Phil Ollerenshaw from Edale lived in both Derwent and Woodlands and has contributed these memories :
1) My father Willis Ollerenshaw, during the 1950s and 60s, coached and conducted the singing by the Woodlands children at the Annual Sunday School Anniversary. As a child I accompanied my parents for a number of years to the Anniversary Services which were always very well supported, with a full house and usually additional chairs required to squeeze everyone in. At that time there was a large cast iron pot bellied stove down one side of the chapel and an old manually pumped organ at the front, if my memory serves me correctly played by Mr Douglas Marsden who lived in the forestry bungalow round the corner from the chapel. I also recall that Mr Marsden was a local writer of hymns and the Anniversary Services were sometimes used as world premiers for some of his compositions. I don’t know if any of them made it any further than the Woodlands Valley.
As a child I seem to recall the highlights for me were the excellent meals we received on the day. Tea after the afternoon service at one of the farms followed by supper after the evening service. The venues varied year by year between Mr and Mrs Ben Eyre at Heyridge Farm, Mr and Mrs Joe Cottrill at Gillot Hey Farm and Mr and Mrs Doug Marsden in the forestry bungalow. There always seemed to be an abundance of food and a very convivial atmosphere on these occasions. They were still milking at Heyridge at that time and I remember one year ‘helping’ to bring the cows in only to tread in something I shouldn’t have and being in trouble having a dirty shoe and sock for the evening service.
2) On another occasion in the early 1950s I accompanied my parents to the Christmas Carol Service. I don’t recall anything of the service but after the service when we came out of the chapel it had snowed on the top of Blackley Hey on the opposite side of the valley to the chapel. Someone suggested it would be appropriate to sing the carol ‘How Beautiful Upon the Mountains’ which everyone did with great gusto. Even now sixty plus years down the line this memory always comes back to me whenever this carol is sung during the Christmas celebrations.
Woodlands Methodist Church 