HOLMESFIELD BYGONES

Hewitt of Dronfield is of a rather bleak looking Lydgate with its three cottages (with necessary shutters to help shield its occupants from severe weather!). However the viewer may count four doors. The third door from the left was the entrance to a former nail maker’s shop which explains the smaller window.

This month’s image from the lens of W. “Harry”

The cottages were condemned in the 1950s as unfit for habitation –and indeed the left and middle cottages were duly demolished –but the cottage on the right (and former nail maker’s shop) survived on the proviso that necessary improvement works were undertaken. The surviving cottage was later extended in the 1970s where the two demolished cottages once stood.