Dale Cottage, Ingleby, Derbyshire

Many of the discussions of photographs featured on Photo-Sleuth have focussed on the people who were the subjects. However, in family history research it may sometimes be as instructive to examine and research the surroundings, such as a house, garden, or occasionally even a studio setting. I have previously written about houses built in Normanton, Derby by my gg-grandfather Henry Payne (link), and houses in Weston Underwood made from bricks made by my ggg-grandfather James Miller (link). In this article I will discuss a house which was occupied by my great-great-uncle Charles Hallam Payne (1870-1960) and his wife Sarah Emma née Parker (1870-1946) for over four decades.


Ethel, Charles Bernard "Bud" & Charles Leslie Lionel "Les" Payne
taken on the lawn at Dale Cottage, Ingleby in late 1928 or early 1929
80 x 51 mm print, Collection of C.B. Payne
This photograph from my father's collection is possibly the earliest one of him which survives. My Dad Charles Bernard "Bud" Payne (1928-2006) was born at Allenton, near Derby, on 6 March 1928. He was the first child of Charles Leslie Lionel Payne (1892-1975) and Ethel née Brown (1894-1978), who had been married at St Augustine's Church, Normanton, Derby on 22 September 1926. My father, who looks as if he is eight to ten months old, is seated on his mother's lap, who in turn is seated next to her husband on a bench. My grandfather sits with his legs crossed, leaning forwards slightly, with his right arm around Ethel, and a cigarette in his left. The caption states that it was taken in 1939 - presumably early that year, given my father's apparent age - at Dale Cottage. Part of a white garden urn is visible in the left foreground.


Fred Payne, Charles Hallam Payne & Clarence Benfield "Benjy" Payne
taken on the lawn at Dale Cottage, Ingleby in August 1933
216 x 165 mm print, Collection of Barbara Ellison
Dale Cottage was, in fact, the residence of Bud's great-uncle Charles Hallam Payne (1870-1960), and the garden at Dale Cottage featured in another photograph, shown above, featured in a recent article on Photo-Sleuth. This showed "Uncle Hallam" with his younger brother Fred Payne and nephew Clarence Benfield Payne in the garden at Dale Cottage in August 1933. Also visible in the right middle ground is a similar white garden urn.


Dale Cottage, Ingleby, with Charles Hallam Payne in the doorway
Probably taken by C.B. Payne on 12 January 1952
Mounted print 151 x 106 mm on embossed white card 254 x 202 mm
Collection of Barbara Ellison
This mounted print from my aunt Barbara Ellison's collection shows Uncle Hallam in the doorway of Dale Cottage, the view showing an ivy-covered front facade of a two-storey house. It is unfortunately not dated. However, I think it likely that it was taken by my father, a keen photographer, on the same occasion as several other pictures in his collection.


Dale Cottage, Ingleby, 12 January 1952
Probably taken by C.B. Payne
41 x 42 mm print, Collection of C.B. Payne
This more general view is dated, "12 January 1952," as is the portrait of Uncle Hallam standing in the doorway, shown below.


Charles Hallam Payne at Dale Cottage, Ingleby, 12 January 1952
Probably taken by C.B. Payne
81 x 105 mm print, Collection of C.B. Payne

Charles Hallam Payne at Dale Cottage, Ingleby, 12 January 1952
Probably taken by C.B. Payne
60 x 84 mm print, Collection of C.B. Payne
My father also took several photographs of Uncle Hallam inside the front room at Dale Cottage, one of which is included above. According to my Dad and aunt, there were piles of books, newspapers and other papers absolutely everywhere - so much accumulated stuff that it was difficult to get around. In notes made by my father in 1996, he wrote:

There were half-crowns semi-secreted all over the house I believe; I remember these on the sideboard, to the left of which one squeezed past en route to the kitchen. It was necessary to squeeze because occupying the centre of the room ... was a Morrison shelter, with a double bed arrangement on top. The walls were covered with pictures including a number of Gresleys - grandfather and father, but not, I fancy, Harold and Cuthbert .... To the right of the little vestibule was a spare room, crammed with pictures on the wall, piled bound volumes of "The Connoisseur," etc.; and between the two main rooms was the staircase leading up to wardrobes, chests of drawers etc. which I can’t recall ever seeing. At the back was the kitchen, I think rather noisome after Auntie died but probably quite clean and wholesome during her reign.

One of those piles of books is visible in the background.


Charles Hallam Payne at Dale Cottage, Ingleby, 12 January 1952
100 x 128 mm print, taken by C.B. Payne and probably reprinted by Winter
Collection of Barbara Ellison
Another two portraits from this group most likely taken by my father exist in my aunt's collection. Both appear to have been reproduced, perhaps from the original negative, but more likely via a photographic reproduction, by Winter Ltd of Derby. The print has "260-18 Matt" inscribed in pencil on the reverse, whoich appear to be printing directions. A negative number (244185), the name "Payne" and more printing directions (3¼ Fol) are inscribed in pencil on the reverse of the mounted photo, shown below.


Charles Hallam Payne at Dale Cottage, Ingleby
3¼ Folio (83 x 109 mm) print mounted on 111 x 164 mm white card
Printed "Winter Ltd. Derby," and with decorated edge
Collection of Barbara Ellison
Hallam and Sarah moved to Ingleby after retiring shortly before the Great War from the grocery/off licence business in St James' Road, Normanton, Derby, which was taken over by Hallam's younger brother Fred. They were both still fairly young for retirement, being in their late forties, but leased Dale Cottage from the Foremark Estate with effect from 24 June 1914, initially for an annual rent of £16, rising to £24 by 1934.

