In 1900, apart from the Midland Bank at the corner of Tamworth Road, there were only two pairs of semi-detached houses on Wilsthorpe Lane (now 16-22, Wilsthorpe Road).
In 1900 Samuel Hill submitted his first plans for a single-storey lace factory opposite St Mary’s Church. It was extended over the following 7 years, including a large house ‘The Limes’ separated from the factory by greenhouses. By 1910 Birchwood Mills (1906) and Atlas Mills (1910) had been completed by other developers, along with Ruskin Avenue and Lime Grove and more houses along Wilsthorpe Lane.
The factory was sold to Concordia in about 1925, but the Hill family retained The Limes.
* * The story of the Hill family and their factories will be covered in next blog post. * *
In 1930 George Hill formed The New Sawley Club Limited at The Limes, with the directors being himself and W. Scott of Victoria Road. Although the Club may have already been operating for a few years. As well as a bar, the club had a bowling green and tennis courts.
The club didn’t seem to thrive and by 1933 the tennis courts were being advertised for let. The nearby pond (now the station car park) was being used by Long Eaton council as a notoriously smelly refuse tip, which can’t have helped business. George Hill died at the Grove Hospital, Shardlow in 1936.
At some point in the mid-1930s, Mary Ann Kirkland acquired the building, where her husband, John William Kirkland, ran the ‘Limes Social Club’ with a committee. It didn’t pay her rent as it wasn’t making a profit. Before that, in 1921, the Kirklands had been living at 21 Town St and John was a brush hand at Chilwell Depot.
In November 1934 John Kirkland was summoned for serving customers who weren’t signed up club members or visitors. He was fined £50 and the club lost its licence. They then tried to let out a field as a paddock.
In Sep 1935 John told his wife he was going to Nottingham to see a brewery agent. She later heard he was staying with her brother in Gamston. Two days later she went to look for him. He had been in Gamston for 2 nights before riding into Nottingham on an early morning milk lorry. His body was found in the Trent that morning.
The Limes, with its tennis courts, greenhouses etc was then advertised for sale. But in 1939 the house appears to have still been occupied by Mary Ann Kirkland and her children, plus another (Beck) family.
Around the mid-1940s the land was acquired by Placketts Transport (previously next to The Railway Inn in Old Sawley) who built a large shed on the field between the house and the road. For about 20 years the house remained in the transport yard, presumably as the company office (replacing the thatched house on Wilne Road). The ‘New Sawley Club Limited’ was formally dissolved in 1948.
By the late 1960s the transport depot buildings had expanded, the house was gone, and a petrol station had been opened on the Wilsthorpe Road frontage. A petrol station is still on the same site, but the factory and transport yard were replaced by houses, starting in 2004. The site of The Limes/New Sawley Club is now the end of Hickling Close.
