IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Hawthorn Close, HOPE VALLEY, S33 6RT

On Edale Road, Hope.

This corrugated iron hairdresser's was once part of the navvy village of Birchinlee ('Tin Town'), home to many of those that built the Derwent Valley dams (Image).

On Edale Road in Hope, the hairdresser's shop is the last remaining tin hut from the temporary village of Birchinlee that existed in the Upper Derwent Valley from 1902 to 1916. It accommodated men - some with families- who worked on a massive reservoir project that resulted in the creation of Ladybower, Howden and Upper Derwent Reservoirs. For a photograph of Birchinlee or Tin Town as it is today go to http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/61195

By Edale Road, Hope. This humble corrugated iron building was once located in the upper Derwent Valley during the construction of the dams and their associated reservoirs. I last took a picture of it in the spring of 2015 https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4465880

A rather grand and attractive school building in the corner of Edale Road and Eccles Close which has this frontage.

Hope Primary School was designed by the architect George H. Widdows (1871-1946) and was completed in 1912. It was one of a large number of new schools built to Widdows' designs by Derbyshire County Council in the early C20. Derbyshire had the greatest percentage increase in population in the country in the 1890s, particularly due to the growth of the coal mining and textile manufacturing communities in the east of the county. Widdows had come to Derbyshire in 1897 as Chief Architectural Assistant to Derby Corporation. Following the 1902 Education Act, responsibility for schools in the county passed to Derbyshire County Council. In 1904 Widdows was appointed architect to the Council's Education Committee. In 1910 he was appointed Chief Architect to the Council, although schools remained his predominant concern. By the time he retired in 1936, he had designed some sixty elementary and seventeen secondary schools. Widdows was at the forefront of the movement to build schools in which high standards of hygiene were as important as educational provision. The first major conference on school hygiene was held in 1904, and in 1907 the Board of Health brought in legislation which required schools to become subject to regular medical inspections. Widdows worked with his Medical Officer, Sidney Barwise, and two deputy architects, C. A. Edeson and T. Walker, to develop a series of innovative designs introducing high levels of natural daylight and effective cross ventilation in schools. His designs, in a neo-vernacular style, were often characterised, as at Hope, by open verandah-style corridors linking classrooms with generous full-height windows. His distinctive and influential plan forms were based on a linear module which could be arranged in different configurations to suit the size of school required and the shape of the available site. The advances Widdows made in school planning were recognised by his contemporaries. In an article on provincial school building in 1913, The Builder stated that his work 'constitutes a revolution in the planning and arrangement of school buildings... a real advance which places English school architecture without a rival in any European country or the United States.' The above text extracted from: http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-506436-hope-primary-school-hope-derbyshire . For an alternative view of the school, please see Andrew Hill's Image

The village was lit up by a small patch of sunlight amidst the clouds as they were clearing away. View from the path climbing Lose Hill via Losehill End, in Image