Stanley, Derbyshire

Stanley
Derbyshire
Stanley Village
Location
Grid reference:	SK417404
Location:	52°57’36"N, 1°22’48"W
Data
Post town:	Ilkeston
Postcode:	DE7
Local Government
Council:	Erewash
Parliamentary constituency:	Mid Derbyshire

Stanley is a village in Derbyshire, roughly halfway between Derby and Ilkeston.

History

Stanley may well have been a Saxon settlement. By the seventeenth century it had a reputation like neighbouring West Hallam for Recusant sympathies at a time when Roman Catholics suffered legal disabilities. Stanley Grange Farm once belonged to Dale Abbey and as a Romanist school it was raided twice: in 1637 and again by Parliamentary forces in 1642 during the Civil War.

Originally an agricultural area, by the late 19th Century the main local employer was the coal industry, although brickmaking and some quarrying also took place. Stanley railway station was opened in 1876 by the Great Northern Railway but was renamed West Hallam to avoid confusion with another station on the line. The station closed in 1964 and the last local colliery, the 'Stanley Pit' ended deep seam mining in 1959 and closed completely in 1961.

Parish church

St Andrew

The present Church of England church, the Church of St Andrew, dates from the 12th Century, though the site is believed to be an Anglo-Saxon one. St Andrew's contains a few Norman features, but was greatly restored in 1875. The font dates from the fourteenth century.

The Church gates commemorate Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee of 1887, and the churchyard contains a memorial (erected in 2004) to the five aircrew who lost their lives when an experimental high-altitude RAF Wellington Bomber disintegrated above Stanley in 1942 following a loss of cabin pressure.

About the village

The White Hart

Stanley has a pub (The White Hart), a Post Office and newsagent, a village hall, a hair salon, a primary school and a physiotherapy clinic.

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Stanley, Derbyshire)

• Stanley & Stanley Common Parish Council