extracts from my froggatt family … from my froggatt family history books jennifer’s story 15...

EXTRACTS FROM MY FROGGATT FAMILY HISTORY BOOKS

Jennifer’s Story

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There are Froggatt family deeds in the Derbyshire Record Office at Matlock that

prove that our ancestors owned a considerable amount of land and several

farmhouses and farm cottages in the centre of the hamlet of Froggatt, Derbyshire

from before 1296 to 1743.

After 1618 my great grandfather x 8, Thomas Froggott, a younger son, moved to

Folds Farm Calver where the next four generations of our branch of the family

were tenants of Folds Farm.

Three generations then farmed at Moorside and Robin Hood Farm in the Robin

Hood area of Baslow.

From the latter half of the 19th century our family was centred nearer to

Chesterfield at Eastmoor and Stonelow, near Wadshelf.

From 1900 to 2015 my grandparents, my parents and I lived in Chesterfield itself.


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From what I can gather from original documentary evidence, some of our

ancestors, 13th to 18th centuries, would have lived in the village of Froggatt,

Derbyshire where the cottages shown on the next few pages stand.

A number of documents relating to the purchase and sale of the properties are

held in the D3331 and D1490 Collections at the Derbyshire Record Office in

Matlock.

John Froggott, head of the Senior Branch of the Froggatt family, settled three

cottages and some land in Froggott on his new wife, Mary Eyre in 1647. They

lived in Froggatt until 1669.

The documents show that the houses were all semi detached. Bridgefoot Farm

has been made into one house but it is just possible to make out signs of a

second doorway on the right of the cottage.

Bridgefoot is close to a two arched bridge that gives

access to the Stoke Road. There is some debate about

when the River Derwent was first bridged at Froggatt.

There are several articles on the internet that suggest

that Froggatt always had a bridge, the early ones being

wooden. Edward Jervoise researched Derbyshire bridges

and concluded that the small arch built in 1635 was the original bridge. For over

a century the bridge had only one arch. A second arch was added when the river

was widened in order to facilitate the working of the newly built Calver Mill.

Interestingly, although the Baslow Manor Court Rolls show that villagers were

expected to repair the highway between Froggott and Curbar they do not mention

a duty to repair a bridge. Experts believe that this is significant.

Some of the Froggatt lands eventually belonged to a Charity - the Barlborough

Hospital Trust.

A 19th century Enclosure Plan indicates the position of these lands.


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This plan was produced in 1824 when John Henry Manners, 5th Duke of Rutland,

Lord of the Manor of Baslow was in the process of seeking permission from

Parliament to enclose land that he owned in Froggatt.

Three arrows point to the lands that belonged to the Trustees of Barlborough

Hospital. From the late 13th century to the mid 18th century these lands were

owned by my Froggatt family For the first time I can see the extent of our family

lands in Froggatt. It included the riverside meadows around Bridgefoot, Derwent

House Farm and Hollowgate Farm and the large piece of land on the opposite

side of the road that was connected to Malthouse Cottage. There was also some

land to the west of Froggatt where the open fields were situated.

In 1280 the land belonged to a Thomas Bassett. It was part of the Manor of

Baslow which came to the Bassett family through marriage to an Avenell heiress.

The Bassetts held many other manors in various parts of England by gift of the

King. Thomas leased some of his Froggatt lands and property to a tenant, Walter

del Hage. At some point in the next fifteen years my ancestor, John Froggecotes

of Froggecotes bought the land. John gave the land and property to his son,

William, in 1296.


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Lands in Froggatt owned by the Froggatts of Froggatt

The tree line left denotes the bank of the River Derwent

Derwent Cottage and Farmhouse

Bridgefoot Barn Bridgefoot Cottage

Inside Bridgefoot Cottage

Note the stone stairs. The millstone grit bedrock is very close to the surface

here and it could be that some of the stone used for building the houses was cut

from the land on which the houses stood. On the other hand there were several

quarries in the vicinity


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Rockview and Stonecroft were originally accessed from Spooner Lane.

Subsequently several houses were built facing the river on Spooner Lane. There

is now no access to Rockview and Stonecroft from Spooner Lane.

Malthouse Cottage 1932 top left standing Malthouse Cottage 2014

on Malthouse Lane. Picture taken from Taken from a raised Malthouse

Hollowgate. The stone structure in the Lane. Several houses now stand

foreground covers a well or water course on the Froggatt family plot and

the cottage can no longer be seen

from Hollowgate .

