The Bakewell Workhouse

In 1744 the Old Parish Poorhouse at Winster was built on instruction of Winster’s Church to provide for the sick and poor. The building can still be found standing detached from the rest of the village opposite the Miners Standard Inn, but it now forms a comfortable bed and breakfast establishment – still providing accommodation!

In 1838 the Bakewell Poor Law Union was established to oversee 50 of the constituent parishes from Abney to Winster and the smaller poorhouses were systematically closed including the one at Winster which became a farmhouse and private residence.

A section of land at Newholme in Bakewell was purchased for £415 from the Earl of Carlisle on which to erect a new central Workhouse which could house around 200 inmates, and this was completed by early 1841 at a cost of more than £5,000. Built in a Jacobean style, it originally had a central turret above the clock which contained a bell purchased for £80 – a considerable amount at that time.

The Bakewell Workhouse had its own water supply, being a pond which held 120,000 gallons of locally sourced spring water.

By 1881 a census records a total of 112 inmates with numerous children who were described as ‘scholars’. Many of the residents were from Bakewell and the surrounding villages, but also recorded was a coal miner vagrant from Holmfirth, a cotton winder from London, a charwoman vagrant from Whitehaven and a hawker from Turkey. The oldest resident is stated as being 84 years and the youngest just a few months.

In 1895 it is known that staff at the workhouse comprised a surgeon, master, matron and chaplain. Of course there would be no need for any manual workers as menial tasks were carried out by the inmates themselves.

A north wing of the workhouse was converted into a hospital with later infirmary buildings added, and the property was to be known as The Bakewell Public Assistance Institution and then Newholme Hospital under the National Health Service as it remains to this day.

It was not until 1948 that the Workhouses as they were known became abolished, and there are still older residents of the town who remember the days of the Bakewell Workhouse and the fear of becoming a resident.