Category: Early Years

Amy Rowlings on the Spinton Saturday Market. Summer 1939.

Amy Rowlings. Locations.

I hope that any of my regular readers will find this article of interest but it is especially aimed at readers from my hometown of Ilkeston, Derbyshire, who might have a feeling in the back of their minds that one or two of the locations in my books feel rather familiar. There’s a reason for that. They almost certainly are.

I am an Ilkeston born writer who came back to live in the old industrial town after a forty-year absence and although the place has obviously changed during that time; I was delighted to find that many of the locations I remembered from my youth were still there, albeit repurposed.

When I set about writing the Unspoken series, and soon after, the Amy Rowlings mysteries, I needed a place to set them in. The obvious answer would have been my hometown, but I had a few problems with that as both series would eventually move from the nineteen thirties into the nineteen forties when, of course, the country would be at war and although Stanton Ironworks was regularly targeted by the Luftwaffe, I wanted to be able to feel closer to the events when I wrote about how my characters lived during those dreadful years. Kent seemed to be an ideal location to set the books, as, being right on the English channel, the people living there would have been on the front line had the Nazis ever managed to invade. It was also the ideal place for my characters to find the odd unexploded bomb or watch the aerial dogfights that took place during the battle of Britain, something that is mentioned in the Unspoken series by way of diary entry from the farm owner, Alice.

All this was in the future.

The first book, Unspoken,  was a dual timeline family saga set in both 1938 and 2019. The characters came easily to me. What I needed now was a setting.

I chose Kent, north of Gillingham, quite close to the banks of the River Medway and as this was going to be a series of stories that revolved around an old mill factory, I decided to call it Spinton.

Spinton grew in my mind as I began to write the first book and by the time Murder at the Mill, the first Amy Rowlings novel had been written, the town had enlarged considerably as I drew inspiration from old Ilkeston to bring it to life.

Spinton has a lot of garments and hosiery factories, just like Ilkeston. The Mill, the factory Amy Rowlings, supersleuth works at, is based on Rutland Mill (Rutland Garments) on Market Street in Ilkeston. I used to walk past the place every day on my way to Hallcroft School. I considered using Charnos as it was in Hallam Fields and I was born and grew up there, but that factory was only built in 1932 and I had something a little older in my mind when I was writing about it.

The Sunshine Café that Amy has a coffee in every Saturday morning is based on Ilkeston’s oldest traditional Cafe, The Corner Café although it is still known by many as Doug’s Café. Doug was the owner when I spent my early teenage years listening to the 60’s music on the jukebox.

The Carnegie Library on the marketplace was lifted up and transported all the way to Kent, as was the Town Hall. The buildings are right next to each other in Spinton, but they are on opposite sides of the market square in reality.  The taxi rank outside the library is in exactly the same spot in Spinton.

St John the Evangelist Church is St Mary’s, although I had to add a larger graveyard that could hold a couple of broken down mausoleums. I also needed a lychgate, but as St Mary’s doesn’t have one, I stole the one from Holy Trinity at Mapperley Village. The slate and gravel paths and walkways are an invention. We don’t have ragstone here.

The canal is our very own Nutbrook canal. I grew up very close to it and it was always going to be in the books. I remember swimming in ‘ot waters,’ at the side of the ironworks when I was very young, and we spent a lot of time playing daredevil, running across the lock gates.

The Spinton Ironworks are, of course, Stanton Ironworks. I was born on Crompton Street slap bang in the middle between the ironworks and the coke ovens. I transported the lot to Kent, ready for the murder mystery series. There is also an abandoned brickworks just like the one I used to play in. Crompton Street became Ebeneezer Street in the process.

The Silverstream, mentioned in Murder on the Medway, is the Nutbrook which used to meander across the fields at the back of our house when we moved from Crompton Street to Kirk Hallam after the flood of 1960.

The Roxy cinema is the Scala cinema, although I moved it and put it where the Ritz is.

For High Street, Main Street and Middle Street, look no further than Bath Street, South Street and Market Street. The police station on Middle Street in the books is actually based on the old police station that used to be on Wharncliffe Road.

Long Lane, where Alice’s farm and Amy’s cottage are located, is based on a mix of Low’s Lane and Quarry Hill, and the Old Bull pub, although not the same internally, is the Bull’s Head on Little Hallam Hill. Other pubs mentioned in the books are loosely based on the Ilkeston pubs in the market square.

Spinton Station is what used to be Ilkeston Town Station at the bottom of Bath Street.

Spinton Post Office is wholly based on the old Ilkeston Post Office. Now Hogarth’s pub.

Spinton Market is Ilkeston Market, complete with the bus stops we used to have back in the day.

Witch Wood, in the latest Amy Rowlings mystery, is based on Shipley Wood.

Russell Park (Murder on the Medway and The Murder Awards) is an amalgamation of Manor Floods nature reserve and the Ilkeston Recreation ground.

Whilst none of the characters in the books are based on real people and none of the storylines are based on actual events, I have used the memory of my time growing up on Crompton Street to help generate them. I particularly remember how strong the women were back in the day. How they coped with the daily struggle to put food on the table for their families. The menfolk used to think they wore the trousers and boasted about it in the Stanton Hotel on payday, but in reality, it was the women who ran things. They made all the major decisions; whether the rent could be paid, whether the slate at the shop further up the street could be utilised that week, and whether a shilling or two could be paid into the club for a hamper and presents at Christmas. Those women were the pillars of the community. They put their family in front of any personal ambition. The men just went to work and came home to find a dinner on the table as soon as they opened the back door. Many were also guilty of lashing out if their wives had the temerity to speak up for themselves when their partner got back from the pub.

I have yet to incorporate the Ilkeston Charter Fair into the books, but it will make an appearance one day.

Brigden’s Nearly New women’s fashion store and the London Connection fashion shop aren’t based on anywhere in Ilkeston.

There are probably a lot of other Ilkeston references in the books. If you find one, please feel free to mention it.

T. A. Belshaw