Sunny Hill (or Sunnyhill) is a southern 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, situated mainly along the Stenson Road (which goes out to the hamlet of

Stenson Stenson is a surname. See " Stinson" for its origin. Notable people with the surname include: * Bobo Stenson (born 1944), Swedish piano player * Carley Stenson (born 1982), English actress and singer * Dernell Stenson (1978–2003), US baseball p ...

, on the

Trent and Mersey Canal The Trent and Mersey Canal is a canal in Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Cheshire in north-central England. It is a "narrow canal" for the vast majority of its length, but at the extremities to the east of Burton upon Trent and north of Middle ...

). It lies between the Derby City districts of Normanton and Littleover, and, to the south,

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 ...

, and the parish of Stenson Fields in South Derbyshire district.

History

Sunny Hill is not identified by name 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 ...

, but the land and any dwellings in the area would be included within Normanton in the hundred of Litchurch. The Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway line was built in the 1830s, and forms a boundary of Sunny Hill to the south and east. This is now the Derby-Birmingham section of the Cross Country Route (MR). Sunny Hill is identified as the name of a small hamlet on the Ordnance Survey maps from (at least) 1883 to the mid-1930s, situated along Stenson Road between the junctions with the current Sunnyhill Avenue and Blagreaves Lane. The high point along Stenson Road in this area () would appear to be the 'hill' referred to by the name. Prominent on the early maps are Sunny Hill House (shown until the 1960s when the current Bideford Drive was built) and its associated farmhouse (situated near the current Oadby Rise). During the 1930s, significant development of the area started. The Blue Pool public house was built on Stenson Road in 1936, one of three similar built in Derby in

art deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

style (the others being the Blue Peter in Alvaston and the Blue Boy in

Chaddesden Chaddesden, also known locally as Chadd, is a large residential suburb of Derby, United Kingdom. Historically a separate village centred on Chaddesden Hall and the 14th century St. Mary's Church, Chaddesden, St Mary's Church, the area was signif ...

). In early 1939, 5 acres of land (near the railway line, now Mimosa Crescent) were sold to Clarke Aircraft Products, whose factory made aircraft engine components, including those relating to Henry Clarke's patented oil viscosity control valves. During the

Second World War 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 ...

, a German

prisoner of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of wa ...

camp was constructed on the land south of Sunnyhill Avenue. Initially in 1941 this housed almost 400 men, but was enlarged in 1942 to accommodate an additional 200. After the war, in November 1945, this land was sold to the government War Department, and the camp was used to house eastern European displaced persons as

European Voluntary Workers European Voluntary Workers (EVW) was the collective name given to continental Europeans invited by the British government to work in the UK in the immediate Post-World War II period, to help people who have become homeless during the war and to sup ...

. A row of officers' houses had addresses given as Sunnyhill Camp; the houses remain, now forming part of Staunton Avenue. These continued in military use through the 1950s, with officers based at the nearby Normanton Barracks being billeted there. In 1951, the land used by Clarke Aviation was bought by Qualcast for use as their lawnmower production factory. Qualcast remained on the site until 1991. The Blue Pool pub closed in 2009, and the building has since been used as a

Tesco Tesco plc () is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Welwyn Garden City, England. In 2011 it was the third-largest retailer in the world measured by gross revenues and the ninth-largest in th ...

Express convenience store. From the mid-1930s until the end of the 20th century, housing has progressively been built on the former farm, military camp and factory sites, giving rise to today's predominantly domestic suburb of Derby. The community is ethnically diverse, with significant Asian populations.

Local Facilities

A post office was situated on Stenson Road opposite the junction of Sunnyhill Avenue, it was shut down in 2014. Post office services were moved to the Co-op store at the Blagreaves Lane junction. A local library and a range of shops, take-aways and other services are situated around the Stenson Road end of Blagreaves Lane. Derby bus services run on Stenson Road, and circular routes between Derby, Sunny Hill and the Royal Derby Hospital.

References

{{Suburbs of Derby Areas of Derby