Brailsford () is a small red-brick village and civil parish in

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...

on the A52 midway between

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 g ...

and Ashbourne. The parish also includes Brailsford Green. The civil parish population at the 2011 Census was 1,118. The village has a pub, a golf club, a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional ser ...

and a school. There are many fine houses in the district including two 20th-century country houses: Brailsford Hall built in 1905 in Jacobean style, and Culland Hall.

History

Brailsford was mentioned 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 manus ...

as being in the tenancy of Elfin (possibly an Anglo-Norman rendering of the Saxon Aelfwine) who also held the nearby manors of Bupton, Osmaston and Thurvaston from the tenant-in-chief,

Henry de Ferrers Henry de Ferrers (died by 1100), magnate and administrator, was a Norman who after the 1066 Norman conquest was awarded extensive lands in England. Origins He was the eldest son of Vauquelin de Ferrers and in about 1040 inherited his father's ...

. The Domesday survey of 1086 records the following for Brailsford:

Land of Henry de Ferrers M. In Brailsford Earl Waltheof had 2 carucates of land taxable. Land for 2 ploughs. Now in lordship 2 ploughs. 24 villagers and 3 smallholders have 5 ploughs. A priest and ½ church; 1 mill, 10s 8d; meadow 11 acres; Woodland pasture 1 league long and 1 league wide. Value before 1066, 60s; now 40s. Elfin holds it.

Elfin, through his son Nicholas de Brailsford, is the ancestor of the Brailsford family, who are still numerous in the county and elsewhere today. From Pigot and Co's ''Commercial Directory for Derbyshire'', 1835:

"BRAILSFORD is rather a considerable village, in the parish of its name, and hundred of Appletree; situate on the main road between Derby and Ashbourne, equidistant from each place. Coaches to different parts of the kingdom are continually passing through here, and the support of the village is chiefly derived from that circumstance—there being no manufactures, nor any extensive trade existing here. The places of worship are the parish church, and a chapel for Wesleyan methodists; the former, which is situate, about half a mile from the village, is dedicated to All Saints, and the living is a rectory, in the patronage of Earl Ferrers"Pigot and Co's ''Commercial Directory for Derbyshire'', 1835

The parish (which has no dependent township) contained 724 inhabitants in 1821 and 780 in 1831.

Ednaston

The hamlet of Ednaston on the other side of Brailsford Brook has the grade I listed Ednaston Manor, built 1912–14 for W.G. Player by Sir Edwin Lutyens, which is not open to the public. According to Pevsner, Home Farm and Ruck o'Stones Cottage are also apparently by Lutyens. Ednaston Hall and Ednaston House also stand in the village.

Muggington

Also nearby at Muggington is the Halter Devil Chapel, built in 1723 onto the end of a farmhouse by Francis Brown, a reformed alcoholic, who one night attempted to halter his horse, mistakenly caught a cow, and thought it was the devil.

Places of worship

Brailsford parish church, or "half a church" as stated in the

''Domesday Book: A Complete Translation''. London: Penguin, 2003. p.746—referring to its status as a shared church between Brailsford and the hamlet of Ednaston—is about half a mile from the village. It was originally built in the 11th and 12th centuries and consists of a

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

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. Ov ...

, 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, par ...

and tower. There have been later modifications, such as the 14th century chancel arch. The tower is ashlar-faced and diagonally

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral ( ...

ed with a

Perpendicular In elementary geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at a right angle (90 degrees or π/2 radians). The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the ''perpendicular symbol'', ⟂. It ca ...

west door and west window. It contains an octagonal font in the Perpendicular style, with the lower part of the base exhibiting the

Tudor rose The Tudor rose (sometimes called the Union rose) is the traditional floral heraldic emblem of England and takes its name and origins from the House of Tudor, which united the House of Lancaster and the House of York. The Tudor rose consists o ...

. In the churchyard is a mid-11th century Saxon cross, showing interlace and a human figure.Pevsner N and Williamson E (1978) ''The Buildings of England: Derbyshire'', revised edition, Penguin, Brailsford also has a small

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...

church; originally a Primitive Methodist chapel built in 1845, it was extended in 1914.

Local traditions

Many locals take part in the famous Royal Shrovetide Football match played in Ashbourne on two afternoons during February. An annual ploughing match takes place in Brailsford on the first Wednesday in October.

References

External links

Brailsford Saxon Cross
{{authority control Villages in Derbyshire Towns and villages of the Peak District Civil parishes in Derbyshire Derbyshire Dales