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LITTLEOVER is a large and thriving suburb of Derby which has ancient origins and still retains some of its original village charm. The name essentially means 'little hill', deriving from the 'Parva Ufre' recorded in the Domesday book, which in turn reflects the Latin 'parva' for 'little' and the Old English 'ofer' for 'slope or hill'. Similarly its 'twin' settlement Mickleover - rather a rival in some senses - means 'big hill'.

When people talk of Littleover they generally have in mind the locality which straddles Burton Road after its junction with Derby ring road. It is a busy and bustling community with a range of shops and services, among them the Half Moon and White Swan hostelries, the delightful St. Peter’s Church, and more recently (courtesy of some 'scandalous' planning decisions) rather fewer fine old houses than it once had, since more than a few have been demolished to make way for the countless new apartments which now characterise the area. Yet it is still called ‘the village’ by locals, and retains an underlying charm which hints at both its ancient origins and the restrained gentility of an age not too far removed.

But there is another Littleover too - the neighbourhood away from the village - which has been loosely christened ‘the Blagreaves area’. Its spine is Blagreaves Lane - the long and busy thoroughfare linking Stenson Road and Littleover Hollow - and perhaps it is the Blagreaves locality which is deserving of closer examination, since it has never been documented with the same degree of detail accorded to Littleover village itself.

Blagreaves Lane is an ancient thoroughfare which is said to have been the packhorse road linking Littleover village with the rural outpost of Sinfin. According to established wisdom the name has somewhat dark origins. When Littleover was visited by the Plague in 1665 its victims were buried away from the village along the un-named rustic way which was subsequently christened ‘Black Graves Lane’ to reflect its sombre origin – only later did it metamorphose into something more palatable to the modern ear.

Even well into the 1920s Blagreaves Lane remained a rural thoroughfare flanked only by fields and the odd farm or grand residence. The names remain familiar - Glebe Farm, Blagreaves House, Yew Tree House, Prize Farm, Garfield House, and the ancient Fressingfield, named after a Suffolk village. Although some of the buildings no longer stand they still dwell in the memories of Littleover’s more senior survivors.

As the village population expanded more homes were needed. So in the 1920s and 1930s the landed estates in the Blagreaves Lane area were split up and sold for development. When the new properties became occupied and families began to form it soon became evident that a new school was needed to serve the burgeoning locality, and on 13 July 1937 the County Educational Committee agreed to erect ‘a mixed junior and infant school’ off Blagreaves Lane.

But with St. Peter’s Church of England School in Littleover village already at bursting point, an emergency temporary school was opened on 10 January 1938 in ‘The Towers’, a building which still stands on Blagreaves Lane today. It was owned by Albert Memmory - of Prize Farm on Oaklands Avenue - and had lain empty and neglected since 1916. No wonder the locals dubbed it ‘Memmory’s Folly’.

Although damp and crumbling it served the newly-named Littleover County Primary school admirably for 18 months. The headmaster was Charles Eric Brown - formerly of Codnor church school - who remained in charge when the new school at Gayton Avenue first opened its doors on 28 August 1939. Unfortunately it was quickly obliged to close them again when war was declared just a few days later!

Gayton Avenue School - as it came to be known – opened again on 9 October 1939, and became a focal point for the Blagreaves community which it served. Headmaster Brown remained in post until May 1961. Leslie Goode then became acting head for a brief period, but was soon relieved by William ‘Bill’ Hall, the school’s long-serving headmaster from 1962 to 1981.

Bill Hall, a keen advocate of ‘modern methods’, drove the school forward and achieved very high standards – most Gaytonians under his charge left the school able to read, write and spell with confidence, and were fully equipped with the arithmetic skills once considered standard. Many of the pupils also left school with highly-developed sporting ability, for Bill Hall’s great passions were football, cricket and athletic pursuits. He was the father of Ian Hall, the Derby County footballer and Derbyshire cricketer.

