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The picturesque village of Ashopton was sacrificed to provide water for Sheffield and the East Midlands
New life for ‘lost’ village
Have you ever wondered what life was like in Derbyshire’s own ‘Atlantis’ – the village of Ashopton? Now you can experience it for yourself thanks to a virtual tour based on a newly-emerged set of photographs.
Deborah Wain tells the remarkable story
I N 1943, the Derbyshire village of Ashopton was lost forever. The chocolate-box settlement, which had a Victorian steepled
church and was home to about a hundred residents, was flooded to make way for Ladybower Reservoir. Its other buildings included a 17th century hall, a toll cottage, a Georgian coaching inn and dozens of cottages. The infrastructure will never re-emerge as silt has already covered the remains.
However, thanks to an extraordinary turn of events, life as it was in Ashopton has been opened up for the curious to explore. It follows a Chesterfield postcard collector’s decision to sell a series of cards capturing scenes from the village in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Not only have Bamford and District History Group members been able to buy the cards and put them on public display, they have been used as a basis for digital technologies students and staff at Chesterfield College to virtually recreate the village.
Over 13 weeks, the team painstakingly developed a virtual and interactive tour. Buildings brought to life again include two churches, the post office and the tearooms, as well as local farm buildings. Hundreds of people took the virtual tour at an exhibition in Bamford and the experience is now online for others to enjoy.
Ashopton was in the vale of the River Ashop and the village hosted an annual wool fair. Many of the villagers worked on farms or on the estates of the Duke of Devonshire or the Duke of Norfolk.
Construction of the Ashopton bridge at Ladybower Reservoir
In 1943, Ashopton and the neighbouring village of Derwent were both sacrificed to create Ladybower. Most of the buildings were demolished before the waters poured in, but Derwent's church spire was left to form a memorial.
Ladybower was officially unveiled in 1945 by King George VI in front of a 25,000-strong crowd.
The rare postcards of Ashopton and Derwent – more than 160 in an album - were amassed over 30 years by an anonymous former shop owner who dealt in postcards.
She was fascinated by the history of the lost villages and seized any opportunity to acquire cards featuring the locations which she described as being like ‘gold dust’.
When the artefacts went up for auction with Hansons, at Etwall, owner Charles Hanson said: “It's hard to believe in today's world, where conservation is so important, that the Government would allow two picturesque villages to be submerged under water.
“The history books tell us that there was strong opposition to the move but the authorities insisted more water was needed to serve Derby, Nottingham, Leicester and Sheffield.”
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