Sandiacre

The Sandiacre Library on Doncaster Avenue near Albert Road is normally open six days a week. The Library has a Local Studies and Family History Section to assist you in your search.

The DRO tells us that they have, in the Local Studies Library for Sandiacre:

1. Local books including a few theses and other unpublished works on the local area, for example D. A. Gore's History of Sandiacre in the 19th century and D. Fielding's Geographical study of the parish of Sandiacre.
    
2. Electoral registers for the town from 1976 to 1998.
    
3. A map collection giving coverage of the town and 2 to 3 miles around, with OS mapping at most dates and scales from 1880 to the 1980s - a guide to the collection is available.
    
4. Around 400 photographs of Sandiacre and area.
    
5. A news-cuttings file taken from a range of local papers recording local events from 1973 to the present.
    
6. A set of census returns for the immediate area.
    
7. Microfilmed copies of the Ilkeston Pioneer from 1853 to 1950.
    

The Anglican Churchyard closed to new burials some years ago.

A "New Cemetery" was established on Church Drive adjacent to the churchyard cemetery.

The vicar at St. Giles is responsible for keeping the plans and records of the old cemetery and the parish clerk keeps the records and plans of the New Cemetery.

Andrew ABBOTT has a photograph of the New remembrance stones in St Giles' Churchyard on Geo-graph, taken in June, 2020.

Michael SPENCER provides a (partial) extract of Parish Register burials in a file for your review. Your additions and corrections are welcomed.

• The parish was in the Stapleford sub-district of the Shardlow Registration District.
   
• The table below gives census piece numbers, where known:
   

• There was an ancient chapel here, dedicated to Saint Sytha (or Osyth), a Mercian princess who died circa AD 700. She was the daughter of Frithwald, a sub-king of Mercia in Surrey.
   
• The Anglican parish church is dedicated to Saint Giles.
   
• The church was built early in the Norman era, probably around 1160.
   
• The whole church was restored in 1883.
   
• The church seats 330.
   
• Jonathan CLITHEROE has a photograph of St. Giles Church on Geo-graph, taken in January, 2014.
   
• David HALLAM-JONES has a good photograph of the Church tower on Geo-graph, taken in February, 2013.
   

• The Anglican parish register dates from 1571 for baptisms, 1570 for burials and 1581 for marriages.
   
• Marriages at Sandiacre, 1581-1812 are available in Nigel BATTY-SMITH's database of scanned images of Phillimore's Parish Registers.
   
• The church is in the rural deanery of Ilkeston.
   
• A Wesleyan Methodist chapel was built here in 1826.

• Civil Registration began in July, 1837.
   
• The parish was in the Stapleford sub-district of the Shardlow Registration District.

The old village Lockup still endures. It was used primarily for locals being held overnight for drunenous or rowdy behavior. There are no records for this facility, but you might find locals mentioned in the local newspapers.

"SANDIACRE is a village, in the small parish of its name, in the same hundred as Ilkeston, about four miles, south, from that town, & about nine, east, from Derby, situate close to the western boundary of the county of Nottingham. A market and fair was formerly held in the village, but at present little importance belongs to it as a place of trade."

[Description from Pigot and Co's Commercial Directory for Derbyshire, 1835]

The M1 Motorway runs just west of the village. You'll want turnoff #25 from the M1. The parish borders on Nottinghamshire to the east and covers 1,090 acres.

Richard VINCE has a photograph of the Village Sign on Geo-graph, taken in July, 2012. You may have to search for it in the photograph.

• Geograph
• Flickr

• Rosemary LOCKIE provides a transcription of the Sandiacre entry under Ilkeston from Pigot & Co's Commercial Directory for Derbyshire (1835).
   
• Ann ANDREWS provides a transcription of the Sandiacre entry from Kelly's Directory of the Counties of Derby, Notts, Leicester and Rutland (1891).

• The transcription of the section for Sandiacre from the National Gazetteer (1868) provided by Colin HINSON.
   
• We also have this entry from John Marius WILSON's 1870 Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales:

SANDIACRE, a village and a parish in Shardlow district, Derby. The village stands on the Erewash river and canal, and on the Erewash Valley railway, 6 miles W S W of Nottingham; was once a market-town; and has a station on the railway, and a post-office under Nottingham. The parish comprises 1, 420 acres.

• Ask for a calculation of the distance from Sandiacre to another place.