The majority of Gayton pupils at that time were from the Blagreaves Lane, Sunnyhill, and Stenson Road areas, and a good number from the Oaklands Avenue council estate built in the 1950s. All enjoyed surroundings which, although suburban, retained a definite rural feel. A popular excursion was to go and see farmer Foot’s pigs at Glebe Farm, right on Blagreaves Lane, and each day his cows were herded to and from their pasture - adjacent Miss Grimwood Taylor’s house ‘Fressingfield’ – often holding up the Blagreaves Lane traffic. Amazingly the field has yet to be built on!

Miss Grimwood Taylor – a doughty Tory councillor, former Mayor of Derby, and leading light in the guiding movement – was one of several Blagreaves ‘characters’ who had known Littleover before it had been developed – others were the unmarried sisters Misses McInnes and Misses Rayner, delightful examples of ‘living history’ until their passing not too long ago. Another larger-than-life personality was Mr. Treadgold – ‘Treddy’ to the local children – who rode a large horse up and down Blagreaves Lane. It is said that he had 'property interests in the Normanton area' - he was invariably attired as a country squire, and moved at a very stately pace which seemed to epitomise the unhurried rhythm of a more tranquil age which would all too soon be slowly but surely eroded.

Indeed much of life seemed rather stately then - many Blagreaves residents in the 1960s had regular deliveries from the bread man, the butcher, the fish man, the laundry man, the 'pop' and drinks van, and the provisions merchants Austin Hodgkinson (place your order and we will deliver - sounds familiar!), all vestiges of a leisured lifestyle more typical of the twenties and thirties. The horse-drawn rag and bone cart was also a familiar sight, and house calls were made not by double-glazing canvassers but by genuine Romany gypsies offering lucky heather ‘if you’ll cross my palm with silver’ – sixpence was the going rate.

Blagreaves Lane even had its 'celebrity' residents - in the 1960s the former Derby County star Sammy Crooks and his wife Freda lived at a house they called 'Jesmond Dene', the name of a delightful park in Newcastle which evidently had fond associations for Sammy Crooks, who hailed from the North East.

Other well-known residents gained their reputation in more prosaic ways - like the 'bobby on the beat' PC Rhodes, whose speciality was admonishing children for riding their bikes on the pavement. Of course he rode his strictly on the Lane itself (most of the time!), and his rather laboured progress up and down his patch (he was quite a large man) was a familiar everyday sight. Most of the children in the locality respected his word, and some were quite clearly terrified of him. His son Peter Rhodes was a pupil at Gayton Avenue in the 1960s.

Doubtless it all sounds another world to the youngsters who attend today’s Gayton School, but there are countless ‘Littleoverites’ still resident in the Blagreaves locality for whom that world is still a vivid memory.

And it is those memories that are now sought, for this is a short 'starter' piece on Liittleover and Blagreaves which can be added to. As suggested previously, Littleover village has been very well documented in general, and there are countless pictures of how it used to look, but there has been very little written about the Blagreaves area, and photographs are few and far between. So it is to the Blagreaves clan that we look for information.

As a book is currently in preparation - which will cover the history of Gayton Avenue School and the Blagreaves area - further memories and pictures would be particularly welcome. So if you have Blagreaves memories, no matter how fleeting or insignificant they may seem (sometimes they are the best), or have photographs of places or characters associated with the locality, why not share them with other users of this site to build up a fuller picture of the area.

Either post your material directly onto the You and Yesterday website or alternatively contact the author of the proposed new book - that's Helena on 01332 607118 or via email Helena.coney@ntlworld.com. Either way, the intention is to construct a more complete historical perspective of the community which might justifiably be dubbed 'the other Littleover' - that delightful locality known as Blagreaves.

More Blagreaves memories added

Les Mortimer, who grew up in the Stenson Road area, has added his own memories in the article entitled Youthful memories of Stenson Road

• Littleover
• Youthful memories of Stenson Road

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