Bonsall is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

in the

Derbyshire Dales Derbyshire Dales ( ) is a local government district in Derbyshire, England. The population at the 2011 Census was 71,116. Much of it is in the Peak District, although most of its population lies along the River Derwent. The borough borders ...

on the edge of the

Peak District The Peak District is an upland area in England at the southern end of the Pennines. Mostly in Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southe ...

. The civil parish population, including Brightgate and Horse Dale, was 775 at the 2001 Census, increasing to 803 at the 2011 Census.

Geography

Bonsall is about from Matlock and about from

Derby Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby gai ...

. Bonsall has a long history of

lead mining Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cut, l ...

, along with its neighbouring town of

Wirksworth Wirksworth is a market town in the Derbyshire Dales district of Derbyshire, England. Its population of 5,038 in the 2011 census was estimated at 5,180 in 2019. Wirksworth contains the source of the River Ecclesbourne. The town was granted a mark ...

, probably going back to

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

times, and is recorded in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

. The approach to the village is via a steep hill leading up from

Via Gellia The A5012 road is a main road in the south of the English county of Derbyshire. Route Around in length, it connects two primary north–south routes; the A6 at Cromford and the A515 between Buxton and Ashbourne. It passes through Pikehall ...

(now the

A5012 road The A5012 road is a main road in the south of the English county of Derbyshire. Route Around in length, it connects two primary north–south routes; the A6 at Cromford and the A515 between Buxton and Ashbourne. It passes through Pikehall ...

) and nearby

Cromford Cromford is a village and civil parish in Derbyshire, England, in the valley of the River Derwent between Wirksworth and Matlock. It is north of Derby, south of Matlock and south of Matlock Bath. It is first mentioned in the 11th-century Do ...

. The road is called the Clatterway, or occasionally the ''Col du Bonsall''. The village lies on the edge of the

Peak District National Park Peak or The Peak may refer to: Basic meanings Geology * Mountain peak ** Pyramidal peak, a mountaintop that has been sculpted by erosion to form a point Mathematics * Peak hour or rush hour, in traffic congestion * Peak (geometry), an (''n''-3)-di ...

, the border of which bisects the 'Uppertown' suburb. The village is on the

Limestone Way The Limestone Way is a waymarked long-distance footpath in Derbyshire, England. It runs for through the White Peak of the Peak District National Park, from Castleton south to Rocester over the county boundary into Staffordshire. The trail ...

, at the head of its branch to Matlock, and on the

Peak District Boundary Walk The Peak District Boundary Walk is a circular walking trail, starting and finishing at Buxton and broadly following the boundary of the Peak District, Britain's first national park. The route was developed by the Friends of the Peak District (a ...

. Parts of

St James the Apostle's Church, Bonsall St James the Apostle's Church, Bonsall is a Grade II* listed parish church in the Church of England in Bonsall, Derbyshire. History The church dates from the 13th century. In time it was filled with galleries and the chancel and tower were cut ...

date from the 13th century, including the north side of the

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

and the

arcade Arcade most often refers to: * Arcade game, a coin-operated game machine ** Arcade cabinet, housing which holds an arcade game's hardware ** Arcade system board, a standardized printed circuit board * Amusement arcade, a place with arcade games * ...

of the south

aisle An aisle is, in general, a space for walking with rows of non-walking spaces on both sides. Aisles with seating on both sides can be seen in airplanes, certain types of buildings, such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, meeting halls, parl ...

. The arcade of the north aisle is later and so is the

Perpendicular Gothic Perpendicular Gothic (also Perpendicular, Rectilinear, or Third Pointed) architecture was the third and final style of English Gothic architecture developed in the Kingdom of England during the Late Middle Ages, typified by large windows, four-c ...

tower. The outer walls of the church were rebuilt in 1861–62 under the direction of the Gothic Revival architect

Ewan Christian Ewan Christian (1814–1895) was a British architect. He is most frequently noted for the restorations of Southwell Minster and Carlisle Cathedral, and the design of the National Portrait Gallery. He was Architect to the Ecclesiastical Commiss ...

. There is a

market cross A market cross, or in Scots, a mercat cross, is a structure used to mark a market square in market towns, where historically the right to hold a regular market or fair was granted by the monarch, a bishop or a baron. History Market crosse ...

in the village centre that may date from the Middle Ages. The ball on top was added in 1671. Bonsall applied for a market charter some three hundred years ago, but was rejected. The

Manor House A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were held the lord's manorial courts, communal meals w ...

was built in about 1670 and the Kings Head

public house A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...

was established in 1677.

Textiles and lead mines

Bonsall inhabitants have been involved in the textile industry, before and after

Richard Arkwright Sir Richard Arkwright (23 December 1732 – 3 August 1792) was an English inventor and a leading entrepreneur during the early Industrial Revolution. He is credited as the driving force behind the development of the spinning frame, known as t ...

. Around 1850 Bonsall was a farming village surrounded by lead mines and busy outworker frame-knitting workshops. A few 18th- and 19th-century frame-knitting workshop buildings survive. Many people also worked in the cotton spinning mills at

and the Via Gellia. In early modern times Bonsall was on an important salters' route, and was a staging post on the road between Derby and

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

Economy and amenities

Bonsall remains a working village that is involved in agriculture, heavy goods transport and a range of forms of information technology. However, most people in the village travel to cities such as Derby, Nottingham and Sheffield for work. The village supports two public houses, the Barley Mow and the Kings Head. The parish has a

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

primary school.

Bonsall Camp

Bonsall Camp in Uppertown is a Christian youth camp, owned by the Christian Youth Foundation, a charity that runs several residential children's and youth weeks in the summer holidays. Camps have been run here for more than 60 years. The Christian author Selwyn Hughes recalls in his biography the time he was sent home from the camp for bad behaviour.

Events

Attractions include the Annual "World Championship Hen Race" held annually in August at the Barley Mow public house. This event was run for the first time in 1992.

Discovery of Horse skulls

in an article from 1886, they describe how during a renovation of a house in 'upper town', the builders lifted the boarded flooring to the lower ground to replace it with a new one, only to discover 29 horse skulls with all of their lower jaws missing under it, they hypothesised that these skulls were probably remains from (what the locals recorded through oral tradition) a battle that once took place on the Bonsall moore.

UFO sightings

For two years from October 2000, there were 19 sightings of

UFO An unidentified flying object (UFO), more recently renamed by US officials as a UAP (unidentified aerial phenomenon), is any perceived aerial phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained. On investigation, most UFOs are id ...

s in the area. On 5 October 2000, Sharon Rowlands photographed a circular object. The circular object showed a similarity to a circular object seen on the

STS-75 STS-75 was a 1996 NASA Space Shuttle mission, the 19th mission of the ''Columbia'' orbiter. Crew Allen, Hoffman, Nicollier and Chang-Díaz had previously been members of the STS-46 crew, which had flown the TSS-1 experiment in 1992. Mission ...

Columbia

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program na ...

mission in early 1996.

References

External links

The Bonsall History Project

The Bonsall Field Barn Project
{{authority control Towns and villages of the Peak District UFO sightings in England Villages in Derbyshire Derbyshire Dales