MATLOCK, Derbyshire

Bibliography

• Beresford, Charles - The Bath At War. Ashridge Press/Country Books, 2007. ISBN 978-1-901214-91-8.
  
  
• Naylor, Peter - A History of the Matlocks. Landmark, 2003. ISBN not available.
  
  
• Images of England: Matlock and Matlock Bath. Tempus Publishing Limited, 2002. ISBN 0 7524 2455 6.
  
  
• Bower, Alan - "The Water Cure". Derbyshire Heritage Series, 1985.
  Published by J H Hall & Sons Ltd, Siddals Road, Derby. ISBN 0 946404 55 0.

  A small, but very useful booklet containing a collection of postcards, focussing on hydropathic treatment at Hydros predominantly in Buxton and Matlock, but also has illustrations of the Hydros at Darley Dale (now St Elphin's School), Ashover, Baslow and Chesterfield. There is a brief introduction, describing the growth of the 'Water Cure' from Roman times through the Middle Ages and into the 1780's when "social life of a spa at this time was more important than the cure" through to the heady days of John Smedley, and his followers to its eventual demise with the advent of the National Health Service in 1948.
  
  Quoting from its back cover: "This book is primarily a picture book about the Water Cure in Derbyshire. The picture postcard holds a wealth of information about our recent past and is an invaluable aid to any Historian. The postcards used to illustrate the Cure and Hydros date from 1904 to 1920 and aim to show what the life and treatment at a Hydro was like."
  
  

• Glynn WAITE, The Matlock Cable Tramway.
  

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Census

• The parish was in the Matlock sub-district of the Bakewell Registration District.
  
  
• The table below gives census piece numbers, where known:
  
  

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Church History

• The Anglican parish church is dedicated to Saint Giles.
  

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Church Records

• A CD containing a transcription of The Parish Registers of St Giles' Church is available for purchase from Valerie Neal.
  
  
• A CD containing a transcription of The Parish Registers of Holy Trinity Church, Matlock Bath, is also available for purchase from Valerie Neal.
  
  
• The church was in the rural deanery of Bakewell.
  
  
• The Primitive Methodist chapel was founded in 1838 and was rebuilt in 1856.
  
  
• The Wesleyan Methodist chapel was built in 1882.
  
  
• The Congregationalists had a chapel at Matlock Bath before 1891.
  

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Civil Registration

• Civil Registration began in July, 1837.
  
  
• The parish was in the Matlock sub-district of the Bakewell Registration District.
  
  

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Description and Travel

"MATLOCK is a village and parish, in the hundred of Wirksworth; 144 miles from London, 42 S.S.E. from Manchester, 34 N.W. from Nottingham, 18 N.W. by N. from Derby, 14 N.N.E. from Ashbourn, and rather more than 3 N. from Wirksworth. The village is most delightfully situate, partly in a valley, and partly on the side of a hill, on the eastern banks of the river Derwent, and at a short distance from the main road. It is chiefly built of stone, and at its entrance is a neat stone bridge; at some distance from which, on the verge of a most romantic rock, and upon a precipice almost perpendicular, stands the church, dedicated to St. Giles, shrouded amidst trees whose luxuriant foliage spreads over the face of the grey rock."

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

The parish sits on the south-eastern edge of the Peak District, just off the A6 trunk road.

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Directories

• Descriptions of Matlock, and Matlock Bath have been transcribed by Heather Faulkes from Pigot's Directory of 1828/9.

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Gazetteers

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

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Military History

• There is a World War I War Memorial on the north Wall of St. Giles Church.
  
  
• During the Second World War, Rockside Hall was used as an RAF psychiatric hospital, where mentally scarred service personnel (mostly aircrew) were rehabilitated. It was somewhat unkindly known as "Hatters Castle" by locals.
  

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Politics and Government

• This parish was in the ancient Wirksworth Hundred (or Wapentake).
  
  

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Poorhouses, Poor Law, etc.

• As a result of the Poorlaw Amendment Act reforms of 1834, this parish became a member of the Bakewell Poorlaw Union.
  

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Schools

• The Ernest Bailey Grammar School in Matlock was established in 1924. In the few years prior to that, pupils from the Matlock area were known to have attended the Lady Manners School, in Bakewell, following its reopening in 1896. The first Headmaster of Ernest Bailey's, E. H. CHAPMAN, had been a pupil himself at Lady Manners.

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