When a Miss is as Good as a Mile (or Two!)

Carrying on with the theme of last week's post, after visiting two preserved railways on Friday and Sunday, Monday evening found me planning how I would spend my last full day in the Notts./Derbyshire border country.  Looking at the current map in conjunction with the excellent Rail Map online, I could see a number of places where it ought to be possible to identify some evidence of a past railway line that is no longer there.  I made a note of a number of villages to visit in the area between Bolsover and Shirebrook and, satisfied with that, went to bed.

Next morning, with little further thought, I set out.  One village is quickly followed by another, however, and if you haven't noted a particular street name to look for, the opportunity is soon lost ... especially if you are concentrating on the potential oncoming vehicle around the next bend, worrying about holding up a van behind you, or anxious about maintaining power going up a very steep hill.  Rylah Hill, Palterton is not pleasant.  A notice at the top says 'vehicles over 7.5 tonnes: access only' and one at the foot advises, 'unsuitable for HGVs' ... and that's not just because it's narrow in places!

Ringa Lane, Elmton

To cut a long story short, the only railway relic I saw was at the end of a cul-de-sac called Station Road (usually a bit of a giveaway), in the form of an embankment that might have carried a railway track many years ago.  I had long since given up my search and was enjoying the sunny day finding an alternative way home when I stumbled on a place that boasts itself 'a small village steeped in history' where archaeologists have discovered 'evidence of every period of human history since prehistoric times'.  Elmton, though small, is certainly a pretty place and I took a number of photos.

After I'd got home I had to do a bit of research to find the name of the lane in one picture and was intrigued by a regular geometric shape on the map.  Research was sidetracked to find out more.  Only a mile-and-a-half from where I'd parked my car was a feature called 'Model Village', in the village of Creswell.  In the heyday of the railways, Creswell had had two stations.  One, on the Midland Railway, was named Elmton & Creswell, and still exists (under the single name 'Creswell') on the line between Mansfield and Worksop.  The other was less than half-a-mile away to the south-west on the Great Central Railway and was called Creswell & Welbeck.  This has now totally vanished, but the 'Model Village' associated with it, is very much still in evidence.

To one living in the 'First Garden City' as I do, it is of particular significance.  Wikipedia tells me that it was built as a pit village in 1895, in the arts and crafts style, by the Bolsover Colliery Co.  Its shape is described in a publication by the local council as 'a double octagon with an inner and an outer circle', i.e. an almost rectangular peripheral road, surrounding a large green area.  The 280 houses are built on either side of this road, half on the inside, facing the green, and half on the outside, facing the open countryside.  Thus the backs of the houses face the peripheral road, where (in the original design) a tramway facilitated the delivery of coal to the cellars of the houses, and the removal of night soil from enclosed ashpit lavatories in the back yards.

Between the houses and the colliery the company also built a village institute, which not only had a bar, billiard room, reading room and library, but also a lecture hall seating 400, where the colliery band practised (there was a bandstand on the central green!).  There was a branch of the Bolsover Co-operative Society's store and allotments and a cricket ground were also provided nearby.  There was also a church, lit by electricity generated by the company and, in 1903-4 they built a drill hall to provide recreational facilities for the Boys Brigade; this was used as a military hospital during World War I and has now been modernised as a social centre.

We often read of the exploitative and oppressive nature of the independent mine-owners and no doubt this was true in many cases, but here was at least one colliery company willing to provide an element of employee welfare.  This far after the event, of course, it's hard to be objective.