Woodall in 1900
Read about Harthill
The following extract from the Leeds Mercury describes Woodall as it was in 1900.
The hamlet of Woodall lies between Wales and Barlborough in Derbyshire. A pleasant walk across the fields, larks were running in scores, waiting only a glean of sunshine to tempt them skyward with those joyful strains of which the eye, the mind, and the soul never tire.
Harthill is beautifully situated to southward with its interesting old church, where seven generations of the Dukes of Osborne sleep.
In front of me lay Woodall, a dependency of Harthill, and as unpretentious a spot as one could find in the country, never astir on Sunday or weekday, unless it be some such season as harvest time.
The day was chilly enough, but I could not even descry a patch of smoke rising from its chimneys. On dropping down to the houses , however, I found the silence broken by a flock of gabbling geese; and when I approached the duckpond the noise became furious, all the birds hissing me as though I were a very dangerous stranger.
Some of the farms looked centuries old, and rents looked as though they were going very easy here. Most of the cottages might be a little better cared for.
The church and inn are a mile away at Harthill. In a broad sense, Woodall is one of those places that nobody knows or cares about.
I wonder how the fine new looking house, coloured a kind of magenta, comes to be in Woodall’s one street. At the first blush it seems to be only on a visit; afterwards you come to a conclusion it must have found the soil and atmosphere agreeable and decided to stay. When the owner looks out of his upper windows he must feel like the monarch of all he surveys.
I soon came upon Harthill Mere, apparently a small edition of Hornsea Mere, though in reality it is a reservoir feeder of the Chesterfield Canal. There is no artificial sheet of water in the country finer than this. It is not only large, but has a naturally fine situation, and the site must have been at one time marsh or water-grass, hemmed in by gentle acclivities.
At the far end a flotilla of wild ducks appears to be having very merry times of it. Fishing rights are held by the Harthill Beehive Angling Club.
