Place:Darley Dale, Derbyshire, England

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Darley Dale, also known simply as Darley, is a town and civil parish in Derbyshire, England, with a population of around 6,000. It lies north of Matlock, on the River Derwent and the A6 road. It is a commuter town for workers in Matlock. Darley Bridge lies on the other side of the Derwent. Darley Hillside is the name given to the northeastern part of the village, away from the A6. The parish also includes the settlements at Churchtown, Upper Hackney, Hackney and Farley, but excludes Darley Bridge and Northwood.

The town grew in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries around the lead mining and smelting industries.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Darley Dale.

Darley Dale was originally an ancient parish in the High Peak Hundred of Derbyshire, England. Its only township was Wensley and Snitterton; the other settlements mentioned above never became more than hamlets.

It was made a civil parish in 1866 and in 1894 it became an urban district known as North Darley. In 1934 the urban district was merged with Matlock Urban District. Since 1974 it has been in the non-metropolitan Derbyshire Dales non-metropolitan district.

There was also a South Darley Urban District created from the township and parish of Wensley and Snitterton.

A nineteenth century description

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Darley from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"DARLEY, a township and a parish in Bakewell [registration] district, Derby[shire]. The township lies on the river Derwent, adjacent to the Rowsley railway, 5 miles SE by S of Bakewell; and has a station on the railway, a post office, of the name of Darley-Dale, under Matlock-Bath, and fairs on 13 May and 27 Oct. Real property: £6,221; of which £211 are in quarries. Population: 1,574. Houses: 314.

"The parish contains also the township of Wensley and Snitterton. Acres: 7,104. Rated property: £10,400. Population: 2,156. Houses: 451. The property is much sub-divided. Darley Hall is a chief residence. Good sandstone is found; lead ore is mined; and manufactures of stockings, cotton, and paper are carried on. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Lichfield. Value: £434. Patron: the Bishop of Lichfield. The church is partly Norman, and very good; and the churchyard has a yew-tree, 33 feet in girth of trunk. The [perpetual] curacy of Cross-Green or South Darley, constituted in 1845, is a separate benefice. Value: £94. Patron: the Rector of Darley. The church is tolerable. There is a Wesleyan chapel. A school has £32 from endowment; and other charities £5. A priory of Black canons was built at Darley, in the time of Henry II., by Hugh, dean of Derby."

Wikipedia now states that the existence of a Benedictene abbey at Darley Dale is no longer backed by evidence. However, a smaller priory of "Black canons" may have existed.

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.