WILLESLEY, Derbyshire

Census

• The parish was in the Hartshorn sub-district of the Ashby-de-la-Zouch 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 Thomas.
  
  
• The church was built in the first half of the 14th century.
  
  
• The church seats 100.
  

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Church Records

• The Anglican parish register dates from 1677.
  
  
• The church was in the rural deanery of Repton.
  

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Civil Registration

• Civil Registration began in July, 1837.
  
  
• The parish was in the Hartshorn sub-district of the Ashby-de-la-Zouch Registration District.
  

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Description and Travel

"WILLESLEY is about 2 miles and a half from Ashby-de- la-Zouch, in the same hundred as Measham, part of the parish being cut off by the boundary line of Leicestershire. The Ashby-de-la-Zouch canal passes here; and a rail-road from Willesley basin to Ticknall, passing Ashby-de-la-Zouch, is a conveyance for coals and lime-stone, worked in this neighbourhood, as well as for the carriage of the Moira spa- water, obtained about two miles from Measham; this water is in considerable repute, its properties being as valuable as the springs at Harrogate. 'Willesley Park', the fine seat of Sir Charles Abney Hastings, is a great ornament to this parish. The population is very inconsiderable, - thirty years ago it contained only 62 inhabitants, in 1821 exactly the same number was returned for the parish, and at the last census, 1831, the increase only amounted to one person."

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

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Directories

• Ann Andrews provides a transcription of the Willesley 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 Willesley from the National Gazetteer (1868) provided by Colin Hinson.

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Politics and Government

• This place was an ancient parish in Derbyshire and became a modern Civil Parish when those were established.
  
  
• This parish was in the ancient Repton and Greasley Hundred (or Wapentake).
  
  
• This parish was abolished in April, 1936, and most of the land was merged into Ashby-de-la-Zouch Civil Parish. The former parish is now considered part of Leicestershire.
  

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Population

Year	Inhabitants
1801	62
1811	57
1841	53
1881	57

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