Heath - Fern Cottage

Image: © Dave Bevis Taken: 16 Mar 2016

Fern Cottage is at the junction of Mansfield Road with Main Road in Heath. Strangely, the cottage is about 6 foot below the level of the Mansfield Road on to which it has steps access. I suspect that the cottage is at the natural level of the surrounding land and that the raising of the road behind a retaining wall was a subsequent development. The history of the highways in the Heath area is fairly complicated: * Mansfield Road in Heath was on the medieval road between Mansfield and Chesterfield. * The Mansfield & Chesterfield Turnpike Trust was enacted in 1759 (see http://www.turnpikes.org.uk/map%20Derbyshire%20turnpikes.jpg ) and this resulted in the levying of tolls and some improvements to the quality of the road. * The M1 London to Leeds motorway passes to the east of Heath and this part was opened in 1967. The motorway severed the existing Mansfield to Chesterfield road which was diverted onto the A6175 slip road to the M1 and then along Main Road in Heath. * In 1978, the "Hasland Bypass" diverted the traffic from Mansfield to Chesterfield on to the A617 dual carriageway road to the north of Heath. * The Mansfield Road east of Fern Cottage is now a dead-end vehicle-free track.

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