The Malthouse on Malthouse Lane, Froggatt.


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The houses that have been built in Froggatt in modern times face the river. This

enables residents to benefit from the superb view over the river and beyond. The

oldest houses in Froggatt face South and are side on to the River. This ensured

that the main rooms had the maximum daily benefit of light and heat from the sun.

Kitchens and pantries that needed to be cool were at the back of the houses

where the sun did not reach

These close up views of Derwent House Farm and Derwent Farm Cottage show

them standing side on to Hollowgate and to the River Derwent. A very ordinary

couple of cottages from the back but improved at the front possibly to match

Moorseats Hall when Mary Froggatt nee Eyre used this as a Dower House in the

1670s.

The House on the Green.

This lovely old house stands on the road that is shown as ‘Froggatt Green Road’

on the 1824 Enclosure Map. Now the road is just called ‘The Green.’ Standing to

the East of the other Froggatt lands could this be the site of the land and house

that William Froggott of Froggott gave to his second son Thomas in 1574?


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Bearing in mind that the early Froggatt family property was clustered in the

centre of the hamlet I think this is likely. It looks as though the sixteenth century

heads of the family extended their land as and when neighbouring land and

property was available for sale. There are indications that they may have leased

the property before buying it.

Thomas was the head of a line of Froggatt blacksmiths and lead merchants.

There are documents at Matlock that record the purchase and sale of properties

connected with Thomas. The Welles lead merchant family of Holme Hall

Bakewell bought property in Froggatt in the first half of the 17th century from the

descendants of Thomas. The Welles family leased Stoke Hall just across the river

Derwent from Froggatt from 1608 to 1629.

Roy and I were looking for signs of old landmarks in Froggatt one day in early

January 2010. Mrs Ann Thomas, the owner of this house, was doing some

gardening and heard us talking about the old water channel that ran past her

house. She invited us in for coffee. Her house was detached but it was clear that

it had been semi detached. There were stone stairs as in Bridgefoot but the

stonework was much smoother and the house was generally more ‘up market’ as

you might say. Ann had thought that the lower part of the house had been used to

house animals and had no idea that the house had originally been a pair of semis.

She was able to tell us that her neighbour used to have a long strip of land

attached to her property. This was interesting as it confirmed information

contained in the 17th century Thomas Froggott land documents at the Derbyshire

Record Office.

The local Church for inhabitants of Froggatt was St Annes, Baslow. When I

looked at a transcript of the Parish Registers for 1570 to 1750 there were

surprisingly few family names entered for Froggatt village. This led me to believe

that Froggatt village contained no more than six or seven semi detached

dwellings providing housing for as few as twelve or fourteen families. Putting two

and two together from wills, marriage settlements and land sale documents it

seems that for a period of time in the 17th century a majority of the houses were

owned by members of the Froggatt family.


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Froggatt Old Bridge from both banks of the River Derwent. On the Enclosure Map

it is called Stoke Bridge.

From Bridgefoot From the Stoke Hall side of the River Derwent.

The original 17th century bridge had only one rounded arch. The larger pointed

arch was built years later when the river was widened to improve the flow down

river to the cotton mill in Calver. Bridgefoot Farm lost some of its land in the

process.

For some time I was puzzled by an entry in Baslow Parish Registers for a 17th

century John Froggatt of Froggatt who did not seem to belong to any of the

known Froggott families. Then I came across a document in the Derbyshire

Records at Matlock that provided the answer. He was the son of John Froggott of

Beeley and was the Froggott family heir. He had been brought up in Beeley. His

father had moved there after his marriage to Elizabeth Greaves of Beeley in

1598.

When John Junior came of age he set up his own home in one of the family

properties in Froggott that he would eventually inherit. His Uncle Thomas, our

ancestor, had to vacate a family cottage. He moved a couple of miles away to

Calver where he was granted the tenancy of a large farm with outbuildings and a

lot of land.


