Chapel en le Frith

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CHAPEL EN LE FRITH - Description from Pigot's 1835 Directory

CHAPEL-EN-LE-FRITH is a market-town and parish, in the hundred of High Peak, 167 miles from London, 20 S.E. from Manchester, 21 N.W. from Sheffield, 23 W. by N. from Chesterfield, and 6 N. from Buxton. Its name signifies the 'Chapel-in-the-Forest; from the Saxon word frith, a forest or wood - the church or chapel, which originated the town, having been built within the forest of the High Peak. The town is neat and pleasantly situate on the declivity of a hill, rising from an extensive and fertile vale, surrounded by an amphitheatre of lofty eminences that bound this extremity of the county.

Many of the views around here are bold, picturesque, and well wooded; the uplands furnish good pasturage, and border on the moors, which abound with game. The manufacture of cotton is the principal branch here; at White Hall mill is a considerable manufactory for paper, belonging to Mr. John Ibbotson; nails are made in the town, and there is a good brewery. Here is an establishment for warehousing goods, this place being a medium of communication between the populous manufacturing towns of Manchester and Sheffield; many of the humbler classes are employed in weaving for the Manchester houses. Lead and coal mines, and quarries are worked in the neighbourhood; and a railway passes near here, from the lime-stone quarries, to the Peak Forest canal, which it joins at Bugsworth. A fine reservoir in the parish supplies the canal; it is a beautiful sheet of water, much frequented by anglers.

The municipal law of the town is administered by the magistrates, who hold petty sessions once in a fortnight; and a court baron for the hundred and liberty of the High Peak is held every third week, for the recovery of debts under £5., at which the steward of the Duke of Devonshire presides. This is one of the stations appointed by the new Boundary Act for receiving votes at the election of knights of the shire, to represent the northern division of the county.

The places of worship are the parish church, and a chapel for the Wesleyan methodists: the former. which is dedicated to St. Thomas-a-Becket, is a neat edifice, with a square tower: the living is a perpetual curacy, in the patronage of the resident freeholders, twenty-seven of whom form a committee, and elect the minister by a major majority of votes: the present incumbent is the Rev. Samuel Grundy. At Barmoor-clough, about two miles to the east of the town, is an ebbing and flowing well, visited by many as a great curiosity; and on a hill two miles to the south, are the vestiges of a Roman encampment.

Bank Hall, the seat of John Firth, Esq. situate a short distance from the town, forms a pleasing object on the turnpike road. The market, which is entitled to be held on Thursday, is of very little importance; and the fairs, principally for cattle, are by no means extensive - they take place on 7th February, 24th and 29th March, 19th and 30th April, 31st May, 7th July, 19th August, 3d October, and 9th November.

The parish is divided into the three townships of Bowden's Edge, Bradshaw Edge, and Coomb's Edge, which, collectively, contained, by the returns for 1821, 3,234 inhabitants, and by those for 1831, 3,220.

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

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