Five on Friday

It's Friday so I'm joining in with  Amy at Love Made my Home for this week's Five on Friday.  Click on the link at the bottom of this post to find others who are joining in too.

We recently re - visited the town of Swadlincote in Derbyshire, this time not for family history purposes, although that does come into it, but to find the new sculpture by Ray Lonsdale.  I've shown you his work before in this post about Filey in Yorkshire - here,  and in this post about Gretna in Dumfries and Galloway - here.  Below are five more detailed photos of the sculpture.

This sculpture was commissioned by the South Derbyshire Area of the National Union of Mineworkers to commemorate the miners of South Derbyshire.  Many of my ancestors on my father's side of the family were miners in South Derbyshire starting with my 5x great grandfather who, according to one of his descendants, interviewed for the local paper in the 1960s, came from the Welsh Borders near the Forest of Dean leading a gang of men prospecting for coal.  He opened up what were known as 'bell pits' to find coal seams for the local landowners the Gresleys of nearby Drakelow and Netherseal.   As he was married at Stapenhill in 1789 I'm guessing he would have arrived in South Derbyshire in the mid to late 1780s.  I've never been able to trace exactly where he came from. 

The caption on this sculpture reads 'Don't worry son, it's just a hole in the ground where you'll find your roots.'  I think it represents a father taking his son to work down the pit for the first time.

As with all Ray Lonsdale's work I love the detail.  The miner's lamp.

The work boots

The flat cap and huge moustache.

My 5x great grandfather Thomas Gough died in 1812 and had four children, one boy and three girls.  He married a second time and had one more daughter. His only son Benjamin (my 4x great grandfather)  had nine children, eight of whom were boys.  Of those four were colliers. The other four escaped the pits and were in order of seniority a blacksmith;  a grocer, rate collector and census enumerator; a pottery manufacturer at one point setting up his own works with a partner and the fourth was a dealer in tea.

 The site on which the sculpture stands is now a retail park with a cinema.  It was formerly a pipe works and the tall chimney is from those times and is attached to what is now a Hungry Horse restaurant called, of course, The Tall Chimney.  It is strange to think that where there was once a thriving, noisy, dirty manufacturing industry there is now a rather sterile retail and service industry.  It seems to be the way of the world nowadays. The loss of a lot of manufacturing capabilities and opportunities in this country is a sad thing.  Having said that it is good to see that the old buildings have been incorporated into the new and that the site was still actively in use, albeit with the ubiquitous high street stores and pound shops.  I wonder what our ancestors would think of the sights we are used to seeing now? 

Have a lovely weekend everyone.