DARLEY ABBEY, Derbyshire

Census

• The parish was in the Derby Registration District.
  
  
• The table below gives census piece numbers, where known:
  
  

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Civil Registration

• Civil Registration began in July, 1837.
  
  
• The parish was in the Derby Registration District.
  

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Description and Travel

"DARLEY ABBEY is a small village and township, in the parish of St. Alkmund, about one mile N. from Derby; seated on the river Derwent, upon which are a cotton-mill and a paper-mill, affording employment to two-thirds of the inhabitants. The church, which has been erected within these few years, on the summit of a hill, is a beautiful structure; and from this situation the prospect is extensive. A large school-room has been built, in which the boys are taught reading, writing, and arithmetic, and the girls sewing; this school is supported entirely by Walter Evans, Esq. to whose munificence the village is also indebted, for the election of the church. The township contained at the last census, 1,170 inhabitants."

[Description from Pigot and Co's Commercial Directory for Derbyshire, 1835]

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Gazetteers

• The transcription of the section for Darley Abbey from the National Gazetteer (1868) provided by Colin Hinson.

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Historical Geography

• Darley Abbey is named from the Abbey of St Mary of Darley, founded in 1137. After the Dissolution, its land was leased firstly to Sir Henry Sacheverall, then to Sir William West, who used its stone for building the first Darley Hall, in Darley Park. Only one small building now remains from the Abbey, and the first Hall is gone too, being replaced in 1727 by a building which in turn was demolished, in 1962. [Ref: 'The Mills at Darley Abbey' - Derbyshire Family History Society Journal, Issue 92, March 2000, pp42-3]

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