Above: From left to right; The Hollows, Upper Lodge and Lower Lodge.
I’ve finally managed to complete a job I’ve been meaning to do for a while – to add the details of three houses at the northern end of the valley to the ‘Houses & families‘ section of the website.
I think this will mean I’ve now included all the farmhouses that were demolished following Stockport Corporation’s purchase of the Errwood Estate to build the twin reservoirs in 1930.
Above: This ‘then & now’ fade shows all three – The Hollows, Lower Lodge, and Upper Lodge.
Click below to view details of each house, along with what census records I’ve managed to find.
The Hollows lay beside the Goyt, just north of Fernilee Gunpowder Mill. Upper and Lower Lodge lay at either end of The Valentine, the road that today leads down from Fernilee to the car park at the northern end of the reservoir. In previous times it was known as Powder Mill Road.
Lower Lodge would once have been home to the level-crossing keeper until this section of the Cromford & High Peak Railway closed in 1892. Upper Lodge was at the junction of the Valentine and the Buxton to Whaley Bridge Long Hill Road. And from its fairly exotic design, looks like it may have been a gatehouse at the northern end of the Grimshawe’s Errwood Estate.
