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The old village of Tichenhalle is mentioned in the Doomsday
Book, and probably existed from Anglo-Saxon times. Ticknall
was an estate village to Calke Abbey until about 20 years
ago. Ticknall reached its hey-day in the late 18th and early
19th centuries, when the limeyards and the brickmaking, tile
and pottery industries were operating to their maximum capacity.
The population reached 1500, three times the present size
of about 500. However, since the neighbouring Calke Abbey
changed its status in 1984 from long-standing private occupation
by the Harpur-Crewe family to semi-public administration by
the National Trust, much of the village has changed. The break-up
of the former estate has meant the sale of cottages and building
land, altering not only the charming higgledy-pigglediness
of the architecture, but also the dilution of the former feudal
relationship between the villagers and the somewhat reclusive
lords of the manor. The village has developed with recent
examples of new buildings and renovations.
Close to the entrance to Calke Abbey is the Tramway Bridge
which is now a Grade II listed structure. It was built in
1802 to carry the former Ticknall Tramway and subsequently
connect the brickyards and limeyards around the village to
the Ashby canal at Willesley Basin. It was deemed too costly
to build the expensive locks which would be required to bring
the canal to Ticknall so the Tramway cheaper alternative.
Although abandoned in 1915, the tramway can still be traced
intermittently along its route which passed through the estate
of Calke Abbey where two tunnels were excavated
At the beginning of the 19th century the Ticknall Limeyards
were operated by two different classes of people, namely freeholders
and tenants. Some of the freeholders in the parish had their
own limeyards while others were worked by tenants for the
Harpur-Crewe and Burdett families. As the century progressed
the freeholders went bankrupt for various reasons while the
tenants of the Harpur-Crewes gave up because of the high rents
charged and general mismanagement of the limeyards.
A Ticknall Poem
Taken from http://www.ticknall-derby.co.uk/
W H Auden - Ticknall Poem
Below me Ticknall lay but in the light
Which yet remained the roofs looked strange and blurred
My footsteps rang aloud but nothing stirred
Until a fern owl from the copse upon the knoll
Uttered his easeful note of victory
That immemorial cry so stern, and proud,
Seemed an old man calling at the edge of night
Above dark valleys, making a stone roll
Scattering down the slope and hearts be glad
Stung by the music and the wounded cloud i o
And horse and horseman huge against the sky
But then some change of mood as home I came
Made me remember shagged men, who had
An older name for home than Derbyshire
Or Britain, who on Autumn nights like these
Hearing that cry, woke sleeping logs to flame
Shivered and huddled closer to the fire
Feeling the dead peer downward through the trees.
May 1925
Source: Juvenilia Poems 1922-1928 Princetown University Press Ed. by Katherine Bucknell.
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