Findern 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 authorit ...

in the District of

South Derbyshire South Derbyshire is a local government district in Derbyshire, England. The population of the local authority at the 2011 Census was 94,611. It contains a third of the National Forest, and the council offices are in Swadlincote. The district ...

, approximately 5–6 miles south of

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 ...

(

Grid reference A projected coordinate system, also known as a projected coordinate reference system, a planar coordinate system, or grid reference system, is a type of spatial reference system that represents locations on the Earth using cartesian coordin ...

: ). The population of the civil parish was 1,669 at the 2011 Census. The village 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 ...

, when it was held by

Burton Abbey Burton Abbey at Burton upon Trent in Staffordshire, England, was founded in the 7th or 9th century by St Modwen or Modwenna. It was refounded in 1003 as a Benedictine abbey by the thegn Wulfric Spott. He was known to have been buried in the abbey ...

as an outlier of

Mickleover Mickleover is a large suburban village of Derby, in Derbyshire, England. It is west of Derby city centre, northeast of Burton-upon-Trent, west of Nottingham city centre, southeast of Ashbourne and northeast of Uttoxeter. History The earli ...

. A priory once stood near the church, where the monks were supplied with fresh food from the fishponds on Common Piece Lane. After the dissolution of the abbey the Fynderne family, as the principal land-owners, took ownership of the village and the remaining Chapel of Ease. The Fyndernes lived in a fortified manor house on Castle Hill, though none of the house remains. Findern flower

Sir Geoffrey de Fynderne left the village to join the

Crusades The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were ...

, and brought back the

Findern Flower Findern is a village and civil parish in the District of South Derbyshire, approximately 5–6 miles south of Derby (Grid reference: ). The population of the civil parish was 1,669 at the 2011 Census. The village was mentioned in the Domesday Bo ...

, which in the UK only grows in the village, and only in particular areas. The flower has become an emblem of the village and is represented in many guises, including the emblem of Findern Primary School on Heath Lane. All Saints' parish church was rebuilt and consecrated in 1863, on the site of a Saxon chapel of ease, destroyed by fire. Built of sandstone, it stands adjacent to the

village green A village green is a common open area within a village or other settlement. Historically, a village green was common grassland with a pond for watering cattle and other stock, often at the edge of a rural settlement, used for gathering cattle t ...

. The church contains a monument to Isabella de Fynderne dated 1444, and also possesses the oldest parish communion plate in the UK. Findern also has a small Methodist chapel, built in 1835, close to the site of the old priory. The village previously also had an early 18th century Unitarian chapel, built just over five miles from Derby. At that time the law decreed that no

Dissenting Dissent is an opinion, philosophy or sentiment of non-agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea or policy enforced under the authority of a government, political party or other entity or individual. A dissenting person may be referred to as ...

meeting house should be built less than that distance from the town. It was demolished in 1939. Prior to the development of transport, the village was self-supporting and it was here, in 1740, that

Jedediah Strutt Jedediah Strutt (1726 – 7 May 1797) or Jedidiah Strutt – as he spelled it – was a hosier and cotton spinner from Belper, England. Strutt and his brother-in-law William Woollat developed an attachment to the stocking frame that allowed the ...

came as an apprentice

wheelwright A wheelwright is a craftsman who builds or repairs wooden wheels. The word is the combination of "wheel" and the word "wright", (which comes from the Old English word "''wryhta''", meaning a worker or shaper of wood) as in shipwright and arkwr ...

. He had an obsessive interest in machinery, but when his uncle died and left him a small holding, he took it over and returned to Findern to marry Elizabeth Woollatt who lived at the old hall, where he had previously lodged. Later he went on to set up the mills and their communities at Belper and Milford, which now form an integral part of the Derwent Valley World Heritage Site. The village historically had a strong

weaving Weaving is a method of textile production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. Other methods are knitting, crocheting, felting, and braiding or plaiting. The longitudinal ...

industry, with the majority of the cottages around the Green housing the looms. In 1846 there were as many as 22 velvet and silk looms in the village, but weaving had been known to have taken place in Findern as early as the 17th century Ivy Cottage, one of the oldest surviving properties in the village. In 1694 an early school was started here by Rev. Benjamin Robinson, the local

presbyterian Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...

minister (for which he was summoned to explain why to the

bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is c ...

).Benjamin Robinson in Dictionary of National Biography now in the public domain Modern Secondary education is now provided for many at

John Port Spencer Academy John Port Spencer Academy, formerly known as John Port School, is an academy and secondary school in the village of Etwall, Derbyshire, England.

in the nearby village of

Etwall Etwall () is a village and civil parish in Derbyshire, England, southwest of Derby on the A50. The population at the 2011 Census was 2,906. Geography Etwall is located between the A516 bypass and the A50 in south Derbyshire. The A516 draws hea ...

. Although all industry has left the village the Green remains the still the centre of the village, with the

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 ...

, village store and a handful of other services. Before the Parish Council took action in the 1950s to restore it the Green was in poor shape, divided into four small grassed areas, divided by tarmac paths and frequently used by vehicles. There were no records as to owned the land until ownership was traced to

the Crown The Crown is the state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their subdivisions (such as the Crown Dependencies, overseas territories, provinces, or states). Legally ill-defined, the term has different ...

, and the land purchased for £50 by the Parish Council for the village. There is a

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several p ...

cursus 250px, Stonehenge Cursus, Wiltshire 250px, Dorset Cursus terminal on Thickthorn Down, Dorset Cursuses are monumental Neolithic structures resembling ditches or trenches in the islands of Great Britain and Ireland. Relics found within them i ...

1 ½ miles south of the village. Findern previously had two pubs, the 'Wheel Inn' located on Main Street just off Longlands Lane and a second, formerly the 'Greyhound' on the bankside of the Trent and Mersey Canal. In addition to this a house located on the far-side of the canal was historically the oldest pub in the village. The village is nowadays bounded on two sides by major A roads; the A38 and the A50. The former, to the north east, follows the course of the Roman road

Icknield Street Icknield Street or Ryknild Street is a Roman road in England, with a route roughly south-west to north-east. It runs from the Fosse Way at Bourton on the Water in Gloucestershire () to Templeborough in South Yorkshire (). It passes through ...

, while the latter passes to the south of the village centre and runs parallel to the canal. In contrast to the ancient route of the A38 the A50 road was laid only in 1997, with many villagers unhappy about the loss of fields and pleasant walks as a result. Since then the Findern Footpaths Group have made huge improvements to existing trails, created new footpaths, and been a key force for recording and preserving the local history of the village surroundings. The nearest railway stations are Willington,

Pear Tree Pears are fruits produced and consumed around the world, growing on a tree and harvested in the Northern Hemisphere in late summer into October. The pear tree and shrub are a species of genus ''Pyrus'' , in the family Rosaceae, bearing the po ...

and

. There is one

level crossing A level crossing is an intersection where a railway line crosses a road, path, or (in rare situations) airport runway, at the same level, as opposed to the railway line crossing over or under using an overpass or tunnel. The term a ...

: an automatic one on the parish border with Willington - there has been at least one fatality there. On the approach to the crossing a spur and basin have been created on the Trent and Mersey Canal, creating the UK's largest inland marina with berthing for 585 craft. Mercia Marina, with berths for several hundred narrow boats, is expected to have a great impact on the village and nearby Willington.

References

{{authority control Villages in Derbyshire Trent and Mersey Canal South Derbyshire District

See also

References