The ‘Hammer’ at the Forge Working’s still beat its rhythmic ‘Thump, thump, thump’. The Railway Viaduct, built on stilt-like arches that cut through the village heart, carried passengers to and from Nottingham, the steam trains billowing smoke in their wake. Coal black men wound their way home after another gruelling shift underground. The smell of ‘Salt’ drifted in a white vapour across the nostrils as another batch of James Oakes Pipes were glazed. At night the Pipe yard lit the skyline with a hot, red glow and the clattering of truck wheels would echo across the valley, where the finger of water, known as the Cromford Canal, lay silent.
These giant industries employed thousands of men in very physically demanding jobs.
Change was in the air.
In 1964 the Railway line was closed with the last train ripping up the tracks as it passed through. The Rail Viaduct stood like a skeleton for the next ten years, until it was knocked down and the whole area landscaped.
In 1968 Jacksdale Street (known as Stone Row) the original ‘Street’ in Jacksdale was demolished.
1970 saw James Oakes Pipe yard purchased by Hepworth’s. They introduced a new method of pipe making that did without glazing and the salt pollution villagers were so used to. They closed in the early 1980’s.
The Forge Workings shrunk in size, until they closed in the 1970’s. The Canal was drained and permission for ‘outcropping’ given to the Forge site.
The Pyehill Pit Site struggled on, even through the ‘flying pickets’ of Arthur Scargill’s Yorkshire thugs, who terrorised the village looking for ‘Scabs’.
It closed in 1985. Outcropping was carried out in the 1990’s.
The village had been landscaped after the removal of the railway viaduct. Its character had changed beyond recognition and a new housing estate appeared on land owned by the Worthington’s. Their hundreds of years old farm (another original landmark) was demolished in the process.
The village seemed to have lost its ‘spirit’. Shops closed and village pride plummeted. Slowly, this change was accepted and the village spirit and pride has grown in confidence. Jacksdale has now become a village ‘proper’, with a vibrant parade of shops, a large Garden Centre (known throughout the area), a Doctor’s surgery, a Dentist’s, a Community Centre and all the amenities a village could require, set in a rural backdrop.
The dark and vibrant ‘old industrial’ Jacksdale has gone and a new ‘green and rural’ village of Jacksdale has emerged.