Pleasley, Derbyshire Genealogy

England Derbyshire

Parish History
Pleasley St Michael is an Ancient Parish in the county of Derbyshire. Other places in the parish include: Stoney Houghton and Houghton Stoney.

PLEASELEY (St. Michael), a parish, in the union of Mansfield, hundred of Scarsdale, N. division of the county of Derby, 3½ miles (N. W. by N.) from Mansfield; containing, with the chapelry of Shirebrook and the hamlet of Stoney-Houghton, 679 inhabitants. The parish is situated on the road from Nottingham to Chesterfield, and comprises about 3000 acres of land, chiefly arable; 300 acres are woodland and plantation, consisting of oak, elm, larch, and ash. Limestone abounds; and here are some considerable manufactories for cotton-thread, hosiery, &amp;c., principally for the Nottingham market. Pleaseley had anciently a market on Monday, granted in 1284 to Thomas Bec, Bishop of St. David's, with a fair for three days; the former has been long disused, but fairs are still held on May 6th and October 29th, for cattle, horses, and sheep. The living is a rectory, valued in the king's books at £11. 4. 7.; patron, W. P. Thornhill, Esq.: the tithes have been commuted for £643, and the glebe consists of 55 acres. The church is an ancient stone edifice, remarkably long and narrow: in the steeple is a large chasm, caused by the shock of an earthquake, which was felt over a great part of the midland counties, on March 17th, 1816. There is a chapel of ease at Shirebrook. In a park adjoining the cotton-mills is a large inclosure with a double vallum and intrenchments, two sides of which are secured by natural precipices; it is 250 feet in length by 195 in breadth, and is evidently a Saxon work.

From: A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848), pp. 576-578. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=51216 Date accessed: 18 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
Lichfield Record Office has deposited Bishop's Transcripts Bap 1665-1868 Mar 1665-1837 Burials 1665-1868 Missing Bap &amp; Bur 1842-1843, 1845-1856

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

Census records
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Poor Law Unions
Mansfield Poor Law Union, Nottinghamshire

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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