Cowley is a small dispersed hamletCowley, North East Derbyshire - area information, map, walks and more
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North East Derbyshire North East Derbyshire is a Non-metropolitan district, local government district in Derbyshire, England. The council is based in the large village of Wingerworth. The district also includes the towns of Dronfield and Clay Cross as well as numerou ...

, consisting of a few private houses and functioning farms strung out along Cowley Lane, which runs between the village of

Holmesfield Holmesfield is a village and civil parish in the English county of Derbyshire. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 971. The name "Holmesfield" means "raised pasture-land" and is of Norse and Anglo-Saxon origin. Viking influ ...

and the "Hill Top" neighbourhood of the town of

Dronfield Dronfield is a town in North East Derbyshire, England, which includes Dronfield Woodhouse and Coal Aston. It lies in the valley of the River Drone between Chesterfield, Derbyshire, Chesterfield and Sheffield. The Peak District National Park i ...

(where the population is included). Until 2001 it held an annual

well dressing Well dressing, also known as well flowering, is a tradition practised in some parts of rural England in which wells, springs and other water sources are decorated with designs created from materials such as flower petals. The custom is most close ...

in the grounds of Cowley Mission, a small chapel founded in 1888 and still active.

History

Cowley 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 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

as belonging to

Henry de Ferrers Henry de Ferrers (died by 1100), magnate and administrator, was a Normans, Norman who after the 1066 Norman conquest of England, Norman conquest was awarded extensive lands in England. Origins He was the eldest son of Vauquelin de Ferrers and i ...

and being worth ten shillings. Henry was given a large number of manors in Derbyshire including

Doveridge Doveridge is a village and civil parish in Derbyshire, United Kingdom, near the border with Staffordshire and about east of Uttoxeter. Its name may come from its having a bridge over the river Dove (i.e. Dove(B)ridge), a tributary of the River ...

Breaston Breaston ( ) is a large village and civil parish in the Borough of Erewash, Erewash district, in the south-east of Derbyshire and lies approximately east of the city of Derby and west of the city of Nottingham. The population of the civil paris ...

, Duffield and Hartshorne. The name Cowley has been described as coming from two Old English words, ''col'' for coal or earlier charcoal and ''leah'' for clearing, suggesting ''the charcoal burners' clearing''. Coal (the

Silkstone seam The coal seams worked in the South Yorkshire Coalfield lie mainly in the middle coal measures within what is now formally referred to as the Pennine Coal Measures Group. These are a series of mudstones, shales, sandstones, and coal seams laid d ...

) is close to the surface in this area and has been worked for centuries, though no longer. Early coal workings would have been shallow, probably

bell pit A bell pit is a primitive method of mining coal, iron ore, or other minerals lying near the surface. Operation A shaft is sunk to reach the mineral which is excavated by miners, transported to the surface by a winch, and removed by means of a b ...

s; the nearest, deeper shaft marked on the Ordnance Survey map is about 800 m north of Cowley at SK337778, on the edge of modern Dronfield.

References

External links

Hamlets in Derbyshire North East Derbyshire District {{Derbyshire-geo-stub