Allenton is a small suburb of the city of

Derby Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby gain ...

, England, situated about three miles south of the city centre. It is located between the suburbs of Osmaston,

Boulton Boulton may refer to: * Boulton (surname) * Boulton, Derby, England See also * Boulton Paul Aircraft Ltd, aircraft manufacturer * Boulton and Watt, partnership between Matthew Boulton and James Watt * Bolton (disambiguation) Bolton is a town in Gr ...

, Alvaston and

Shelton Lock Shelton Lock is a small suburb in the south of the city of Derby, England, United Kingdom, located between Chellaston and Allenton. The area gets its name from the lock on the Derby Canal that once ran through the area. The only traces ...

. Allenton is a busy part of the city of Derby, with a variety of modern shops, stores and other facilities, including free parking. The suburb has its own busy market every Friday and Saturday located on Osmaston Road.

History

Allenton (formerly Allentown) was named after Isaac Allen who built the first houses there in 1878. One hundred and twenty thousand years ago, during a warmer part of the Ice Age, the whole area was a riverside swamp, and skeletons of a

hippopotamus The hippopotamus ( ; : hippopotamuses or hippopotami; ''Hippopotamus amphibius''), also called the hippo, common hippopotamus, or river hippopotamus, is a large semiaquatic mammal native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is one of only two exta ...

elephant Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae ...

brown bear The brown bear (''Ursus arctos'') is a large bear species found across Eurasia and North America. In North America, the populations of brown bears are called grizzly bears, while the subspecies that inhabits the Kodiak Islands of Alaska is ...

hyena Hyenas, or hyaenas (from Ancient Greek , ), are feliform carnivoran mammals of the family Hyaenidae . With only four extant species (each in its own genus), it is the fifth-smallest family in the Carnivora and one of the smallest in the clas ...

and

bison Bison are large bovines in the genus ''Bison'' (Greek: "wild ox" (bison)) within the tribe Bovini. Two extant and numerous extinct species are recognised. Of the two surviving species, the American bison, ''B. bison'', found only in North ...

have been found there. The Allenton hippopotamus was found in 1895 underneath the ''Crown Hotel'' (established in 1891) and its well-preserved skeleton is displayed at the Derby Museum and Art Gallery.

Landmarks

Allenton gives its name to a geological feature known as the Allenton Terrace, which is the fluvial terrace of sand and gravel in the lower valley of the River Derwent that it and the surrounding settlements are built on. Allenton has a cosmopolitan outdoor market, although this has been in decline. The suburban shopping centre is among the largest in Derby although there are few high street chains except for Boots, The Co-op, Wilko and Greggs. A functional sculpture by Michael Dan Archer was installed in the shopping centre in 2007. Commissioned by Derby City Council, it forms a circular seating area on which are laser-scanned copies and models of some of the key bones of the Allenton Hippo skeleton at the Derby Museum and Art Gallery. An easily recognisable feature of the local streetscape is a pedestrian footbridge over the Mitre Island roundabout, erected in July 1971. This footbridge is popularly known as "the Spider Bridge" and gains that popular appellation because it has eight 'legs' in four directions. Each direction has a set of steep steps and a stepped ramp (for easier wheelchair access). The footbridge has been painted various colours over the years and is currently painted white.

Culture

Allenton has a large number of employees in the aero-engine industry as Rolls-Royce plc has its jet engine production facility adjacent to Allenton. The former Alvaston & Boulton Board School, built in 1890, on Allen Street, houses the community library. Brexit negotiator David Frost took the title "Baron Frost of Allenton in the County of Derbyshire" in 2020, in recognition of Allenton being his birthplace, although he was educated in Nottingham. The old Derby Canal has long been transformed into a bicycle track with tarmac surface; this track, which runs through the recreational ground, offers access by bicycle from Allenton into Derby city centre – it is part of the

National Cycle Network The National Cycle Network (NCN) is the national cycling route network of the United Kingdom, which was established to encourage cycling and walking throughout Britain, as well as for the purposes of bicycle touring. It was created by the cha ...

. Adjacent to the shopping area is a public house: The Crown Inn (see Crown Hotel above), a Victorian roadside inn dating to 1891 and built by Issac Allen, the original developer of Allenton. Another public house, in a Stockbroker's Tudor design, by the name of The Mitre, was opened in 1930 for Zachary Smith's brewery when Harvey Road was built, and was demolished in 2020. There is a school, a dentist, a playing field and a sizeable public recreational ground, beauty salons, hairdressers, several charity shops, several hot food outlets and a flower shop. Just beyond the edges of Allenton can be found a secondary school and several medical practices. The local fire station, in Osmaston, is just a few hundred yards from the shops in Allenton.

Facilities

The Moorways sports centre £42 million redevelopment is scheduled to be completed by March 2022 with a competition-standard, 50-metre competition swimming pool having moveable booms and two leisure pools with flumes. The location has further infrastructure of sauna, dance studio and gym to complement the existing running track, with the whole being named Moorways Sports Village.We go inside Derby's £42m swimming complex as it's almost completed
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Derbyshire Live The ''Derby Telegraph'', formerly the ''Derby Evening Telegraph'', is a daily tabloid newspaper distributed in the Derby area of England. Stories produced by the Derby Telegraph team are published online under the Derbyshire Live brand. Histor ...

'', 6 December 2021. Retrieved 21 December 2021

References

{{Suburbs of Derby Areas of Derby