Tideswell, Derbyshire Genealogy

England Derbyshire



Parish History
Tideswell St John the Baptist is an Ancient Parish and a market town in the county of Derbyshire. Other places in the parish include: Litton, Litton with Wardlow Mires, Wheston, and Whetston.

TIDESWELL (St. John the Baptist), a markettown and parish, in the union of Bakewell, hundred of High Peak, N. division of the county of Derby; containing, with the chapelry of Wormhill, and the hamlets of Litton and Whetstone, 3043 inhabitants, of which number 1777 are in Tideswell township, 33 miles (N. N. W.) from Derby, and 160 (N. W. by N.) from London. The first account of this place is in Domesday book, in which it is described under the name Tiddeswall as a royal demesne having a chapel, which latter was given by King John to the canons of Lichfield. The town is situated in a valley, surrounded by some of the most barren lands in the county, on the road from Chesterfield to Manchester; the houses in general are of mean appearance. The inhabitants are supplied with good water from a small stream which flows through the town. The chief branches of trade are calico-weaving and raining. A market and two fairs were granted by Henry III., and confirmed by subsequent sovereigns; the market is on Wednesday, and fairs are held on March 24th, May 15th, the last Wednesday in July, the second Wednesday in September, and October 29th, for cattle and sheep. The living is a discharged vicarage, in the patronage of the Dean and Chapter of Lichfield (the appropriators), valued in the king's books at £7. 0. 7½ net income, £150. The great tithes of Tideswell township have been commuted for £189, and the small for £14: the vicar has a glebe of 5 acres. The church is a remarkably fine cruciform structure, principally in the decorated English style, having an embattled tower at the west end with crocketed pinnacles. The chancel is separated from the nave by a light screen of carved oak, and from the vestry-room by an embattled stone screen enriched with tracery. In the south transept is a tombstone to the memory of John Foljambe, who contributed largely to the erection of the church, in 1358. In the chancel is an altar-tomb, ornamented with brasses, to the memory of Sampson Meverell, who served under the Duke of Bedford in France, and was knighted upon the field at St. Luce. Another altar-tomb records the death of Robert Pursglove, a native of this town, prior of Gisburn Abbey, and bishop of Hull, who died May 2nd, 1579. At Wormhill is a separate incumbency. There are places of worship for Wesleyans and Roman Catholics: also a free grammar school founded in 1560, under letters-patent from Queen Elizabeth, by the above-mentioned Robert Pursglove, and endowed with land producing £227 per annum, one-fourth of which has generally been distributed among the poor.

From: A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848), pp. 357-360. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=51344 Date accessed: 04 April 2011.

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
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Census records
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Poor Law Unions
Bakewell 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
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 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Web sites
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