Stanley is a village located roughly halfway between

Derby Derby ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area on the River Derwent, Derbyshire, River Derwent in Derbyshire, England. Derbyshire is named after Derby, which was its original co ...

and

Ilkeston Ilkeston ( ) is a town located in the Borough of Erewash in Derbyshire, England, with a population of 40,953 at the 2021 census. Its major industries, coal mining, iron working and lace making/textiles, have now all but disappeared. Part of t ...

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It borders Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, and South Yorkshire to the north, Nottinghamshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south-east, Staffordshire to the south a ...

, England. The village is part of the Stanley and Stanley Common Local Government Parish, Stanley Common being a separate village a little to the North. Since 1974 it has been part of the

Borough of Erewash Erewash () is a non-metropolitan district, local government district with borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in Derbyshire, England. The borough is named after the River Erewash. The council has offices in both the borough's to ...

History

Stanley may well have been a Saxon settlement. By the seventeenth century it had a reputation like neighbouring West Hallam for Catholic sympathies at a time when Roman Catholics suffered oppression. Stanley Grange Farm once belonged to

Dale Abbey Dale Abbey is a village and civil parish in the borough of Borough of Erewash, Erewash in Derbyshire in the East Midlands of England, 6 miles north east of Derby. The population of the civil parish on the 2011 census was 1,351. Formerly known as ...

and as a Catholic School was raided twice – in 1637 and again by Parliamentary forces in 1642 during the

English Civil War The English Civil War or Great Rebellion was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Cavaliers, Royalists and Roundhead, Parliamentarians in the Kingdom of England from 1642 to 1651. Part of the wider 1639 to 1653 Wars of th ...

. Originally an agricultural area, by the late 19th Century the main local employer was the coal industry, although brickmaking and some quarrying also took place. Stanley railway station was opened in 1876 by the Great Northern Railway but was renamed West Hallam to avoid confusion with another station on the line. The station closed in 1964 and the last local colliery, the 'Stanley Pit' ended deep seam mining in 1959 and closed completely in 1961. Stanley also contained the depot of Felix Bus Services, a local bus service and tour operator. One of the hundreds of bus companies originally set up using surplus military vehicles after the First World War, Felix ran as a small independent operator until 2012.

St Andrew's Church

The present Church of England Church of St Andrew dates from the 12th Century, though the site is believed to be a Saxon one. St Andrew's contains a few Norman features, but was greatly restored in 1875. The font dates from the fourteenth century. The Church gates commemorate Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee of 1887, and the churchyard contains a memorial (erected in 2004) to the five aircrew who lost their lives when an experimental high-altitude RAF Wellington Bomber disintegrated above Stanley in 1942 following a loss of cabin pressure.Derbyshire War Memorials
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Village amenities

Stanley has a pub (The White Hart), village shop/Post Office, a village hall, a hair salon, a primary school and a physiotherapy clinic.

Notable people

* Richard Felix (born 1949), television personality, historian and paranormal investigator.

References

External links