Brimington and Tapton in 1983

For our first post of 2024 we’ll take a very selective look back forty years to some local events in 1983. And yes – it really is 40 years ago!

Coaching changes – Ringwood Coaches and Chumbley’s

Two local giants of the coaching business retired in 1983.

The boss of Ringwood Coaches retired in November 1983. Tom Brockbank of No. 2 Ringwood Road was reported as having started the business in 1960, but he’d been driving since 1946. He was handing over the business to his two sons – David and Derek.

Ringwood Coaches were once familiar in the area. Their livery was latterly a mid-blue colour. But what happened to them and when did they move from the village? Can you help fill in the details?

The next month George Chumbley sold his business, run from his house on Heywood Street, with a garage on the corner of George Street and Coronation Road (now houses), to J Cooper & Sons of Killamarsh. Again, Chumbley’s coaches were a once familiar in the area. Like Ringwood, Chumbley was a small operator.

Peterdale Road development

Wilcockson and Gray were busy developing the Peterdale Road estate during 1983 (development had started before this year). In July the parish council were complaining of sludge being carried from the development to a tip that had been established at the top of King Street.

Tapton Hall Farm and Tapton Grove

Planning applications included one for the conversion of a barn into two holiday cottages at Tapton Hall Farm. It’s also likely that conversation of Tapton Grove into a ‘retirement home’ was nearing completion at the end of 1983, as in February of the next year it was being advertised as such.

Street lighting

Right at the beginning of the year it was reported £10,500 was to be spent by the county council on a street lighting renewal scheme in Brimington. This would see replacement of many of the remaining cast-iron lighting columns that had been converted from gas to electricity, originally when the parish council came under Labour control just after the end of the Second World War.

Grove Farm

Meanwhile conditions at the listed Grove Farm, in the centre of the village, opposite the Ark Tavern public house, were deteriorating.  Bought by a couple the previous spring, in April it was reported that the property had been empty for seven years. There were serious structural problems, prompting the county council to make a grant of just over £4,000 to assist in its restoration – earlier said to cost around £36,000. It’s not quite clear what happened, but by mid 1987 plans were being worked up that would see the farmhouse and the outbuildings subject to the Grove Farm Close development we see today. The site had apparently been blighted by an earlier bypass proposal, which would have seen it impacted by a scheme for a new road just south of Hall Road – by 1983 abandoned.

Tapton store

There was better news for Tapton. Following the loss of their Cooperative Society branch it was reopened as a newsagents and general store in June. Dave Howarth ran it for a few years, before it succumbed to final closure, as ‘News Plus’. His family also ran the then newsagents on Ringwood Road, opposite the Three Horse Shoes (now demolished). The Tapton store was at the Brimington Road end of Swaddale Avenue. It still survives as a house (number 236 Brimington Road).

Ringwood Club

In perhaps a portent of what was to come, members of the Ringwood Club (not in Brimington but nearby) – then owned by Stanton and Staveley Ltd. – were reported as being apprehensive about the cost of running the property. But at the annual meeting of the club they were assured that they could continue.  The company decided to sell the property in 1988 – presumably the effective end of the club.

Local plan

Issues around a new local plan for Brimington and Staveley reached a head in 1983. These plans set-out priorities for development and on such things as land-use. Controversially the borough council were proposing that open land around the canal at Cow and Bilby Lanes should be designated as industrial land. The ‘Save Cow Lane’ action group was formed to fight the proposals and duly appeared at the public inquiry into the plan, held in the autumn of 1983. There were various representations made against the proposals, but the borough council claimed that 650 jobs could be created by designation of the land for industrial development.

It wasn’t until March the following year that the inquiry inspector found that the land should be developed for industry. But it’s still open land to this day. So what happened? The catch was that access to the site depended on construction of the Brimington/Staveley bypass – and that has not happened. Perhaps some things have a silver lining after all?

By-pass

Writing of the by-pass, there weren’t any major developments on the Brimington side of things in 1983 but the county council’s ‘North Area Planning Committee’ approved the route of the Tapton by-pass at the beginning of April. The cost was then estimated at £3.7m. This bypass was, of course, built. Construction started in 1988 and it opened about a year later in the spring of 1989. Despite these being times of inflation, far and above even those experienced today, the cost was around £2.5m and the expected 85 week contract was delivered early at about 52 weeks.

The Tapton bypass links up with the Chesterfield Inner Relief Road (Great Central Way) which was under construction during 1983.

Canal idea

In the 1980s the then Chesterfield Canal Society became particularly active in furthering restoration of the canal – by then mostly derelict. A potential idea to use the canal as a footpath and cycleway between Chesterfield and the Rother Valley Country surfaced in late October 1983 – the county council approving the scheme at a cost of £200,000 to use the towpath for this.

A few years later there was much debate on the pros, cons and cost of making the route of the canal navigable where it was crossed by the by-pass.  This was as both actual and design work on the Tapton and Brimington bypasses progressed.  Fortunately, the principle of making the canal fully navigable again, with necessary navigable underpasses was later established.

Poultry

In August of 1983 the poultry farm off Manor Road, now the Poppleton Croft estate, was the subject of protesters campaigning against ‘battery hens’ housed there. Up to 50 or so people were present waving placards and the like. This was the subject of a report in the Star newspaper (alongside the Derbyshire Times). It is a reminder as to just how well served Chesterfield was with print media at the time – the Star is now regarded solely as a Sheffield and south Yorkshire newspaper, but at one time it produced a Chesterfield edition and had reporters and an office in New Square, Chesterfield.

Local newspapers are worth supporting not only as they report the news but also act as record of events – such as those contained in this post.

Retirements 1 – Brimington Junior School

Two well-known teachers at Brimington Junior School retired in July. Mr Gerald Pears had been a teacher for 34 years and had been at the school for 25 years. He was then living at Clowne, where he was treasurer of the Parochial Church Council. The other member of staff retiring was in fact the head teacher – Mr George Squire. He had been a teacher for 37 years, becoming head seven years previously. He had also been head at Unstone Junior and Hollingwood Junior Schools. At the time of Mr Squire’s retirement he lived at Aughton Lane, Aston, near Sheffield and was still a serving member of the Royal Naval Reserve, being Flag Officer for Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Retirements 2 – The Hudson Twins

The other pair of notable retirements were of twin brothers Richard and Tom Hudson, born in Marsh Lane, but resident in the village since the 1950s.

Richard was well-known as landlord of the Brickmakers Arms, Manor Road. His twin, Tom, who then lived on Ringwood Road, was once well-known in political and union circles. Both had moved to Brimington in the 1950s, presumably when the former Coal Industry Housing Association (Devon/Hereford Drives, etc.) estate was built. They had started working at Renishaw Park Colliery, transferring to Markham Colliery, where they were face workers.  Tom later moved to Bolsover Colliery. Richard stopped working on the face at Markham after suffering a broken arm when a lump of earth fell on him at the pit. He then went to work on dust suppression; still at the same colliery. The Derbyshire Times in reporting their retirement in its 1 July 1983 edition also noted that Richard was retiring as licensee from the Brickmakers.

Now the pits are gone as has the Brickmakers Arms. But many will still remember those happy (and it has to be said out-of-hours) drinking sessions with Richard and his wife Dorothy as hosts.

We hope you have enjoyed this very selective look at our area in 1983. We’ll hopefully publish one later in the year looking at 1984 – forty years ago!

This page was edited on 6 February 2024 to make it clear that the Peterdale Road development was started before 1983.