| Administrative History | The Jessop Memorial at Codnor Park was erected in 1854 as a memorial to William Jessop II, managing partner in Benjamin Outram & Co and, from 1813, Butterely Company, from 1805 until his death in 1852. The monument was set in its own ornamental grounds with a lodge and monument hall. The architect is not known but Butterley did use Henry Isaac Stevens of Derby for the slightly earlier Mechanics Institute in Ironville.
The memorial was funded partly by public donations and there was permissive public access to the grounds until the winding up of the Buttererly Company in 1969. At this point the site was sold, eventually ending up in the ownership of UK Coal, a large area of the formerly Butterely Comapny estate having been acquired by British Coal for opencast coal mining purposes. Critically the lodge was sold off separately in the 1990s which removed the natural access to the site, a crucial point in the subsequent history of the site.
Planning permission for opencasting parts of the site had been granted in the early 1970s and after a long delay and a change of ownership with the privatisation of the coal industry [British Coal, R.J. Budge, UK Coal], opencasting of the 'Forge & Monument Site' began in 2003. The public benefit element [Section 106 agreement] of the planning consent was that UK Coal would consolidate the monument [which had been damaged by lightening early in its history] and monument hall and then hand them over to a 'credible trust.'
On the basis of this provision, public meetings sponsored by Amber Valley Borough Council were held in Ironville in 2003 with a view to setting up a trust that would eventually take over the restored monument and monument hall. The Trust was incorporated as a Company on 4 August 2003 and shortly afterwards became a Registered Charity.
Work on consolidating the monument and monument hall took place in 2007-2008.
In January 2011 the monument and monument hall were sold by UK Coal to the owners of the lodge. The last meeting of the Trust was held on 10 March 2011 when it was agreed to wind up the Company and the Registered Charity and to transfer the residual funds to the Friends of Cromford Canal. |
| Custodial History | These records were donated to Derbyshire Record Office in October 2011 |