Smalley Village Taverns

Few people today realise that once Smalley had four public houses. The Bell, Nag's Head and Rose & Crown still flourish, but the Dog and Duck has disappeared without trace. The brick-built premises only survive as the cottage occupied by the Harrison family for decades. It stands three doors below the church, opposite the old smithy. In the distant past it may have been a coaching inn. All that is certain is that it was kept by a tailor, Joel Kerry, and the licence was transferred in the mid-1850s to the Sitwell Arms in Wood Lane. More is known of the Rose & Crown, built by Samuel Kerry at the Derby - Heanor, Ilkeston - Belper crossroads in 1768. According to the Rev. Charles Kerry, a member of the same family, the move was made from their home in Morley with Samuel's wife Betty carrying her best china tea service on her head and her little son in her apron. His son William is recorded in the 1801 census as a victualler. Samuel dug the Holly well, which provided particularly good water for brewing, and his descendants were still using it for the same purpose in the 1920s. One of them, Sarah Ann Blakey, who died on 24 January 1973, recalled that the Rose & Crown was still selling home brewed beer in the 1920s, and on several occasions the beer was spoilt and had to be poured away because her brother was too lazy to pump the water from the well by hand and had used water from the tap. Brewing, which took place twice a week, could not begin before 6am because of the Customs and Excise regulations. Later it had to be checked by the Customs Officer to be sure it was of the correct gravity. Its main ingredients were malt and hops and it sold for threepence a pint in the 1920s. The original structure of the Rose & Crown was damaged by fire in 1925, and the building we see today was built on the old foundations, but has been greatly extended. After the Kerrys came the Spendloves and later the Booths, first Sam, then his son Cliff. One old inn that predates all the others was situated at the top of Bell Lane, opposite Smalley Hall, serving the Smalley community for at least three centuries - the Bell Inn. It is recorded that in the Richardson mining era (mid 1600s) Joseph Woodhouse, the innkeeper, paid the colliers there as they returned home from the pits in Bell Lane. By 1729 the inn was kept by the Weston family. John Weston had the unenviable office of Village Constable. Details of the Weston family can be found on Smalley Census returns. This family had 200 years of influence in Smalley and all the John Westons seem to have been quite eminent men in the village hierarchy. The name appears on legal documents concerning John Radford, and they also kept a thriving joinery workshop, which supplemented income from the inn. Ann Weston's son John graduated from the Royal Academy of Veterinary Surgeons (there were no scholarships in those days) and practised in Church Street, Eastwood. Eventually an inn was built beside the Boy's School, which later took over the name of the Bell Inn. The original Bell Inn was demolished and replaced by a house which is now the front part of Bell Cottage, facing the main road. Present day The 1881 census records the landlord as Mathew Brentnall of Stanton by Dale and in 1891 and 1901, Martin Henry Luther, from Battlefield, Shropshire. The new Bell Inn was built for Isaac Potter, a butcher by trade, though little more of its history is known until 1903, when a family connection began that lasted for 60 years. The licence was taken over by Mr Newman, who had been coachman to the Miller-Mundy family of Shipley Hall. After his death Mrs Newman held the licence and continued to run the pub, helped by her daughter Mrs Evelyn Kyte, and her husband. They eventually took over the licence and Mrs Newman lived with them until her death at 91. When her husband died Mrs Kyte kept the family tradition alive with assistance from her daughter, Mrs Dorothy Williamson and niece Mrs Evelyn Hearn. All that time Mrs Kyte remained a teetotaller! Some say that the Nag's Head is Smalley's oldest inn, and if you take a close look at the smaller, lower section at the right - the original building, it is easy to see that this could be true. Certainly there have been many changes, and the larger, left hand side, now the bar, was added in 1904. The landord in 1891 was Thomas Brown, in 1901 it was Joseph Cressell. Present day Many of the records of the brewers who own it, Marstons, were lost during the 1939-1945 War, and all they know is that is was acquired by them after a series of takeovers. It was sold by the old Ilkeston Brewing Company in 1914 to Z Smith & Co. Among the people who lived there was Mrs Elsie Horsley, of West Hallam, who was a schoolgirl when her parents, Norman and Florence Brown, moved there in 1923. Mrs Horsley remembered there was a garden with shrubs to the left, and in front of their living quarters, in the older part of the building, was a well which gave such good water that people from the cottages all around came to fill their buckets. Next to the well, at right angles to the inn, was a long single storied building used as a store. One of her outstanding memories is of being allowed to sell lemonade from a table in front of the cellar window when the annual wakes, in the field at the back, drew crowds to the village. Like many of the houses in Smalley at that time, the Nag's Head had no bathroom, and on bath nights water was heated in the copper and a tin bath brought out. The same copper heated the water for cleaning. After eight years the Browns moved out and were followed by a Lincolnshire man, George Grundy, who only stayed two years. Then came the Baldwins, whose family ties with the Nag's Head spanned 32 years. First came Harry Baldwin and his wife Martha, who stayed for 18 years, and when Harry retired he was succeeded by his son Horace, who with his wife Gladys, kept the pub for 14 years. Mrs Baldwin was still living in the village in 1990, at the age of 81. Her son Peter, a butcher in Chaddesden, had many happy memories of the Nags' Head. As a 12 year old living with his parents in Heanor, he enjoyed weekend trips to his grandparents and would help with the cellar work. Rising water from an underground spring was a constant problem in the Nag's Head cellar and for many years had to be ladled out by hand. In later years an electric pump was installed to do the work. Peter recalled with amusement the wartime days in the mid-1940s and the years just after the war, when beer was rationed. Although it was a Marstons house, the beer allocated was from Offilers. The local pubs got together to decide on opening hours and it would be a familiar sight to see a notice saying: "Open 8 - 10 pm". But each pub had its regulars and often, while there was no sign of life at the front and the door would be locked, they would be admitted at the back. One such regular was the village chimney sweep Charlie 'Chuck' Carrington, who regarded the seat behind the door as his personal property. If a stranger had seated himself there and Charlie came in, he was told in no uncertain terms to move, so that Charlie could enjoy his favourite pint of 'rough'. There is another establishment to be found in records - the New Inn, Smalley Common, though as yet I have nothing on the history. 1881 Directory and census - William Bednall 1888 Directory and 1891 census - David Hartley 1895 Directory - William Hartley 1912 Directory - Samuel Allen There is also a possible from a 1857 Directory, John Hewitt, farmer & beer seller (Common)

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Sources: This account was written using material from the publications 'Footsteps through Smalley' (1994) and 'Smalley Remembered' (1990). Thanks and acknowledgements go to Joyce Crofts and Joseph Read and the Smalley Local History Group. Images used are from Picture the Past; Derby Photos and ' Pictures of Smalley' by Robert Turton