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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Church History

• A small Augustine priory was established here in 1137 during the reign of Henry I.
  
  
• The Abbey was dedicated to Saint Helena (although there are references to Saint Sythe).
  
  
• This place was originally a Chapel of Ease to St. Alkmund in Derby.
  
  
• The Anglican chapel of ease was intended for local workers and was built in the early 1800s. It opened for services in 1819..
  
  
• The Anglican parish church is dedicated to Saint Matthew.
  
  
• The eeclesiastical parish was created in 1847 from a portion of Derby St. Alkmund.
  
  
• There is a photograph of the church (and other buildings) at Derbyshire Photographs.

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Church Records

• The Anglican parish register dates from 1819.
  
  
• We have a partial extract of Parish Register burials in a pop-up window text file for your review. Your additions are welcomed.
  
  
• The church was in the rural deanery of Duffield.
  

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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]

This place is also known as Little Derby. The parish is small, covering only about 325 acres. The parish has its own website, but there is no history provided there.

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Directories

• Ann Andrews provides a transcription of the Darley Abbey entry from Kelly's Directory of the Counties of Derby, Notts, Leicester and Rutland (1891).

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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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Military History

• In St. Matthew's churchyard is a War Memorial for World War I.

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Politics and Government

• This parish was in the ancient Morleston and Litchurch Hundred (or Wapentake).

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