Old Park

[Shrop63]

Thanks guys, interesting stuff

[Shrop63]

Nice to see place names being kept such as Forge retail pk

[AlanBoyd]

More on Dark Lane – and then I’ll stop

Referring back to the photo of Dark Lane Row, in reply #13, here is another map view which I'm pretty sure shows where the photo was taken. Focus on the road running west-east across the centre of the map view, past the label Dark Lane Row. Imagine that you have just crossed the railway and you are looking east. That's the photo's view.

http://tinyurl.com/dnrjc3j

Points of congruence are:

1) The road runs down hill at this point. This is clear from contours on other maps, but here you have to rely on the spot heights on the road: 459, 440 and 428 where it crosses the next railway.

2) The number of houses looks about right,

3) The map indicates that at the west end, the row of houses starts in a cutting below the level of the road, exactly as in the photo.

4) At the bottom of the hill the buildings on the right match the map.

5) The building to the left that you can see over the rooftops matches the position of the Methodist Chapel.

6) The road rises again and turns to the left (northeast on the map and spot heights 444, 472)

I can't make out a railway at the bottom of the hill, but the photo looks 20th century so maybe it has gone by then.

I think the settlement of sixty miners cottages referred to in the caption that I quoted must be, or include, those running north along the railway.

Zoomed-out the map includes some of Oldpark in the top left corner. It's clear that the area around Dark Lane Row is "Dark Lane" – see names of disused pits.

[Shrop63]

I notice Stone Row there, another name from 1840s great to be able to see them on maps

[MollyC]

This is a side-by-side view of the eastern part of the Old Park area in a 20th century OS map (labelled Oldpark), showing Forge Row and Malins Lee Hall. The road coming in from the northwest, Park Lane, looks to have survived in the modern road layout.

http://tinyurl.com/3c8h6859

For a mid-19th cent. view, on the side-by-side map "select a map series", go to the top of the list, choose "OS Six inch 1840s-1880s".  Also have a look at "Geology Six inch".  The latter was only published in coal-field areas, and does not completely cover this, but you can see many named coal seams outcropping at the surface.  MCM = Middle Coal Measures, which has associated iron ore deposits.

Roads often followed park boundaries because people were not allowed to go through them.  The boundary was usually a bank and ditch, with a fence or pale - or "hay" which occurs in place-names here.  Parks were exploited for many products other than venison: fish, semi-wild cattle, rabbits in warrens, coppice woodlands and minerals.  They had open grass areas, lawns, a word transposed into our gardens.  Lawn Colliery is shown NW of Dark Lane Row and now appears in Telford shopping centre.

Early metalworking used coppice wood (not large timber) for charcoal fuelled furnaces.  Coal came later, then many woodlands seem to have been destroyed.  If a park happened to sit on the MCM the eventual results are what we see on these maps.

[Shrop63]

I,ll get some names up later, might be useful for anyone doing research, i think this is an on going project

[Shrop63]

Ok, these are the names i have so far from 1841.
Felton, Wild, Pursell, Guest, Roberts, Hulston and Dodd from Forge Row. Parton, Harris, Stewart, Ball, Bowen, Tart, Ward, Caswell, Bishop (large family) Chalener and Bird

[Shrop63]

Ok, these are the names i have so far from 1841.
Felton, Wild, Pursell, Guest, Roberts, Hulston and Dodd from Forge Row. Parton, Harris, Stewart, Ball, Bowen, Tart, Ward, Caswell, Bishop (large family) Chalener and Bird

Forgot Ellis (my GFX4)

[Shrop63]

Some surnames from 1851

Parton, Pash, Bishop, Harries, Archer, Tierman, Rhodes, Turner, Teece, Smith, Bowen, Bennett, Phillips, Woodbine, Brayne, Mansell, Poultney, Wem, Burns