Click HERE to read Westhouses The Early Years by Dudley Fowkes

Click HERE to read Westhouses The Early Years - The Origins and Foundation of St Saviours Church by Dudley Fowkes

Westhouses takes its name from the West House Farm on the western extremity of the ancient parish of Blackwell. For many years this formed part of the Duke of Devonshire's estates.

The separate community that developed on part of the West House Farm owed its existence to the Midland Railway Company. The railway first arrived in 1861 and the initial settlement was a navvy settlement of six 'hutts' that disappeared with the opening of the line in 1862.

In 1866 the branch of the railway from Westhouses to Tibshelf and Pleasley was opened, followed by the Blackwell branch in 1871. These branches were the catalyst for the development of new deep collieries in the locality and traffic grew to such an extent that a railway depot was needed to house and service the locomotives working on the branches. Westhouses was the obvious site for the depot and a railway village to house the workers at the depot was built over the 1890 to 1892 period with Railway Terrace as its core. The railway company provided a School and a Railway Institute. A mission church, St Saviour's, was built by public subscription in 1897-1898, and a Primitive Methodist Chapel was opened on Alfreton Road in 1897.

Speculative development, especially along Alfreton Road, followed the railway village and the village prospered as long as the collieries and the depot remained open.

Since the closure of the local collieries in the 1970s and the consequent closure of the railway depot and sidings, the village has gradually assumed the changed role of a dormitory village given its proximity to the trunk road network and the M1 motorway.