Click Here to return to main page

The Village of Waingroves

Waingroves is a Derbyshire mining village that's been previously described as a Single road of houses, half a mile to the West of Codnor. However growth of the two villages during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries now sees them separated by only a single field’s width, and this is under threat from the need to build ever more houses.

The spelling of Waingroves as changed throughout history. The earliest example being Waingrif or Waingriff in 1147, later it was Wayngriff, Wayngreve or Wayngrene in the 1400s as well as Wingreayes before eventually settling on Waingrove then Waingrove’s and Waingroves  

History
Ralph Fitz Stephen bestowed certain lands in Waingroves in the parish of Pentrich to the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, around  A.D. 1147, for a house of that order to be built .

Some disagreements arose between the Knights Hospitallers and the canons of Darley abbey over the use of the land. In 1191 it was settled that the abbey should allow the Hospitallers to hold Waingrove in perpetuity of them, but that the tenant of the Hospitallers should hold common rights for his cattle, both in the wood and in the plain, only in proportion to the tenants of the abbey; that he should keep no pigs except his own, and that those should not exceed twenty; and that he should keep no goats unless they were also kept by the abbey tenants.
It was stipulated in the agreements that the rights of the mother church of Pentrich should be fully respected, and it was also arranged, in return for these concessions, that the Hospitallers should pay to the abbey an annual sum of 5s., within the octave of St. Michael

Further mention of Waingroves appears in John Pym Yeatman’s book “The Feudal History of the county of Derby” published 1886

Hundred Rolls of Edward I
In 1274 The Hospitallers hold in Wayngriff, 13 bovates of land, from what time is unknown.

In 1390. Sir Nicholas Montgomery gave to the Abbot of Derley(Darley) several lands and tenements in Ripley, Codnor, Waingriff and Derby

1st June 1410. Westminster. Patent Roll, Henry IV Licence, for 10 marks paid in the hanaper by the abbot and convent of Derley, for Nicholas Mountegomery, chivaler,' Roger Leche, ' chivaler,' Robert Fraunceys, ' chivaler,' John Cokayn the elder,Peter de Melburn, Peter de la Pole and William de Babyngton to grant to them in mortmain a messuage, 7 bovates of land and 6 acres of wood in Ryppele (Ripley) and Wayngreve (Waingroves), held of the prior of St. John of Jerusalem in England by the service of 10s. yearly, an acre of land in Codenore; not held of the king, and 1 1/2 acres of land in Derby, held of the king in free burgage; for the prior and brethren of the Hospital to release to them the said yearly rent of 10s.; and for them to re-grant to the said prior and brethren a yearly rent of 10s. from the said messuage, bovates of land and wood. In 1423, Nicholas Montgomery, Clerk, and others gave to the Abbot and Convent of Derley certain lands, &c. in Derby, Rippeley, Wayngrene

The last of the Strelley family was Clayton Somerville Strelley and his daughter married Charles Haslam who is recorded as living there in 1895.

Frederick Channer Corfield also lived there for a short while whilst building Ormonde Fields House at Codnor.

Another resident was Thomas Farnsworth 1912, Followed in the 1920’s by  Col.H.J.A. Banks, then S Camplion Wright and also Capt. Thomas Grieve. Laurie MC, who was the owner that indicated buried remains of an earlier building existed beneath the front garden.  Another owner who also took a keen interest in the history of the hall was Dr. Gerald FitzMaurice Keatinge and his wife Margaret. Doctor Keating was doctor to the Butterley Company and he suggested that the current building was possibly the third or fourth incarnation of the hall.
They had a son, John Charles Fitzgerald Keating, who was a Lieutenant in the Irish Guards, but he was killed in France in the Second World War.

The hall was later owned by a Mr & Mrs Lloyd, and sold for £68000 in 1982 to Mr and Mrs Philips.

The following is a timeline of events that led to the building of Waingroves village school.

September 1883
The Ripley School Board receive the following list of tenders and amounts for the erection of schools at Hartshay and Waingroves

WALTER BRIERLEY 

Walter was born at 96 Waingroves road on 25th June 1900. He was the middle son of five brothers, who all worked down the pit. His father George worked as a winding engineman at Denby pit for forty-five years. 
Walter attended Waingroves school until he was thirteen then went to work at Waingroves pit, first on the surface until a year later when he started working underground at the outbreak of the first world war.
He continued working at the pit during the day as well as attending continuation classes at Waingroves school until the strike of 1921.
During the strike the pit floods, and never re-opens.
Walter is unemployed for the first time until he manages to find another job at Denby Colliery. He goes on to marry Amy and they have a son John in January 1927, however it wasn’t long before he was laid of work again in 1931.
But during this time he had continued as best he could with his education. He won a Miners’ Welfare Scholarship to University College Nottingham and then twice wins the Arthur Markham Prize for writing by a miner. It was his experiences as an unemployed young man on the dole queue that led him to write what is generally considered to be his best novel “Means Test Man” in 1935. The book is a portrayal of a coal miner humiliated by the means test and the effects of unemployment on a sensitive mind, a cry of pain and outrage at the indignity of no longer having status or function in the community.
Other well known novels by Walter Brierley include:

Sandwich Man (1937),
Dalby Green (1938)
Danny (1940)

In 1936 Walter joined the Derby Education Authority as a welfare officer, were he worked until he retired in 1965. He died in 1972.
One of Walters earlier works was published in a book called Under Thirty, An Anthology by Michael Harrison. The book contains stories written by several authors before attaining their thirty first year. Walter submitted a story called “Transition” which describes a young boy’s last day at school and first day working down the pit. It is based on Walter’s own experience and he describes life in Waingroves and surrounding villages but changes the names slightly as he does in his other novels. For example Ripley becomes Pirley. 

To read Walter's short story click on the following link:  Transitions by Walter Brierley

To read a biography of Walter Brierley by Paul Johnson, click the following link:  Walter Brierley – from dole queue to best sellers list

There will be lots more added over the next few weeks including the following:

Waingroves Colliery

Waingroves Windmill

Waingroves pubs

Waingroves Brickyard

Information for this page was obtained from the following sources:

The History of the county of Derby; Stephen Glover published 1829

Monasticon Anglicanum; William Dugdale 1846

Camdens Brittania published 1842

The Feudal History of the county of Derby; by John Pym Yeatman’s published 1886

The Ripley & Heanor News; (various)

Derby Mercury (Various)