Osmaston is a 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 gai ...

, England. It is situated about 4 km south of the city centre. It is written in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

as ''Osmundestune''. In 1307 the manor of Osmaston was granted to Robert Holland. It was the location of Osmaston Hall the residence of the Wilmot baronets of Osmaston.

History

There are two places called Osmaston in Derbyshire. This Osmaston and another in the Derbyshire Dales. It has been this way for at least 900 years. Both places are mentioned in the Domesday Book and both called ''Osmundestune''. The manor in Derby was the home of the ancient family of the Wilmot baronets.Kelly's Directory of the Counties of Derby, Notts, Leicester and Rutland
. (London, 1891) p. 222. Retrieved 11 May 2010 These baronets built Osmaston Hall which included its own chapel of James the Lesser. The hall was demolished to make way for Ascot Drive industrial estate in 1938, whilst the chapel managed to survive until 1952. SpiderW

The area was called ''The Osmaston Triangle,'' an area of Derby bounded by a railway line, Osmaston Road and Osmaston Park Road, with the two roads joining at the "Spider Bridge" in Allenton. In 2003 a major project called the 'Osmaston Housing Improvement Zone' was approved, designed to improve the condition of the local housing. This work included much of the older, privately owned

terraced house In architecture and city planning, a terrace or terraced house ( UK) or townhouse ( US) is a form of medium-density housing that originated in Europe in the 16th century, whereby a row of attached dwellings share side walls. In the United State ...

s in the area with 20 empty properties brought back into use and 93 low-income families helped with essential repairs. An arson incident occurred on Victory Road on 11 May 2012, which led to the deaths of six children.

Rolls-Royce

From 1908 till 2007, Osmaston was the main location of the manufacturing unit of

Rolls-Royce Rolls-Royce (always hyphenated) may refer to: * Rolls-Royce Limited, a British manufacturer of cars and later aero engines, founded in 1906, now defunct Automobiles * Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the current car manufacturing company incorporated in ...

, until this facility was moved 2 km south to

Sinfin Sinfin is a suburb of Derby, England, southwest of the city centre on its southern outskirts. The ward, which includes Osmaston as well as Sinfin itself, had a population of 15,128 in 2011. Historically, Sinfin and Osmaston were separate vill ...

. The Nightingale Road, ''Main Works'' site opened in 1908 to manufacture the

Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost The Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost name refers both to a car model and one specific car from that series. Originally named the " 40/50 h.p." the chassis was first made at Royce's Manchester works, with production moving to Derby in July 1908, ...

The rear of the site had a test track called "Miniature Brooklands" which was used to prove the cars. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, on Monday 27 July 1942, at 7.50 am a lone

Dornier Do 217 The Dornier Do 217 was a bomber used by the German ''Luftwaffe'' during World War II as a more powerful development of the Dornier Do 17, known as the ''Fliegender Bleistift'' (German: "flying pencil"). Designed in 1937 and 1938 as a heavy bomber ...

attacked the

factory in the area, which was making Merlin Engines and vital to the war effort. The aircraft, at very low level, hit the central stores and the houses opposite with four bombs, three 550kg and one 250 kg. The plane then turned,

strafed Strafing is the military practice of attacking ground targets from low-flying aircraft using aircraft-mounted automatic weapons. Less commonly, the term is used by extension to describe high-speed firing runs by any land or naval craft such ...

civilians in the Osmaston area and shot down a

barrage balloon A barrage balloon is a large uncrewed tethered balloon used to defend ground targets against aircraft attack, by raising aloft steel cables which pose a severe collision risk to aircraft, making the attacker's approach more difficult. Early barra ...

before returning to base. Twenty-three people were killed, 12 in the works with the remainder in neighbouring houses in Hawthorn, Abingdon and Handel Street. Among those killed was

Arthur Bacon Arthur Bacon (31 March 1905 – 27 July 1942) was an English footballer who played as either a striker or an inside forward. Although frequently a reserve throughout his career Bacon managed an impressive strike rate with 71 league goals in 128 ...

a former

Derby County Derby County Football Club () is a professional association football club based in Derby, Derbyshire, England. In 2022, it was announced that DCFC was acquired by Clowes Developments (UK) Ltd, a Derbyshire-based property group. Founded in 188 ...

football player. A further 120 people were injured. On 27 July 2017, a memorial to those who died was unveiled behind the Marble Hall. Guest of honour was Sheila Dixon who was nine years old when one of the bombs impacted two doors down from her home, killing her friend Dennis Regan. In April 2009,

Derby City Council Derby City Council is the local government unitary authority for Derby, a city in the East Midlands region of England. It comprises 51 councillors, three for each of the 17 electoral wards of Derby. Currently there is no overall control of the co ...

agreed to buy the old Rolls-Royce site in a move towards the ongoing regeneration of Osmaston.

Education

Schools serving the Osmaston area are Nightingale Infant and Primary schools, who both have "Inadequate"

Ofsted The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) is a Non-ministerial government department, non-ministerial department of Government of the United Kingdom, His Majesty's government, reporting to Parliament of the U ...

reports.Nightingale Infant School
/ref>

Religious sites

Saint Bartholomew's Parish Church serves the area. The church was built in 1926, on land given by Mrs Walter Evans and was extended in 1966 to give a new Chancel, Lady Chapel and Vestries.

Osmaston Park

At the southern edge of Osmaston is a park, known locally as "Osmaston Park". It is 650 metres long by 250 metres wide with a pathed perimeter of 1,500 metres. It has two grassed areas set aside as football pitches, either side of a central wooded circle called "Ash Wood" with an adventure playground. The park features basketball courts a community centre and BMX track.

Notable people

* Sir John Eardley Wilmot (1709–1792),

Chief Justice of the Common Pleas The chief justice of the Common Pleas was the head of the Court of Common Pleas, also known as the Common Bench or Common Place, which was the second-highest common law court in the English legal system until 1875, when it, along with the other ...

Henry Royce Sir Frederick Henry Royce, 1st Baronet, (27 March 1863 – 22 April 1933) was an English engineer famous for his designs of car and aeroplane engines with a reputation for reliability and longevity. With Charles Rolls (1877–1910) and Claude ...

References

External links

* * {{Suburbs of Derby Areas of Derby