Shirland is a former

pit village A pit village, colliery village or mining village is a settlement built by colliery owners to house their workers. The villages were built on the coalfields of Great Britain during the Industrial Revolution where new coal mines were developed 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 ...

, England. Together with the neighbouring villages of Higham, Stretton and Stonebroom, it forms part of the

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 ...

of Shirland and Higham, which had a population of 4,802 at the 2011 Census. The

River Amber The River Amber is a left bank tributary of the River Derwent in Derbyshire, England. It gives its name to the local government district and borough of Amber Valley. The name Amber is a pre-Celtic word with uncertain meaning. Course Its sou ...

flows through the parish.

History

Shirland is 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 ''Sirelunt'' in the

hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101. In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to des ...

of Scarsdale. According to this ancient document the manor was given to William de Peveral after the

Norman conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Con ...

. Peveral inherited many manors around Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire including

Nottingham Castle Nottingham Castle is a Stuart Restoration-era ducal mansion in Nottingham, England, built on the site of a Norman castle built starting in 1068, and added to extensively through the medieval period, when it was an important royal fortress and ...

. The village is built around

St. Leonard Leonard of Noblac (also Leonard of Limoges or Leonard of Noblet; also known as Lienard, Linhart, Leonhard, Léonard, Leonardo, Annard; died 559), is a Franks, Frankish saint closely associated with the town and abbey of Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat, ...

's Church. The foundations of the church date to 1220, according to the inscriptions within the church. The church grounds contain many monuments to the De Grey family, who inherited the manor in the early 13th century. The church also contains memorials to the Revill family who were well-known Derbyshire landowners in the 15th century. Gables Farm (now demolished) at Higham in Shirland Parish was built in 1696 by Thomas and Anne Clay on a 64-acre plot. In 1868, the inhabitants were mostly involved with agriculture but a proportion were involved with framework knitting. However, in 1864 a mine was founded, which by the end of the century employed 500 men. The community together with Higham increased from a population of 2,437 in 1871 to 3,415 in 1881. The mines shaped the community until 1965 when the mine closed. A golf course is now built on the former slag heaps.Shirlanduk.net
/ref> A new primary school was opened in September 2011, next to St. Leonards Church.Shirland Primary School
/ref>

Church

The buttressed west tower of St Leonard's Church is pictured above, alongside the A61 north of Alfreton. Parts of the church date from 1220 but the majority of the existing church is 15th-century. It is part of a Benefice with the Church of England churches in Stonebroom (St Peter's Church) and Morton (Church of the Holy Cross).

References

External links

Clays of Shirland
Villages in Derbyshire Towns and villages of the Peak District North East Derbyshire District Grey family residences {{Derbyshire-geo-stub

History

Church

See also

References

External links