IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Dodgewell Close, ALFRETON, DE55 5BH

On Primrose Hill. For an alternative view, please see Image

I believe that this was originally the Boys Brigade Hall and was used as an auxiliary hospital during the Great War. It was next to the Colliery Hospital and Miners Institute.

As years pass, the memories of coal mining in this area begin to fade and the links that bound communities to coal are breaking.

For further information on the school building, please see Image

Blackwell Primary School was designed by the County Architect to Derbyshire County Council, George H. Widdows, was completed in 1915 and first appears on the OS map of 1917. The plan is a variant of the type described by Widdows as 'Plan No. 3' in a paper he presented to the Royal Sanitary Institute on 25 February 1910 (third type). It has a central hall with an entrance block on each side, but instead of paired classrooms set splayed at the ends, there are single classrooms in line with the hall and pairs of classrooms at right angles to the rear. An extension has been built to the rear of the east classroom wing. The exterior is relatively plain except for the two entrances, which are handsomely framed by moulded piers with stone and blue brick banding. The window joinery has been comprehensively replaced with UPVC. The school is built of red brick with stone dressings and a clay tile roof. The current building is a replacement for an older school which is visible immediately to the east on the 1900 map, is marked as 'disused' on the 1917 map, and was demolished by 1938. See http://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=1495837 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._Widdows for more details. For alternative views of the school please see Image and Image

For further information on the school building, please see Image

The Parish Council of this former mining village have provided this sign, with the crossed pickaxe and cricket bat.