Heanor, Pentrich and South Wingfield Revolution

(S/E) Start on The Market Place (A), facing the Town Hall in Heanor. Turn left (West) and walk down Market Street until you reach the Red Lion public house. Continue with the Red Lion on your right and walk on up Derby Road (B) until you reach the ‘Jolly Colliers’ on the right.

(1) Return down Derby Road (C) to pass Tesco on your left and the ‘Wings and Wheel’ sculpture on your right. Continue down Derby Road, becoming Heanor Road, towards Loscoe. Pass St Lukes Church, then Charles Hill Recreation Ground. See the Winding Wheel and information board on former collieries. Continue to the Gate Inn and stop to see the road continue on to Codnor.

(2) Return towards Heanor crossing the road when safe. Turn left (East) down Furnace Lane, passing the former Church Schoolroom, former railway line, and old house, dated 1785 and 1812, to reach Loscoe Dam on your left. Walk on and through the gateway, to a T-junction and turn right (South) down the path. Take the first turning to the left (West) and walk up the track with the wood on your right. Follow the track on around the wood.

(3) As you leave the trees continue straight ahead along the track keeping the houses to your left and woods on your right. When you reach a junction in the path keep to the right, crossing an open space. You will reach a left bend and here cross the brook again. Continue ahead to Mansfield Road.

(4) Turn right (South-West) and walk up the hill, Mansfield Road, back to Heanor Market Place. You will pass Howitt Street on your left, more likely to be named after the Heanor writers William (D) and Mary Howitt rather than the rebel of 1817. Continue past the traffic lights at the junction with Ilkeston Road to the left, with St Lawrence's Church on your right, and walk on to the start of the walk on the Market Place. (S/E)

Care is needed when crossing roads. Urban walk, country footpaths can be muddy.
Park: Ilkeston Road, opposite St Lawrence's Church.
Start: Heanor Market Place. OS ref. Explorer 260-435 462.

More information at Pentrich and South Wingfield Revolution group here.

(A) In the 1800s the present Market Place was within the Heanor Hall estate, until the estate was broken up by the Miller-Mundy Family. You will pass Ray Street on your left, named after the colliery owner John Ray (1791-1867) of Heanor Hall, on your right the Methodist Church, then Fletcher Street named after the Hall's owner in the 17th century.

(B) This area was Tag Hill, the market and centre of the village until the 1890s. In 1811 and 1812 there were Luddite attacks here. The Hampden Club, calling for democratic reform, first met near this spot in 1817 at Thomas Allen's house, at the sign of the Nag's Head. The meeting was chaired by Robert Bestwick. The Methodist meeting house on Tag Hill was also used for the Club's meetings in a room owned by Samuel Weston.

(C) This was the road taken by stocking frame knitter John McKesswick, a resident of Heanor but originally from Ballantrae, Inverness. He walked to Pentrich to attend the rebels meeting at The White Horse on 8th June, meeting local leader Thomas Bacon and Jeremiah Brandreth, who had come from Nottingham to lead the rising. He was to give his gun to Ned White of Codnor to carry on the march. Depositions also stated that Robert Bestwick and John Fletcher went to Codnor on the day before the rising to ensure men there wereready for the arrival of the marchers. On the night of 9/10th June the Heanor men came this way to join the main body of rebels at Codnor. Among them were Bestwick, McKesswick, John Howitt, Andrew Palmer, Jesse Birkamshaw and Edward Briggs. George Rhodes also joined them.

(D) Before reaching the traffic lights stop to see the winding wheel on your right and the information board recounting the history of coal mining in the Heanor area.

In 1811 Heanor Hall stood on the site of the South East Derbyshire College at the top of Ilkeston Road. The Miller-Mundy family of Shipley Hall broke up the estate late in the 19th century.

Edward Miller-Mundy was a Tory M.P. for Derbyshire in 1817. He seems to have been an inconspicuous and entirely silent county Member of Parliament in Westminster, and reckoned to be wholly 'an absentee'.But in 1817 he did play a part in these events as a member of the Grand Jury that was convened to frame the charges that should be laid against the Pentrich prisoners at the trial in Derby in October 1817. Three men were to be executed and fourteen transported to Australia. One of the latter was John McKesswick (McKissock) who was transported for life to New South Wales. He was held on the Retribution hulk in Sheerness then onto the convict ship Tottenham. Although granted a pardon in 1835, he was to die there.