The Garrett family lived in Moor End Farm from the about 1840 until 1918. They rented the house, buildings and land from the Harpur-Crewes of Calke Abbey.

George Garrett and his wife Mary (nee Robinson) were dairy farmers of about 100 acres. They married in 1803 and had four surviving sons and eight daughters. George died in 1856 and in his will he left all the farming stock to Mary and then to his second son, Thomas, who married Rosetta. Six of the other children married and moved out: Mary married Benjamin Sneap, a farmer from Rigga lane; Dorothy married Samuel Birkinshaw, a bleacher living in the Mill Green cottages; Sarah married William Littledikes; William became a butcher in Derby; Ann married Harry Johnson, a relative of the Johnsons of Quarry Farm; and Julia marred Thomas Brown and moved to The Cape of Good Hope. 

The other five children (Hannah, George, Ellen, Eliza and Samuel) did not marry. They were left small sums in George’s will and free lodgings and maintenance provided they assisted with work on the farm. Mary carried on farming until she died.

Thomas and Rosetta Garrett lived at Moor End farm with their nine children and the five unmarried brothers and sisters of Thomas. Thomas died in 1877 aged 52.

Rosetta carried on bringing up the family and running the farm on her own - though it decreased in size considerably and by 1901 there was only 21 acres. Their eldest son, Thomas, became a photographer and took many of the pictures elsewhere on this website. The others all seemed to move out – indeed Rosetta herself is recorded in 1901 as living in The Toll House on Alfreton Road (next door to John and Mary Easter). The farm was taken over by the youngest son, Ernest and his wife Mary Ellen.

Ernest Garrett and his wife Mary continued to run what was by then a smallholding with Ernest’s mother Rosetta. They had two children. By 1906 Ernest had moved out, leaving Annie to run the farm with his mother. By 1918 the farm had become unviable and the stock and implements were sold.  Ernest was later recorded as an unemployed farm worker, living in Barley Close with his sisters Rosetta and Annie and his brother Thomas.  He died in 1949 aged 71.