Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire

Extract from Pigot's Commercial Directory of Derbyshire 1828-9

Descriptions transcribed by Heather Faulkes © 1999

CHAPEL-EN-LE-FRITH, a market town in the High Peak hundred, is 167 miles from London, 18 from Manchester and 6 from Buxton. Its name signifies the Chapel in the Forest, from the Saxon word frith, a forest, or wood; because the church or chapel, which originated the town, was built within the forest of the High Peak.

The town is neat, pleasantly situated in an extensive fertile vale, surrounded by an amphitheatre of lofty hills; many of the views presented are bold, picturesque, and richly wooded. The uplands are good pasturage, and border on the moors, which abound with game. Here is one church under the establishment, and a methodist chapel: the former is a perpetual curacy, in the patronage of twenty-seven freeholders; the present incumbent is the Rev. Samuel Grundy.

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 three weeks, for the recovery of debts under £5.

The manufacture of cotton is the principal trade of this town; one power-loom manufactory has lately been erected, by Messrs. Ashtons, at Hyde: Mr Dickens has also a spinning factory at Bridge-Holm Green; and many of the humbler classes are employed in weaving for Manchester houses. Some lead and coal mines and quarries are worked in the neighbourhood; and a rail-way passes near here from the limestone quarries to the Peak Forest canal, which it joins at Bugsworth: a fine reservoir in the parish supplies the canal, and is a beautiful sheet of water, much frequented by anglers.

At Barmore, about two miles and a half hence, is an ebbing and flowing well, much resorted to as a great curiosity. Bank Hall, the seat of Samuel Frith, Esq. one of the magistrates of the county, is within a short distance from the town, and forms a pleasing object on the turnpike road. Fairs are February 7th, March 24th, 28th, and 29th, April 19th and 30th, May 31st, June 21st, July 7th, August 19th, October 3rd, and November 9th, principally for cattle, cheese, wool &c. The parish is divided into three townships, viz. Bowden's Edge, Bradshaw Edge, and Comb's Edge, the whole containing, in 1821, 3,234 inhabitants. 

[From Pigot's Commercial Directory of Derbyshire 1828-9.
This page was created by Heather Faulkes on 18^th March 1999, and is reproduced on GENUKI with permission]