Derwent, Derbyshire Genealogy

England Derbyshire   Derbyshire Parishes  Derwent

Parish History
Derwent was an Ecclesiastical Parish in the county of Derbyshire, created in 1722 from chapelry in Hathersage, Derbyshire Ancient Parish.

DERWENT, a chapelry, in the parish of Hathersage, union of Chapel-en-le-Frith, hundred of High Peak, N. division of the county of Derby, 11 miles (W.) from Sheffield; containing 164 inhabitants. Derwent Hall is the property and residence of John Reed, Esq. The living is a perpetual curacy; net income, £83; patron, Lord Denman; impropriator, the Duke of Devonshire. The chapel is dedicated to St. James. There is an endowment of £6 a year, arising from bequests by Robert Turie in 1720, and John Eyre in 1772, for teaching children.

From: 'Denver - Devizes', A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848), pp. 32-46. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=50918 Date accessed: 01 April 2011.

The village of Derwent lies under the waters of Ladybower Reservoir Derbyshire.

The church held its last service on 17 March 1943. The bell from the church may still be heard in Derbyshire, however, since it was re-hung in St Philip's Church in Chaddesden, Derbyshire, built in 1955. Bodies from the graveyard had been exhumed in 1940 and were reburied in the village of Bamford.

All buildings in the village had been demolished by autumn 1943, and the impounded waters of the reservoir began to rise by the end of 1944. The church spire was left intact to form a memorial to Derwent. However, it was dynamited on 15 December 1947, on purported safety concerns. The site of the village has been revealed when the reservoir levels fell dramatically in 1976, 1989 and 1996.



Civil Registration
Birth, marriages and deaths were kept by the government, from July 1837 to the present day. The civil registration article tells more about these records. There are several Internet sites with name lists or indexes. A popular site is FreeBMD.

Church records
To find the names of the neighbouring parishes, use Jurisdictions 1851. In this site, search for the name of the parish, click on the location "pin", click Options and click List contiguous parishes.

See Derwent Woodlands, Derbyshire for record history of the township chapelry and parish

Contributor: Include here information for parish registers, Bishop’s Transcripts and other types of church records, such as parish chest records. Add the contact information for the office holding the original records. Add links to the Family History Library Catalog showing the film numbers in their collection

Poor Law Unions
Chapel en le Frith Poor Law Union, Derbyshire

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Derbyshire Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

Maps and Gazetteers
Maps are a visual look at the locations in England. Gazetteers contain brief summaries about a place.


 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain