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This photograph of the Grapes Inn was taken
around 1912 when William Edward Dickens was the licensee. He can be
seen stood on the doorstep in the second image with a few of the
regulars of the Grapes Inn. The pub's
location on Hayfield Road was in an area known as Burrfields. Indeed,
early records of this building list it in Burrfields Bottom. Another
old photograph of this building shows a bunch of
grapes mounted on a lantern bracket above the front door. A sign
on the end of the building advertised the 'Celebrated Ales' of
the Burton Brewery Co.Ltd., a company that was acquired by
Worthington's in 1915. An old stone building, an adjacent cottage to the pub
was known as Grapes Cottage. A
good number of innkeepers came and went during the 19th century
though the Cresswell family had an extended spell of running the
Grapes Inn during the middle of the Victorian period.
Isaac and Sarah Cresswell were both in their 70's when they were in
charge of the pub in the early 1860's, a time when they had been
running the Grapes Inn for more than a decade. Isaac Cresswell was
born in Chapel en le Frith around 1785; a couple of years younger,
his wife Sarah hailed from Hayfield. Those living near the pub were
generally engaged in the cotton trade at a mill, worked with
locally-quarried stone or were employed on the railway. Following
the death of her husband, Sarah Cresswell took over the licence of
the Grapes Inn and was still serving ales well into her eighties.
Another widow was the licensee in the early 1880's. Sarah Ann
Williams was born in London in 1829 though her father was from
Hayfield. As a widower in his eighties, Thomas Thornhill lived on
the premises and no doubt helped with some of the duties around the
pub. Sarah Ann Williams employed Chinley-born Elizabeth Waterhouse
as a general servant. William and Fanny Walker were mine hosts of
the Grapes Inn during the early 1890's. Both were born in the
Leicestershire town of
Ashby-de-la-Zouch in 1848. At this time the
adjacent cottage was occupied by Richard Winton, a carpenter on the
railways, and his wife Caroline. They had moved up to Derbyshire
from the Forest of Dean - perhaps to seek work or, indeed, as part
of the nature of working on the railway; their son William also
worked as an engine driver. The occupancy of the Grapes Inn and the
adjacent cottage had changed again by the dawn of the 20th century.
In the cottage next door was the family of Thomas Burden, a railway
signalman from Dorset.
At this time the Grapes Inn was run by James and Jane Harrison. Born
in Gamesley in 1859, James had previously worked as a carter whilst
Jane was employed as a cotton weaver in her home town of Glossop.
They moved to Chapel en le Frith in 1898 where their daughter Louisa
was born. Eldest son Charles worked in the pub as a barman.
© Copyright. Image supplied by
Digital Photographic Images. |
