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Introduction The first popular account of Ridgeway’s history was written by Willis Fox, who was a native of the village and a member of the famous Fox sickle-making family. The book [1] provides a valuable insight into village life and times prior to 1950. More recently, Jack Hambleton put together his own interesting record as a series of snapshots of village life throughout the 20th century. His book [2] deals with Ridgeway and its people; their customs, habits and anecdotes, their good and hard times, their sad and happy times. Work is about to start on another book [3] which will deal with 19th century Ridgeway, but this is some years from completion! However, despite all this published work, we are sure that a wealth of information about Ridgeway has not yet been brought to light. It may exist as photographs buried deep in the attic, or simply as a distant memory which will eventually be lost to all. An enormous amount of information has yet to be chronicled, and we feel that the village web site could provide an effective way of carrying this out. We are interested in anything connected with Ridgeway Village and this can range from an amusing tale to ancient documentation. Your contribution can be kept anonymous, if you wish, although we would be very pleased to acknowledge the source of all new material. In the true spirit of a web site, we would hope that your first point of contact with us would be via e-mail, but we recognise that it might not always be appropriate to do this. If you have photographs or documents that are precious, we would be able to arrange for you to visit the web site office, where we could make copies while you waited. If you would like to meet and talk about your connections with Ridgeway, then please get in touch with us. Click here to e-mail us - we look forward to hearing from you. Samples of village history from our collection can be viewed via the Contents page: Other Village History Activities In 2006 the Old Ridgeway Exhibition at the Craft Centre (Corn Store) was established by Village in Bloom. This was compiled by volunteers and covers many aspects of village life in photographs and artefacts. Since the sale of the Craft Centre, the exhibition is only set up occasionally, but enquiries can still be passed on to the staff via this website.
References:
[1] Ridgeway Village and its Industries, Willis Fox, 1950. [2] Twentieth Century Ridgeway Remembered, Jack Hambleton, 1997. [3] Nineteenth Century Ridgeway – its buildings, its villagers and their occupations, John Bennett, In preparation.
(References [1] and [2] are held in the Chesterfield Local Studies Library) |