Heanor has existed for a millennium or more, but has changed much in its layout over the years - the focus on the town-centre is only a century old. In the nineteenth century, Heanor consisted of a number of groups of habitations, many of which had their own name. Almost all of these names are now totally forgotten by the local people, and in another generation, will be gone forever.

Peacock Town, King's Town, Bogard Town, New America, Fishponds, Housley Town, are a few of them. As well as parts of the district having their own name, many streets have had other names, which sometimes were better known than their correct titles.

This page touches on just a few of these.....
 

Kings Town was a row of cottages at Heanor Gate, standing in the fields at the back of Heanor Laundry. It included the home of John King, who was the inventor of the Kings Patent Detaching Hook, a safety device for use on the winding gear in the mining industry. It was first used at Pinxton Colliery, and is now in use all over the world, having no doubt saved thousands of lives.

Fishponds is the name given to the area off Loscoe Road between Watkinson Street and Park Street, stretching back as far as Douglas Avenue. As far back as the late 18th century there were three or four (man made?) fish ponds on this land, and, as can be seen from the 1900 OS map, some of it remained still at that time.

The Puzzle or Packman's Puzzle was the name given to the collection of streets off North Street, Langley Mill, which includes West Street, Orchard Street, Regent Street and Hampden Street. This is one of the oldest residential parts of Langley Mill, these small terraced houses being developed from the 1860's onwards. Prior to being given street names, each row of houses had its own name, such as Williamson's Row, Taylor's Row and Erewash Row.
How the area became known as Packman's Puzzle is open to discussion - one theory is that the numbering of the properties in this mass of terraced houses was so confusing for door-to-door salesmen (packmen). A related explanation (which was passed to us by a former resident) is that when the packman appeared in the area, each house would signal next door by banging on the wall, and the packman was puzzled as everyone knew he was there before he even reached their house. Since the term packman could be used for anyone going door-to-door, including debt-collectors, another possibility was that the packman was confused as to why nobody was ever in when he visited (using the same signalling system as mentioned!)
In the 1880's, the Criterion Hotel, a temperance establishment, was opened on West Street, but does not appear to lasted twenty years. It had been planned to extend the residential area across the other side of North Street, and reference has been found to a proposed East Street, but this never materialised, and that side of the road became totally industrialised.

This page could be, and may in the future be, greatly extended!