| Bolsover | |
|---|---|
    | |
  Bolsover Location withinDerbyshire | |
| Population | 11,673 (civil parish)[1] |
| OS grid reference | SK475706 |
| Civil parish | |
| District | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | CHESTERFIELD |
| Postcode district | S44 |
| Dialling code | 01246 |
| Police | Derbyshire |
| Fire | Derbyshire |
| Ambulance | East Midlands |
| UK Parliament | |
| |
Bolsover is amarket town and the administrative centre of theBolsover District,Derbyshire, England. It is 18 miles (29 km) fromSheffield, 26 miles (42 km) fromNottingham and 27 miles (43 km) fromDerby. It is the main town in theBolsover district.
Thecivil parish for the town is calledOld Bolsover. It includes the town and theNew Bolsover model village, along with Hillstown,Carr Vale,Shuttlewood,Stanfree,Oxcroft, andWhaley. Its population at the2011 UK Census was 11,673.[1]
Bolsover, along with several nearby villages, is situated in the north-east of the county of Derbyshire. It is the main town in the District of Bolsover, which is an electoral constituency and part of Derbyshire.
Bolsover soughtcity status in thePlatinum Jubilee Civic Honours,[2] but the bid was unsuccessful.[3]
The origin of the name is uncertain. It may be derived fromBula's Ofer orBoll's Ofer, respectively theOld English forBull'sRidge andBoll's Ridge (the ridge associated with a person namedBoll); in the 1650s it was referred to as 'Bolsouer'.[4]
Bolsover is mentioned inDomesday Book, named as Belesovre, where it is described as the property ofWilliam Peverel (or "Peveril"). The description refers to the villans, the ploughs, eight acres (32,000 m2)) of meadow and woodland pasture, which is given as two leagues by a league.[5] Bolsover became the seat of the Peverel family, and in the 12th century a keep was built.[6] The present castle was erected in 1613.
In 1657 the leading RoyalistWilliam Cavendish, 1st Marquess of Newcastle, published his bookLa Methode et Invention nouvelle de dresser les Chevaux, written in exile inAntwerp during theCromwellian Protectorate. This was translated in 1743 toA General System of Horsemanship in All its Branches. It covered the dressage of horses, at his 'Bolsouer', Welbeck Abbey, and Antwerp stables and contains engravings attributed toAbraham van Diepenbeeck showing Newcastle on a horse ('Monsieur le Marquis a Cheval') and views of his estates, including Bolsover.[7]
The district of Bolsover is notable for three sites of historical importance:Bolsover Castle,Creswell Crags (home to Britain's only known Palaeolithic cave art)[8] andCreswell Model Village, an example of early twentieth century design from themodel village movement.
Tworailway lines once served Bolsover, but both were early casualties. TheMidland Railway (later part of theLondon, Midland & Scottish Railway), arrived first with their north–south runningDoe Lea line fromStaveley toPleasley, opened in September 1890 and thus enabling a through service betweenChesterfield andMansfield to be operated, but services were withdrawn as early as September 1930.[citation needed]Bolsover Castle station served the town.
The other line was the highly ambitious west–east runningLancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway, later part of theGreat Central Railway and subsequently theLondon & North Eastern Railway. Only the middle section from Chesterfield toLincoln was ever built, opening in March 1897 (the Bolsover station wasBolsover South), but the section between Chesterfield andShirebrook was brought to a premature demise in December 1951 by the deteriorating state of its biggest engineering feature, the 2,624-yard (2,399-metre)Bolsover Tunnel which ran beneath the limestone ridge on which stands the castle. The tunnel was mostly filled in with colliery waste in 1966–67, and both ends sealed off. Today both portals are visible, the eastern portal at the end of an unusually deep sheer-sided cutting in the village ofScarcliffe and the western portal just to the south east side of Bolsover.
Inchronostratigraphy, the Britishsub-stage (formerly 'stage') of theCarboniferous period, the 'Bolsovian' derives its name from a geological exposure at theRiver Doe Lea, Bolsover.[9]
Bolsover Hospital was completed in 1988 but closed in spring 2019.[10]
The major industry of the area used to becoal mining, but this has declined throughout all of Britain. The two main collieries closed in 1993.Markham Colliery, west of the town, closed on 2 July 1993.[11] Bolsover Colliery, one of the five mines owned by theBolsover Colliery Company closed on 7 May 1993.[12] The Bolsover Colliery Company was one of the companies in the originalFT 30 list of companies. The other main employer was theCoalite and Chemical Company, which produced smokeless fuel and chemicals from coke and was founded in 1937, and moved its main headquarters from London to Bolsover in 1952. It was closed in 2004 after a decline in demand for solid fuel, which had left the company and its many subsidiaries deeply in debt. Its production of chemicals used to produceAgent Orange in theVietnam War and its environmental impact on surrounding communities ofDuckmanton,Shuttlewood, New Bolsover and Bolsover itself had rendered it a controversial company.
Another significant local employer was The Bolsover Hosiery Company Ltd, which was established in 1951 by Bolsover Urban District Council. The main factory site on Oxcroft Lane employed approximately 500 people at its peak in the late 1990s. It underwent a succession of takeovers, eventually becoming part of Courtald's Textiles. The company was taken over by the Sara Lee conglomerate and the factory closed in 2000 with the loss of approximately 350 jobs.[13]
Bolsover has three levels of local government. The civil parish ofOld Bolsover is administered by Old Bolsover Town Council. The parish falls within the widerBolsover District, and other functions are exercised byDerbyshire County Council.
The town falls withinthe Bolsover parliamentary constituency. The MP for the constituency from1970 until 2019 was theLabour Party'sDennis Skinner, a former miner. He lost his seat in the2019 election to theConservativeMark Fletcher.Labour regained the seat in2024.
Bolsover Colliery F.C. used to play in theFA Cup. Current clubF.C. Bolsover, founded in 2013, played in theNorthern Counties East Football League for the 2018–2019 season.
Regional TV news is provided byBBC Yorkshire andITV Yorkshire. Television signals are received from either theEmley Moor or Chesterfield TV transmitters.[14][15]BBC East Midlands region is also the default BBC One variant given to Bolsover postcodes on Channel 101 through satellite television such asFreesat.
Local radio stations areBBC Radio Sheffield on 94.7 FM,Greatest Hits Radio North Derbyshire on 107.4 FM,Mansfield Radio on 103.2 FM and Elastic Radio, a community-based radio station which broadcast online.[16]
TheDerbyshire Times is the weekly local newspaper that serves the town.
In 2007 Bolsover was chosen as the location to shoot the filmSummer starringRobert Carlyle andRachael Blake. Many scenes from the film were filmed on the Castle Estate, which is affectionately known by the Bolsover residents as the 'Wimps' (because it was built, in the 1950s, by George Wimpey, the construction company)[citation needed] and lies just underneath Bolsover Castle. Other parts of the film were filmed in Whitwell, Bramley Vale and Shirebrook Community school, just a few miles from Bolsover.Summer was released on 5 December 2008.[17] The trailer forSummer was released in late November and contained a few scenes which showed the Castle Estate in Bolsover containing the top of Springfield Crescent and also Hyndley Road.[18] In an interview in late November, director Kenneth Glenaan and Robert Carlyle agreed that Bolsover was the perfect setting for the film as it "has been left in the past". It also said that going fromMatlock to Bolsover is like going to a different country and that the Castle Estate is "the land time forgot".[19]
 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Bolsover" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(December 2008) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
