Listed Building record MDR11018 - The Villas, Nos. 1-12 Villas Road, Old Bolsover

The Villas, Nos. 1-12 Villas Road, Old Bolsover, a large group of houses built c1893. The Villas, Villas Road. Six blocks of pairs of two-storey houses; brick with slate roofs; ornate terracotta date stones, 1893 and 1894. Probably colliery managers' houses associated with nearby New Bolsover colliery. (1) From the National Heritage List for England: 'Six pairs of semi-detached houses. 1893-4. Possibly by Brewill and Baily. For the Bolsover Colliery Company. Red brick with ornamental eaves and gable cornices and Welsh slate roof. Large stacks on central ridge and on rear slopes near gable ends. No 4 is grey stuccoed. 2 storeys. C20 windows under brick segmental arches (with central keystones on the front facades). Each pair has 2 slightly projecting central facing gables with a canted bay window under a slate pentice roof. No. 8 has a replacement French window. Smaller windows over. To either side of the central gables a front door and a single-light window. Above is a terracotta plaque with 'Anno' to one side and either 1893 or 1894 to the other. Sides have further windows and the rears have gables similar to the front, in many cases doubled for extensions, many of them early, or with other extensions in some cases. Along the backs of the rear gardens are outbuildings/coal sheds, many of them original, as well as walls and back gates. HISTORY. The houses are part of the 'Model Village' built by the Colliery Co. to house, in the case of these houses, its colliery officials and administrative staff, following enlightened Garden Suburb principles of planning and design. The houses of the general workforce received a tonne of coal a month delivered by a tramway in the main square but the tramway did not go past these houses and presumably other means of transport were used along the back roadway here. These houses form part of a very significant group of historic buildings with the main square to the south and other village buildings (q.v.) and with Bolsover Castle (q.v.) which crowns the ridge above. The whole ensemble is one of the finest colliery villages in the country..' (2)