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A close up of Derwentwater Farmhouse and Cottage. This rather grand looking

pair of semi detached houses could be on the site of the Froggatt family

dwellings that were used by the family heirs. I imagine Mary Froggatt nee Eyre

of Moorseats Hall, Hathersage using this as her dower house. We have a copy of

the inventory taken after she died in Froggott in 1679. Amongst her goods and

chattels is a saddle I can imagine Mary as a rather grand lady riding side saddle

around the lands owned by the family. When she married John Froggatt in 1647

the Marriage Settlement included money provided by her family and three

cottages in Froggott provided by her husband. John and Mary lived in Froggott

for a long time and only moved when they bought Moorseats Hall in 1669

Froggatt, like many other ancient places, was not mentioned in Domesday but

there may have been people living continuously in the area of Froggatt for

thousands of years to the present day. The map on page 15 shows a Bronze Age

Stone Circle and there are signs of an ancient field system.

Finds in Froggatt recorded by the Archaeological Data Service include a

Mesolothic Microlith, a Bronze Age Cairn and four associated Funerary Urns, a

Bronze Age flint barred and tagged blade, an Upper Paleolithic flint cache and a

Prehistoric or Roman scraper/ knife.

Recent research into pre and post Conquest Britain suggests that ancestors of

the Froggatts could have lived by the River in Froggatt for hundreds of year


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before the Conquest. This area is in Danelawe /Viking territory. The Froggatts

could have been native British, Anglo Saxons or Vikings or a mixture of several

races. Could they have been of Norman origin? Another possibility but thought to

be very unlikely.

So are we descended from the people who built the stone circles and farmed on

the high gritstone edge or late comers like the Angles and Vikings.

Red hair is very common in our family. My father had red hair. Do these

photographs of Andrew and Lizzie provide the answer?


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The reason why the area around Froggatt was inhabited over a long period must

be that it is positioned where there was a gap between the Edges giving access

to land and trackways on and across the Big Moor. There were also freshwater

streams running down to the river.

Site of the prehistoric field system above Froggatt

The Bronze Age Stone Circle on Froggatt Edge


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One of the streams that flow from Froggatt

Edge, through Froggatt Wood and the village

into the Derwent. At some point the streams

were channelled underground through the

village.

A path through Froggatt Wood to the gap

in the Edges.

Some parts of the paths are lined with

massive stone slabs. It is incredible to

think that these were quarried, shaped

and laid by men with hand tools and

sledges / carts.

The Froggatt Wood lead smelter. So far no one has

discovered who owned or ran the smelter. Apparently

the Lords of the Manor, the Manners of Haddon, rented

out pieces of land and tenants could build their own

smelters. Some members of the Froggott family owned

woodland in Froggatt. Perhaps the Froggatts who

were connected to the lead trade started out in

Froggatt Wood.


Jennifer’s Story

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Froggatt from across the river. Near the

river there is meadow and pasture land.

As the land slopes upwards the soil is

thin and the rock is close to the surface.

This is ideal for grazing sheep and

cutting stone blocks for building houses.

Note the trees. These provided white

coal for the 17th century lead smelting

mill that is hidden in the trees. A stream

provided the water to power the mill.

This is Spooner Lane. It is a continuation

of Hollowgate, Froggatt. It leads to

Grindleford Bridge. From Froggatt in the

other direction there was another narrow

lane that connected with Curbar Village.

Baslow Court Rolls refer to it as the

Highway. The inhabitants of Froggatt were

responsible for repairing the road and

keeping it generally in good order.

In 1628 at St Annes Baslow, Anthony

Spooner married Jone Oliver of Froggatt. William Wells (second husband of my

Great grandmother x 8 ) left Jone a large sum of money in his 1626 will. Was she

possibly his step daughter by his first wife?


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Pasture for sheep and cattle near Froggatt and a field barn. I think the linear

feature in the foreground must be

Spooner Lane.

Some of these fields were owned

by our Froggatt ancestors.

There were no pathways to

individual fields We have two family

documents that reveal that in the

16th century it was customary for

farmers to pay a yearly sum of money

for the right to access their fields

land via a neighbours land.

These documents also show that some farmers neglected to pay their dues and

sometimes did damage to hedges in order to take short cuts to their fields. On

both counts our Froggatts sought justice from the High Court against Richard

Bothom of Froggatt and Richard Savage of Stony Middleton.

View of the Edges from the across the River Derwent. Probably taken from the

Stoke Road


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.

Froggatt Edge. Not far away from this rock edge is a trackway that was used by

quarry men and mill stone makers

An ancient hollow way created by

travellers, packhorses, carts and

sledges through the ages.

Unwanted millstones lie above Froggatt where

they were quarried and shaped.


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Jennifer’s Story

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extracts from my froggatt family … from my froggatt family history books jennifer’s story 15...

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