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Stanley may well have been a Saxon settlement. By the seventeenth century it had a reputation like neighbouring West Hallam for Catholic sympathies at a time when Roman Catholics suffered oppression. Stanley Grange Farm once belonged to Dale Abbey and as a Catholic School was raided twice - in 1637 and again by Parliamentary forces in 1642 during the English Civil War.
Originally an agricultural area, by the late 19th Century the main local employer was the coal industry, although brickmaking and some quarrying also took place. Stanley railway station was opened in 1876 by the Great Northern Railway but was renamed West Hallam to avoid confusion with another station on the line. The station closed in 1964 and the last local colliery, the 'Stanley Pit' ended deep seam mining in 1959 and closed completely in 1961.
Stanley also contained the depot of Felix Bus Services, a local bus service and tour operator. One of the hundreds of bus companies originally set up using surplus military vehicles after the First World War, Felix ran as a small independent operator until 2012.
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