Saltergate — officially the Recreation Ground — was the historic home of Chesterfield Football Club from 1871 until the club’s move in July 2010, giving it a remarkable 139-year operational lifespan that made it one of the oldest football grounds in England at the time of its closure.
Nestled tight against the town centre on the road that gave it its famous nickname, the ground grew organically over the decades from a shared cricket pitch into a quirky, much-loved lower-league stadium with four floodlight pylons, a bend in its own main stand, and a main stand designed by celebrated football-ground architect Archibald Leitch. This guide covers everything from the ground’s exact location and stand-by-stand layout to its attendance records, its famous film cameo, its 2012 demolition, and what occupies the site today.
Quick Answer
Saltergate was Chesterfield FC’s football ground from 4 November 1871 until 8 May 2010, when the club moved to the newly built Proact Stadium (now the SMH Group Stadium). The ground held 8,504 at closure, its record attendance was 30,561 (vs Tottenham Hotspur, FA Cup fifth round, 5 February 1938), and it was demolished in 2012 to make way for a housing estate called Spire Heights.
Where Saltergate Was and Why It Had That Name
The ground took its popular name from Saltergate, the street running alongside it just north of Chesterfield town centre, at postcode S40 4SX, even though its official title was always the Recreation Ground. Football and cricket shared the site from 1871 after Chesterfield Cricket Club fell out with the owners of its previous ground and moved to fields between Saltergate and Cobden Road — the football club, freshly split off as its own entity, went with it.
Chesterfield hosted its first football match on the new ground on 4 November 1871, a 14-a-side game against Rotherham played under Sheffield Rules — a reminder of how far the ground predates the modern Football League, which Chesterfield joined in 1899. Cricket eventually moved on to Queen’s Park in the mid-1890s, leaving Saltergate to the football club alone for the rest of its existence.
The Stands and Terraces, End by End
By the time it closed, Saltergate was made up of four distinct sides, each with its own character. The Main Stand, opened in November 1936 and designed by Archibald Leitch (the architect behind grounds like Ibrox, Goodison Park and the old Baseball Ground), ran along one side of the pitch and seated a little over 2,000 fans; viewed from above it had an unusual slight bend just right of the halfway line, and its lower tier had no player tunnel, with teams instead emerging through a door in the stand.
Facing it was the Kop (later sponsored as the Karen Child Kop), the main home terrace holding roughly 2,000 supporters, which began as a sloping earth mound before being concreted and fitted with crush barriers and finally roofed in 1960–61 thanks to fan fundraising. The smaller Compton Street Stand (the Popular Side), seating around 1,000 with partial cover and an unusual wooden TV gantry balanced on its roof, was converted from terracing to all-seating in 2002. The open, uncovered Cross Street End held about 1,400 away fans and included a boundary wall dating to 1921 — by the 2000s, the oldest surviving structure on the whole site.
Capacity and Attendance Records
Saltergate’s capacity shrank steadily as football safety standards tightened, from tens of thousands in the 1930s down to 8,504 (all-seated and covered-terrace combined) by the time the ground closed in 2010. The record attendance of 30,561 was set on 5 February 1938 for an FA Cup fifth-round tie against Tottenham Hotspur, a figure the ground would never beat again.
The highest attendance for a League fixture came slightly later, on 22 April 1939, when 28,268 turned out for a match against Newcastle United — a figure sometimes mistakenly cited as the overall ground record. Across its full 139-year lifespan, Saltergate hosted over 3,000 first-team matches, giving it one of the longest continuous first-team tenancies of any ground in English football history.
Floodlights, Filming and Famous Quirks
Saltergate was one of the last grounds in England to get permanent floodlights, installing a second-hand set in 1963 but not switching them on for a competitive fixture until the 1967–68 season, decades after most Football League clubs had done the same. Its homely scruffiness became part of its charm — rival fans loved to needle Chesterfield supporters about the Main Stand’s peeling paint and rusted exterior in its final years.
The Main Stand’s Leitch-designed profile closely echoed Derby County’s demolished Baseball Ground (also a Leitch build), which is why the 2009 football drama The Damned United used Saltergate as a filming stand-in for several real grounds — most notably the Baseball Ground, but also doubling for Wembley, Carrow Road and Bloomfield Road during shooting in 2008, earning the club a useful fee reported at around £50,000. The ground also turned out to hold a piece of football engineering history: disused terracing in the Compton Street–Cross Street corner included crush barriers patented by Archibald Leitch in 1906, among the last known surviving examples of their type. Two were preserved and donated to the National Football Museum in Preston and the Scottish Football Museum in Glasgow before demolition.
Final Years, Closure and the Move to a New Stadium
Saltergate’s tight, town-centre footprint left little room to expand or modernise, and by the early 2000s the club had begun looking seriously at relocation. Fans backed a move away from Saltergate in a ballot held in 2003, with the new site confirmed by a further poll in 2006, and the club built a purpose-built stadium on the former Dema Glass factory site at Whittington Moor — opened for the 2010–11 season, initially as the b2net Stadium and later renamed the Proact Stadium (now the SMH Group Stadium).
Chesterfield played their final competitive fixture at Saltergate on 8 May 2010, beating AFC Bournemouth 2–1 in League Two thanks to a stoppage-time winner from Derek Niven — a moment that triggered a good-natured pitch invasion, including footage of a wheelchair user rolling onto the turf that later racked up over 100,000 views online. The club marked the send-off with a heritage exhibition at The Pomegranate Theatre before the ground closed its gates for good.
Demolition and What’s There Today
Demolition of Saltergate ran through 2012: by the end of June the pitch had been stripped out, all four stands were down and three of the four floodlight pylons had been felled, with the last pylon — the final standing piece of the old ground — coming down on 13 July 2012. The site was sold to housebuilder Barratt Homes, which began marketing plots to buyers that same month, with the first new houses ready for occupation that autumn.
The resulting housing estate was named Spire Heights in December 2012, a nod to Chesterfield’s ‘Spireites’ nickname. In March 2015, Chesterfield Borough Council unveiled a permanent public artwork on the site, The Spirit of Saltergate, a metal sculpture by artist Melanie Jackson depicting Chesterfield supporters, complete with eleven bronze floor inlays showing images from the club’s history at the ground — the closest thing left to a physical marker of where Saltergate once stood.
Saltergate football ground FAQs
What was Saltergate?
Saltergate was the popular name for the Recreation Ground, Chesterfield Football Club’s home ground from 1871 until 2010, named after the street running alongside it near the town centre.
Why did Chesterfield FC leave Saltergate?
Saltergate’s tight town-centre site left no room to expand or meet modern stadium standards, so fans voted in 2003 and 2006 to back a move to a new, purpose-built stadium at Whittington Moor, now the SMH Group Stadium.
What was the record attendance at Saltergate?
The record was 30,561, set on 5 February 1938 for an FA Cup fifth-round tie against Tottenham Hotspur. A League game against Newcastle United in April 1939 drew 28,268, the highest for a league fixture.
When was Saltergate demolished?
Demolition ran through 2012, with the stands and pitch cleared by the end of June and the last of the four floodlight pylons brought down on 13 July 2012.
Is anything left of Saltergate today?
The site is now a Barratt Homes housing estate called Spire Heights. The only heritage marker on site is The Spirit of Saltergate, a public sculpture unveiled in March 2015 commemorating the ground and Chesterfield FC’s history there.
Who designed Saltergate’s Main Stand?
The Main Stand, opened in November 1936, was designed by Archibald Leitch, the architect also responsible for Ibrox, Goodison Park and Derby County’s old Baseball Ground.
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