Apart from rent collecting in Derby (for himself and sisters living in ‘the south’), shopping in Leicester and holidaying at places like Bournemouth and Great Yarmouth, what did he do in his retirement? Well, he read a lot, listened to the radio and watched television at least as early as 1952, walked around Ingleby, and probably talked with a lot of people.

My father recalled visiting them on his bike in late 1940 ...

Some time between then and the end of the year when Dad joined the army, I rang him at his office (R. Clayborn Ltd, builder, Shelton Lock) from Uncle Hallam’s house. I remember the call well, because Dad told me to take it easy going down ‘the Dale’, as I expect this must have been my first bike ride to Ingleby. (The Dale is steep: it drops from 232’ at the crossroads by the Cottage to 157’ near where the footpath to Anchor Church starts, a distance of under 400 yards.) I mention this incident to show that Hallam and Sarah were in telephonic touch with the outside world at least as early as 1940 and probably much earlier. So the doctor and motor mechanic could be called in when necessary!

These two photographs of Dale Cottage, taken on a visit that I made to South Derbyshire in June 1997, show the cross-roads, with the steep road leading down the Dale to Ingleby on the left.


He also remembered Uncle Hallam's interest, perhaps merely in passing, in the Danish barrow mounds then being excavated in nearby Heath Wood.

I suppose Hallam spoke on the phone to William Fraser of Stapenhill, Burton-upon-Trent ... Camden Clarke and William Fraser say that [in Vol LXVI, Journal of the Derbyshire Archaeological & Natural History Society, 1946] work at Heath Wood began ‘towards the close of 1941’, and it seems quite possible that Uncle Hallam began talking about the excavation around the time of my first bike ride to Ingleby. As I recall it, it was he who alerted WF to the existence of the cemetery, having heard about it from old Granny Cliffe (sp?) who lived in the village, and remembered hearing in her youth about Thomas Bateman’s 1855 excavation at the same site ... It’s unlikely that Granny Cliffe, if she talked to Uncle Hallam around 1940, would have seen Bateman at work in Heath Wood (then called ‘The Ferns’), but she may have discussed the excavation many years earlier ... The 1946 account of Heath Wood excavations doesn’t acknowledge any help from CHP, and not surprisingly, three reports of work carried out in 1949 and 1955 fail to mention him. I think it’s rather sad, but on the other hand, his role may be mythical ... But I don’t think Uncle Hallam really had any archaeological expertise.

Further reminiscences about Uncle Hallam's hoarding propensity included the following:

It’s most unfortunate that he and I never corresponded - all that seems to have happened in the year I left England is that I sent him a Christmas card and a few photographs, which I don’t believe he acknowledged. But he was busy! In describing a recent visit to Dale Cottage in 1954, Dad wrote, "He really is very wonderful; he is almost eighty three [actually almost 84] and doesn’t seem to alter a little bit in his ways. Nowadays, when I first arrive, he appears to be rather aged, but after an hour or so’s talking, mostly done by him, he seems to liven up and looks, as they say, 'as young again.' Incidentally he still does all his own work and cooking of course and he certainly gets proper meals." And he presumably read a lot - earlier the same year my Mother wrote, "I slipped over to see Uncle Hallam on Friday, only for a few minutes while the bus [weekly Trent service to Ingleby] waits there [at the crossroads] … My goodness - the clutter there in that room and what a job for somebody one day, why he saves newspapers by the hundred baffles me." A couple of years later: "I wonder if [he] still collects paper backs as he used to." In the summer of 1959 Uncle was in hospital for a couple of days, so my father and his cousin Harry (then living in Ambergate) took the opportunity to clean up the house a bit and burned masses of stuff in the field at the back. I went along for the ride. There wouldn’t have been time, I suppose, to sift through all of it, to identify and keep historically interesting papers: Anyway, I didn’t. Not having any old clothes I wasn’t allowed to help with this (?two day) job ....

Charles Hallam Payne died at the Home of Rest in Derby on 10th July 1960, two days after having been taken there for what he expected might be a lengthy stay.

About a year later, he died, and towards the end of 1960 my father wrote explaining how busy he had been: "Uncle Hallam’s estate, and particularly getting the house clear has been a terrific headache. I thought I knew the house and contents fairly well, but when it came to clearing the place I found how greatly I had underestimated the amount of rubbish he had collected. After all the furniture, pictures etc had been removed and piles of rubbish burned, we still had three large refuse wagon loads to take to the refuse tip and it took five men about seven hours to do this." Astounding. It is remarkable that the family papers which Uncle Hallam had shown me, and wanted me to have, survived. But how much else of value was lost? Though I know this happens every time someone dies, it seems particularly sad in this case because he had preserved so much.

Thus ended the Payne family's physical connection with Dale Cottage.


View Larger Map
Dale Cottage is shown on a satellite image on Google Maps (shown above), and in a rather nice recent photograph by Phil Myott (below) on the Geograph web site, which reveals that it has regained the external plastering apparently shed prior to the 1997 photographs included above.


Dale Cottage & Cross Roads near Ingleby, Derbyshire, 16 September 2006
© Copyright Phil Myott and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.