Ashover

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ASHOVER - Description from Pigot's 1835 Directory

ASHOVER is a village, in the parish of its name, partly in the hundred of Wirksworth, but chiefly in Scarsdale hundred; 4 miles N.N.E. from Matlock, about 7 miles S. from Chesterfield, and about the like distance N.W. from Alfreton; pleasantly situate near the rivers Amber and Milntown: it is a place of considerable antiquity having had a church at the time of the conquest, and was formerly a market-town. Coal, iron-stone, mill-stone and lead are found in the parish, and the Gregory lead mine is said to have been, at one time, the richest in the kingdom, but of late years its produce has much decreased.

On the side of a hill on Ashover common, is a rocking-stone, called by the country-people 'Robin Hood's Mark'; it measures 26 feet in circumference, and from its extraordinary position appears to have been a work of art, and placed with great ingenuity.

The church, which is dedicated to All-Saints, is a large edifice of ancient appearance, supposed to have been erected in the early part of the fifteenth century: it has a very handsome spire. The church contains several monuments to the Babington family, and a Norman font of curious design. The living is a rectory, of which the Rev. Lawrence Short is the present incumbent. The primitive and Wesleyan methodists have each a place of worship here, and there is a free-school in which about twenty poor children are instructed, by means arising, from a bequest of land, made by the Rev. Francis Gisborne, in 1819. The parish of Ashover (which includes the hamlets of Dethwick-Lea and Holloway) contained, in 1821, 2,998 inhabitants, and in 1831, 3,179.

[Description from Pigot and Co's Commercial Directory for Derbyshire, 1835
Transcribed by Rosemary Lockie ©1999]

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