Place:Hartington, Derbyshire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

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

Hartington is now a village in the Derbyshire Peak District, England, lying on the River Dove close to the Staffordshire border. According to the 2001 UK census, the parish of Hartington Town Quarter, which includes Hartington and also the village of Pilsbury, had a population of 345 in 2001 reducing to 332 at the 2011 UK census. Formerly known for cheese-making and the mining of ironstone, limestone and lead, the village is now popular with tourists.

History

Hartington was mentioned in the Domesday book of 1086 as belonging to Henry de Ferrers and being worth forty shillings. The parish was originally quite large, and part of the Wirksworth Hundred. As an ancient parish Hartington had four townships:

• Hartington Town Quarter (including the village of Hartington),
• Hartington Nether Quarter,
• Hartington Middle Quarter, and
• Hartington Upper Quarter.

These all became separate civil parishes in their own right in 1866. They are marked on Ordnance Survey maps (see links below). Surnames that originate from this area include Heathcote.

A Vision of Britain through Time considers that Hartington ceased to exist when its townships became civil parishes in 1866. It therefore is not placed in any rural district (1894-1974) or non-metropolitan district (post-1974).

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

"HARTINGTON, a village, a parish, four townships, and a [registration] sub-district, in Derbyshire. The village stands on the river Dove, at the boundary with Staffordshire, 3 miles W of the Cromford and High Peak railway, 8 miles SW by W of Bakewell [railway] station, and 10½ N by W of Ashborne; has a bridge over the Dove, and a post office under Ashborne; and gives the title of Marquis to the Duke of Devonshire. A weekly market is held on Wednesday; and fairs are held on 12 Feb., 2 April, and the Wednesday before the last Thursday of April.

"The parish consists of the townships of [Hartington] Town-Quarter, [Hartington] Nether-Quarter, [Hartington] Middle-Quarter, and [Hartington] Upper-Quarter; the two first in the [registration] district of Ashborne, the third in [the registration district] of Bakewell, the fourth in [the registration district] of Chapel-en-le-Frith. Acres of the whole: 24,160. Real property of [Hartington Town-Quarter]: £4,339, of which £160 are in quarries; of [Hartington Nether-Quarter]: £3,790; of [Hartington Middle Quarter]: £3,844; of [Hartington Upper Quarter]: £5,991, of which £860 are in mines, and £43 in quarries. Population of [Hartington Town-Quarter]: 495; of [Hartington Nether-Quarter]: 329; of [Hartington Middle-Quarter]: 326; of [Hartington Upper-Quarter]: 1,190. Houses: 107, 84, 69, and 248 [respectively]. [Hartington Town-Quarter] contains the village; [Hartington Middle-Quarter] is conterminate with Earl Sterndale chapelry; and [Hartington Upper-Quarter] contains the chapelry of Burbage.

"The property of the parish is subdivided; the manor belonged anciently to the Ferrers, who had a castle on it; belonged in the time of Charles I. to Villiers; and belongs now to the Duke of Devonshire. Iron ore and many other minerals are in [Hartington Town-Quarter], but have been little worked. The quarries and works of the Buxton Lime company are in [Hartington Upper-Quarter], and they employ several hundred men, and produce about 63,000 tons of lime a year. The mountains, moors, and vales of the parish are interesting to at once geologists, antiquaries, and tourists; and the northern tracts of it contribute attractions to the neighbourhood of Buxton. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Lichfield. Value: £249. Patron: the Duke of Devonshire. The church is ancient; was restored in 1858; and has transepts, and a pinnacled tower. Burbage living is a [perpetual] curacy, of the value of £100, in the patronage of the Duke of Devonshire; and the church of it was built in 1861, is in the early Norman style, and has a low square tower. Earl Sterndale is separately noticed. There are a Wesleyan chapel, a school with £9, and other charities with £29. A new school-house was built in 1865.

"The sub-district contains [Hartington Town-Quarter] and [Hartington Nether-Quarter] townships, Parwich parish, and parts of Ashborne and Bradbourne parishes; and is in the district of Ashborne. Acres: 29,671. Population: 1,652. Houses: 332."

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.