Ilkeston, Derbyshire

Extract from Pigot's Commercial Directory of Derbyshire 1828-9

Descriptions transcribed by Heather Faulkes © 1999

ILKESTON is a parish, containing a small market town of the same name, which is about nine miles and a half north-east from Derby, in the hundred of Morleston and Litchurch. This town formerly enjoyed more importance than at the present day, and it is recorded that assizes were at one time held here: some priviledges are still preserved to it; being held by rather a ludicrous tenure, viz. a gallows, standing at the entrance of the town, which, while this erection of legal terror is preserved, gives the trades people of Ilkeston freedom from toll in the towns of Nottingham and Derby.

Here are some lace manufactories, and in the immediate neighbourhood are coal works and malting concerns. The market day, which is on Thursday, is of very little benefit to the inhabitants. Fairs are 6th of March, Whit-Thursday, and the first Thursday after Christmas day. In 1821 the population of the parish was 3,681.

HEANOR village, in the same hundred as Ilkeston, is about eight miles and a half north-east from Derby. In addition to those in agricultural labour, upwards of eighty families are employed in the neighbouring coal works. The parish of Heanor is extensive, and embraces the townships of Shipley, Codnor and Loscow, and Codnor Castle and Park Liberty; in which were, in 1821, 4,981 inhabitants, including 2,364 in the township of Heanor.

RISLEY township and village, about seven miles and a half east from Derby, is partly in the parish of Sawley, and partly in that of Sandiacre. This manor was formerly held by Sir Hugh Willoughby, the celebrated navigator, who sailed on the 10th of May 1555, with three ships, in search of a north-east passage, and was frozen to death with all his crew in the January following, in the frozen ocean. in "Thomsons Seasons" this melancholy event is most feelingly and emphatically described. the village contains about 300 inhabitants.

DRAYCOTT, or Dracote and Wilne Liberty contains a village, about seven miles south-east of Derby. A manufactory for spinning cotton gives employment to some of the inhabitants, but the majority are employed in agriculture: the number in the liberty, in 1821, was about 1,000.

[From Pigot's Commercial Directory of Derbyshire 1828-9.
This page was created by Heather Faulkes on 18^th March 1999, and is reproduced on GENUKI with permission]