Enoch COOK, the Derbyshire county cricketer, was born in Sandiacre on 23 April 1845. As a young adult he moved to Long Eaton, where he was a lace maker. COOK died at Long Eaton at the age of 82 on 14 April 1927.

• In 1268, King Henry III granted permission for a weekly market to take place here.
   
• For a trip down Memory Lane, visit the Ilkcam site.
   
• Stephen McKAY has a photograph of the Blue Bell Inn on Geo-graph, taken in March, 2015.
   
• David HALLAM-JONES also has a photograph of the Blue Bell Inn on Geo-graph, taken in February, 2013.
   
• These are the names associated with the Blue Bell Inn in various directories:

• Chris MORGAN has a photograph of the Plough Inn on Geo-gra[h, taken in March, 2018. There is roadside access to the Inn.
   
• Ian CALDERWOOD has a photograph of the White Lion Inn on Geo-graph, taken in April, 2017.
   
• Trevor RICKARD has a photograph of the Red Lion Inn on Geo-graph, taken in September, 2010.
   

A good map for tourists and historians is available at Town Centre Maps.

You can see maps centred on OS grid reference SK471364 (Lat/Lon: 52.922551, -1.301151), Sandiacre which are provided by:

• OpenStreetMap
• Google Maps
• StreetMap (Current Ordnance Survey maps)
• Bing (was Multimap)
• Old Maps Online
• National Library of Scotland (Old Ordnance Survey maps)
• Vision of Britain (Click "Historical units & statistics" for administrative areas.)
• English Jurisdictions in 1851 (Unfortunately the LDS have removed the facility to enable us to specify a starting location, you will need to search yourself on their map.)
• Magic (Geographic information) (Click + on map if it doesn't show)
• GeoHack (Links to on-line maps and location specific services.)

• All places within the same township/parish shown on an Openstreetmap map.
• Nearby townships/parishes shown on an Openstreetmap map.
• Nearby places shown on an Openstreetmap map.

Sgt. Ivan Keith DONCASTER is memorialised in a stained-glass window in St. Giles Church. His Lancaster III bomber was lost in a raid on Kessel, Germany, in Oct. 1943.

There is a War Memorial in Sandiacre Cemetery on Church Drive, in the wall surrounding the cemetery.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission has 9 graves recorded in Sandiacre Cemetery.

These are the WWI Casualties buried at St. Giles cemetery:

World War II:

The following men have memorials in the churchyard:

1. John Arthur HARRISON, NZEF
2. John Edward KNOWLES, died in Normandy, 1944
3. Edgar LOWATER, died March, 1944
4. Bert Gwinnett PHILLIPS, died 1918
5. Ernesty Thomas RIGBY, died March, 1918
6. Harry SIMPSON, RAF, died 29 May 1943

Jane Taylor of Redcar provides this announcement from the Derby Mercuty, 6 November 1800: "Married: On Monday last, at Ockbrook, in this county, Mr. Richard EDWARDS, to Miss Elizabeth FREASON, only daughter of Mr. Thomas FREASON, farmer, of Sandiacre."

Jane TAYLOR in Redcar provides this notice from the Derby Mercury of 22 August 1804: "DIED: On Monday last, aged 57 years, Mr. Ambrose ROTTON, of Sandiacre, in this county."

• This place was an ancient parish in Derby county and it became a modern Civil Parish when those were established.
   
• This parish was in the ancient Morleston and Litchurch Hundred (or Wapentake).
   
• You may contact the Sandiacre Parish Council regarding civic or political issues, but they are NOT staffed to assist with family history searches.
   
• District governance is provided by the Erewash Borough Council.

• Bastardy cases would be heard in the Smalley (Ilkeston court) petty session hearings.
   
• As a result of the 1834 Poorlaw Amendment Act reforms, the parish became a member of the Shardlow Poorlaw Union.
   
• Alan MURRAY_RUST has a photograph of Dr. Bland's Almshouses in the Derby Road on Geo-graph, taken in May, 2014. A sign on the building tells us that the Almshouses were built in 1910.

Year	Inhabitants
1801	405
1821	587
1831	758
1841	996
1851	1,065
1871	1,178
1881	1,630

The following Wills were proved:

• 1849 - John GREEN

A Public Elementary School (boys and girls) was built on Church Street in 1878 and enlarged prior to 1912.

An Infants' School, Ladycross Infants School, was built here in 1907 on Victoria Road.

The MAKIN sisters (Elizabeth and Gladys) had a private Girls' school on The Hill.