel, a local pub, and aided by an easterly wind, swept through the village destroying the church and all but a few houses, with just one casualty, the mayor. The damage was so great that a judge, Roger de Bankwell, was sent to hear pleas for relief from taxes. The Great Fire of Spondon is still commemorated and taught as part of the curriculum in local schools.

Spondon became heavily industrialised in the 19th and early 20th centuries, with companies such as British Celanese (now the Celanese Corporation). The large site is now closed, but it initially made cellulose acetate in World War I and other artificial fibres in later decades.

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).

"SPONDON, a village, a township, a parish, and a [registration] sub-district, in Shardlow [registration] district, Derbyshire. The village stands [half] a mile N of the Derby and Nottingham railway, and 2¾ E by S of Derby; and has a station on the railway, and a post-office under Derby.

"The township comprises 2,830 acres. Real property: £8,807; of which £62 are in quarries. Population in 1851: 1,672; in 1861: 1,523. Houses: 333.

"The manor, with Locko Park, belongs to W. D. Lowe, Esq. [Spondon] Halland [Spondon] House are chief residences.

"The parish contains also Stanley chapelry, and comprises 4,300 acres. Population in 1861: 2,057. Houses: 442. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Lichfield. Value: £260. Patron: W. D. Lowe, Esq. The church is decorated English, and has a tower and spire. The [perpetual] curacy of Stanley is a separate benefice. There are two Methodist chapels, an endowed school with £17 a year, and charities £169."

As an ancient parish, it was located in the Appletree Hundred of Derbyshire, England. It contained the township of Chaddesden and the chapelry of Stanley.

A Vision of Britain Through Time notes that Spondon was absorbed into Derby in tranches during the first half of the 20th century. In 1968 it was wholly abolished as a civil parish and absorbed into the neighbouring parishes of Dale Abbey (to the northeast) and Ockbrook (to the east).

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.

• Wikimedia Commons map of the post-1974 districts of Derbyshire. The numbers will be linked to the districts on the WeRelate district pages.
• Wikimedia Commons often provides a map of the ancient divisions named "hundreds", but there does not appear to be one for Derbyshire. This 1832 Ordnance Survey map from A Vision of Britain through Time is not as good as those in the Wikimedia Commons series.
• Derbyshire family history societies are listed in GENUKI.
• Towns and Villages of Derbyshire and the Peak District is a locally produced website designed for tourists.