Shirley is a small 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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...
in
Derbyshire
Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It borders Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, and South Yorkshire to the north, Nottinghamshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south-east, Staffordshire to the south a ...
, south-east of
Ashbourne. The population of the civil parish as taken at the 2011 Census was 270.
It is situated in the countryside on top of a small hill.
History
Shirley 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 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 ...
[Henry was given a large number of manors in Derbyshire including Doveridge, Linton, Brailsford and Cowley.] and being worth forty shillings.
[''Domesday Book: A Complete Translation''. London: Penguin, 2003. p.746–7]
In the nineteenth century
St Michael's Church, Shirley was led by the Rev. Charles Francis Powys who had a number of literary children.
Notable residents
*
John Cowper Powys
John Cowper Powys ( ; 8 October 187217 June 1963) was an English novelist, philosopher, lecturer, critic and poet born in Shirley, Derbyshire, where his father was vicar of the parish church in 1871–1879. Powys appeared with a volume of verse ...
, born in the town, "Derbyshire's most prolific author", according to Tom Bates
[
* Theodore Francis Powys, born in the town, author][
* Gertrude Mary Powys, born in the town, painter][
* Littleton Charles Powys, author and headmaster of ]Sherborne School
Sherborne School is a full-boarding school for boys aged 13 to 18 located beside Sherborne Abbey in the Dorset town of Sherborne. The school has been in continuous operation on the same site for over 1,300 years. It was founded in 705 AD by Ald ...
[
* Prof. Rev. Walter Waddington Shirley, historian at Oxford University
* Rev. William Richardson Linton, clergyman and botanist who wrote a Flora of Derbyshire and discovered '' Rubus durescens'', a bramble ]endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...
to Derbyshire
See also
* Listed buildings in Shirley, Derbyshire
Notes
References
External links
Village website
Website for Shirley including aerial photos
Villages in Derbyshire
Derbyshire Dales
{{Derbyshire-geo-stub