This month we continue with our occasional history of how Calow's street names originated.
(If anyone has any other information, please email suecalow246@gmail.com with an update).
The street was built around the 1980s on land that formerly belonged to St Peter's Church. In the 1960's it was a large field where a horse called Silver was kept. So, many people who lived in Calow then remember the area fondly as "Silver's Field". Every so often Silver was stabled elsewhere while Sykes's Fair was held there. | |
Church Street | This runs off Church Lane towards the United Reformed Church's land. It is another example of the social housing built after World War Two. |
Dark Lane | So called presumably because it was (and is) dark! This is an old lane which runs off Top Road, opposite the Church. There are houses there which are some of the oldest in Calow. There were other cottages which have now been pulled down. Top Alley was where one of the clusters of houses were and then at Cock Alley, which met up with Bolehill. Interestingly Cock Alley was so named due to cock fights being held there many years ago (the sport dates back to 6,000 years ago and was banned around 1835). |
Dingle Bank | Dingle means "a small, wooded valley; a dell". Again this is an old part of the village and appears on maps dating from the 1830s or even earlier. |
Eastwood Drive | A small, private road it runs parallel to Eastwood Park. Alderman Eastwood gifted three acres of land to the people of Calow in 1919 for use as a public park. |
Foxglove Close | Again, this street was built, alongside others, all of which were named after plants or flowers. It was built in the 1950s & 60s on the site of the former Proctor's Rose Nursery which "uprooted" and moved to Brookside in Chesterfield. |
This one, like it's sister street Brandene Close, has a lovely history. It was built during the 1960s and 70s by a Calow builder called Snowdon Keith Pass. At first, he had a business partner called Godfrey Madin, who sadly died. So, Snowdon took the last part of Godfrey's name and the last part of his own: Frey-Don! | |
An old lane which runs off Top Road and joins Bolehill, before becoming Calow Lane which runs into Hasland. "Hasland" comes from Anglo-Saxon times (haesel-hamm) and means a farm or settlement at a hazel wood. |