Place:Wirksworth, Derbyshire, England

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

Wirksworth is a market town in the Derbyshire Dales District of Derbyshire, England, with a population recorded as 5,038 in the 2011 UK census and estimated at 5,180 in 2019. It contains the source of the River Ecclesbourne. The town was granted a market charter by Edward I in 1306. The market is still held on Tuesdays in the Memorial Gardens. The parish church of St Mary's is thought to date from 653. Wirksworth developed as a centre for lead mining and later stone quarrying. Many lead mines in the area were owned by the Gell family of nearby Hopton Hall.

History

The origins of Wirksworth are thought to have depended on the presence of thermal warm water springs nearby, coupled with a sheltered location at the head of a glaciated valley, capable of producing cereals such as oats and providing timber suitable for building.

By the 18th century there were many thousand lead mines worked individually. Defoe gives a first-hand account of a lead miner's family and the miner himself at work. At this time, the London Lead Company was formed to provide finance for deeper mines with drainage channels, called "soughs", and introduce Newcomen steam-engine pumps.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Wirksworth.

Wirksworth was originally an ancient parish in the Wirksworth Hundred of Derbyshire, England. As an ancient parish it had supervision of a number of chapelries and townships surrounding it:

• Alderwasley,
• Ashleyhay,
• Biggin,
• Callow (near Wirksworth),
• Cromford,
• Ible,
• Idridgehay and Alton,
• Ivonbrook Grange,
• Middleton by Wirksworth, and
• Hopton (a township which became part of Hopton and Griffe Grange civil parish in 1858)

Wirksworth was made a civil parish in 1866 and in 1894 it became an urban district. Since 1974 it has been in the non-metropolitan Derbyshire Dales non-metropolitan district.

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.