Place:Clowne, Derbyshire, England

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia Clowne is a village and civil parish in the Bolsover District of Derbyshire, England. The population at the 2001 UK census was 7,447, increasing to 7,590 at the 2011 UK census when it included the village of Harlesthorpe (whose population was less than 100). Clowne lies northeast of Chesterfield and southwest of Worksop. It is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as "Clune". The name is derived from the Celtic Clun meaning "river". [edit] History Clowne, originally Cloone, has been spelt in various ways over the last 1,000 years including, "Cloune", "Clone","Clowen", and most recently "Clown". The names of the two railway stations in the town were spelled differently at different times: they both started as "Clown". The first recorded mention of Clowne manor was in 1002 when the owner was Wulfric Spot. The Domesday Book refers to Ernui but then there was no mention of the manor until 1485 when Clowne was associated with the Bolsover manor. The manor eventually passed to the Cavendish family and through marriage to the Bentinck family, the Dukes of Portland. The church at Clowne, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, was built during the 12th century. At the beginning of the 19th century some inhabitants of Clowne worked in agriculture, or mined the shallow coal seams. Others were employed at the weaving mill, which made candle-wick, sacking and sail-cloth. During the Industrial Revolution, Clowne grew exponentially, swallowing the neighbouring villages of Hickinwood and Markland and becoming a mining town. The sinking of the 1,000 feet (300 m) deep mine, Southgate Colliery, in 1877 brought in workers from elsewhere. At its peak it employed 400 men and produced 600 tons of coal per day. The colliery survived a fire in 1920 but closed in 1929 after the pit flooded.

Governance

Historically, Clowne was in the hundred or wapentake of Scarsdale in the county of Derbyshire. This hundred dates to pre-Conquest (1066) times. Clowne was part of the Worksop Poor Law Union which dates from July 1836. The workhouse was built in 1837 at East Gate in Worksop. Clowne, an old ecclesiastical or "ancient" parish, was created Clowne Rural District Council as part of the Worksop rural sanitary district in 1894. This consisted of four civil parishes; Barlborough, Clowne, Elmton with Cresswell, and Whitwell, and was abolished in 1974 when it became part of Bolsover District Council.

Research Tips

• Derbyshire Record Office website
• British History Online (Victoria County Histories) does not appear to cover Derbyshire geographically. A History of the County of Derby: Volume 2, edited by William Page is a part-volume covering the religious houses of the county. No further volumes have been found.
• GENUKI main page for Derbyshire which provides information on various topics covering the whole of the county, and also a link to a list of parishes. Under each parish there is a list of the settlements within it and brief description of each. This is a list of pre-1834 ancient or ecclesiastical parishes but there are suggestions as to how to find parishes set up since then. GENUKI provides references to other organizations who hold genealogical information for the local area. There is no guarantee that the website has been kept up to date and therefore the reader should check additional sources if possible.
• The FamilyTree Wiki has a series of pages similar to those provided by GENUKI which may have been prepared at a later date and from more recent data. The wiki has a link to English Jurisdictions 1851 which gives the registration district and wapentake for each parish, together with statistics from the 1851 census for the area.
• A Vision of Britain through Time, Derbyshire, section "Units and Statistics" leads to analyses of population and organization of the county from about 1800 through 1974. There are pages available for all civil parishes, municipal boroughs and other administrative divisions. Descriptions provided are usually based on a gazetteer of 1870-72 which often provides brief notes on the economic basis of the settlement and significant occurences through its history.
• For a more detailed view of a specific area try a map from the following selection. The oldest series are very clear at the third magnification offered. Comparing the map details with the GENUKI details for the same area is well worthwhile. Sections of the 1900 map showing parish boundaries only have been reproduced on some (but not all) parish pages here in WeRelate.

• Map of Derbyshire illustrating urban and rural districts in 1900 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time. Parish boundaries and settlements within parishes are shown.
• Map of Derbyshire urban and rural districts in 1944 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time. Parish boundaries and settlements within parishes are shown. This is not a repeat of the first map. There were some changes in urban and rural district structure in the 1930s.
• Ordnance Survey map of Derbyshire for 1967 This is the last in this series and was made while Derbyshire was experimenting with the non-metropolitan district structure adopted in 1974. It is a much cleaner map for reading the names of the civil parishes, but the smaller villages are no longer visible.

These are only three of the series of maps to be found in A Vision of Britain through Time.

• Wikimedia Commons map of the post-1974 districts of Derbyshire. The numbers will be linked to the districts on the WeRelate district pages.
• Wikimedia Commons often provides a map of the ancient divisions named "hundreds", but there does not appear to be one for Derbyshire. This 1832 Ordnance Survey map from A Vision of Britain through Time is not as good as those in the Wikimedia Commons series.
• Derbyshire family history societies are listed in GENUKI.
• Towns and Villages of Derbyshire and the Peak District is a locally produced website designed for tourists.