Longnor is a village in the

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation ''Staffs''.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It borders Cheshire to the north-west, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, ...

Peak District The Peak District is an Highland, upland area in central-northern England, at the southern end of the Pennines. Mostly in Derbyshire, it extends into Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Staffordshire, West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire. It is subdivi ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. The settlement dates from early times, the first recorded church building being in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

. The village was named ''Longenalre'' 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 ...

. Located on a major crossroads, Longnor was a significant market town in the 18th century. It lies on the north bank of the River Manifold, on a limestone ridge between the Manifold and the River Dove.

Location and geography

Longnor is about south of Buxton on the B5053 main road from Cheadle to

Buxton Buxton is a spa town in the High Peak, Derbyshire, Borough of High Peak, Derbyshire, in the East Midlands region of England. It is England's highest market town, sited at some above sea level.Alston, Cumbria also claims this, but lacks a regu ...

. It is at a crossroads with routes to

Leek A leek is a vegetable, a cultivar of ''Allium ampeloprasum'', the broadleaf wild leek (synonym (taxonomy), syn. ''Allium porrum''). The edible part of the plant is a bundle of Leaf sheath, leaf sheaths that is sometimes erroneously called a "s ...

and

Macclesfield Macclesfield () is a market town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East, Cheshire, England. It is sited on the River Bollin and the edge of the Cheshire Plain, with Macclesfield Forest to its east; the town lies south of Ma ...

to the west and

Bakewell Bakewell is a market town and civil parish in the Derbyshire Dales district of Derbyshire, England, known for Bakewell pudding. It lies on the River Wye, Derbyshire, River Wye, 15 miles (23 km) south-west of Sheffield. It is the largest se ...

to the east. West of Longnor are the

Staffordshire Moorlands Staffordshire Moorlands is a local government district in Staffordshire, England. Its council is based in Leek, the district's largest town. The district also contains the towns of Biddulph and Cheadle, along with a large rural area containing ...

, with a summit at Axe Edge Moor towards the north and Morridge further south. North and east of Longnor is the

White Peak The White Peak, also known as the Low Peak, is a limestone plateau that forms the central and southern part of the Peak District in England. It is mostly between and above sea-level and is enclosed by the higher altitude Dark Peak (also know ...

section of the

, with the

Dove Columbidae is a bird family consisting of doves and pigeons. It is the only family in the order Columbiformes. These are stout-bodied birds with small heads, relatively short necks and slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. ...

flowing in a steep-sided limestone valley of which the famous

Dovedale Dovedale is a valley in the Peak District of England. The land is owned by the National Trust and attracts a million visitors annually. The valley was cut by the River Dove, Central England, River Dove and runs for just over between Milldale ...

is a small part. Longnor looks towards the

Manifold In mathematics, a manifold is a topological space that locally resembles Euclidean space near each point. More precisely, an n-dimensional manifold, or ''n-manifold'' for short, is a topological space with the property that each point has a N ...

but lies on the southern slope of a limestone ridge between the two rivers.

Village description

Longnor is one of the more significant villages in this corner of north Staffordshire, chiefly for the market. The

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

of Longnor is one of 13 in the Deanery of Alstonefield,

Lichfield Lichfield () is a city status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in Staffordshire, England. Lichfield is situated south-east of the county town of Stafford, north-east of Walsall, north-west of ...

Diocese In Ecclesiastical polity, church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided Roman province, prov ...

History

Records of the village's early history have been lost, but there is evidence of activity in the area from around 700AD. Longnor is listed in the Great Domesday Book of 1086 as ''Longenalre''. It is distinguished from the other modern Longnor near

Shrewsbury Shrewsbury ( , ) is a market town and civil parish in Shropshire (district), Shropshire, England. It is sited on the River Severn, northwest of Wolverhampton, west of Telford, southeast of Wrexham and north of Hereford. At the 2021 United ...

which is in the Domesday Book as ''Lege''. According to local legend the village was burned during the reign of William II as a punishment for the poaching of deer from the forests around

.Tourist information board, Longnor The first written record cites the founding of St Bartholomew's Church in 1223 on the site of the present 18th century parish church, and over the next two centuries there were around 20 homes in the village. The 1787 Cary map of Staffordshire shows the village on a major crossroads. Cary wrote the name ''LONGNOR'' rather than ''Longnor'', a style shared only with Leek and Cheadle in Staffordshire north of Stafford and The Potteries. This implies that Longnor was then a market town of some significance.

Methodist history

Built in 1780, the Methodist Chapel is one of the oldest in the area.

John Wesley John Wesley ( ; 2 March 1791) was an English cleric, Christian theology, theologian, and Evangelism, evangelist who was a principal leader of a Christian revival, revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism. The societies ...

once preached at Longnor while passing through on a journey from

Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, situated south of Leeds and east of Manchester. The city is the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire and some of its so ...

. However Methodist preachers had established a Methodist society before this in 1769. The fuller story of early Methodism in Longnor is told by J. B. Dyson, along with a brief biography of Mrs Cecily Ferguson who later was hostess to John Wesley on his visit to Amsterdam. In 1784, Longnor Methodist Society had 42 members. In 1870, a new

Methodist Circuit The organisation of the Methodist Church of Great Britain is based on the principle of connexionalism. This means that British Methodism, from its inception under John Wesley (1703–1791), has always laid strong emphasis on mutual support, in ...

was created, which was named the "Wetton and Longnor Methodist Circuit". The manse was built at Wetton, along with a new chapel building. But the importance of Longnor was also recognised. The original Wetton and Longnor Circuit had been Wesleyan, and in 1932 it took in some of the Primitive Methodist chapels in the area. In 1969 the circuit was closed and its chapels assigned to neighbouring circuits. The Methodist Chapel closed in the 1996, but some of the former members continued to meet for a while in a hired hall, because the journey to Buxton Methodist Church was not practical. The village formed the basis of two paintings by L. S. Lowry, ''Longnor, Derbyshire'' (1940) and ''A Village Square'' (1943; now in Glasgow). He wrote of the latter work:

Points of general interest

Some of the TV series ''

Peak Practice ''Peak Practice'' is a British drama series about a GP surgery in Cardale — a small fictional town in the Derbyshire Peak District — and the doctors who worked there. It originally starred Kevin Whately as Dr Jack Kerruish, Amanda Burton ...

'' was filmed here. In episode 5 of the BBC's 1995 adaptation of ''Pride and Prejudice'', Longnor was used for shots of the fictitious village of Lambton, where Elizabeth Bennet and her aunt and uncle stay during their visit to Derbyshire. The church of St Bartholomew, Longnor, has a modern sculptureSt. Bartholomew, Longnor
of St Bertram by British

Frink School The Frink School of Figurative Sculpture was an art school in Leek, Staffordshire. It was named after the British sculptor Elisabeth Frink (1930–1993). It was a small academy with a specific discipline of study closer in spirit to a ''master ...

sculptor Harry Everington. The nearby Blakemere Pond is a body of water precariously perched upon a hilltop, with scenic views across the Peak District and beyond in two directions.

References