Wirksworth is a market town in the Derbyshire Dales district of Derbyshire, England, with a population recorded as 5,038 in the 2011 census. It contains the source of the River Ecclesbourne. The town was granted a market charter by Edward I in 1306 – it is still held today on Tuesdays in the Memorial Gardens. The parish church of St Mary's is thought to date from 653. Wirksworth developed as a centre for lead mining and later stone quarrying. Many lead mines in the area were owned by the Gell family of nearby Hopton Hall.
Cromford is a village and civil parish in Derbyshire, England, in the valley of the River Derwent between Wirksworth and Matlock. It is first mentioned in the 11th-century Domesday Book as Crumforde, a berewick of Wirksworth and this remained the case throughout the Middle Ages. The population at the 2011 Census was 1,433. It is principally known for its historical connection with Richard Arkwright, and the nearby Cromford Mill which he built outside the village in 1771. Cromford is in the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage site.
This article details some of the history of lead mining in Derbyshire, England.
Sir John Gell, 1st Baronet was a Parliamentarian politician and military figure in the English Civil War.
Via Gellia is a steep-sided wooded dry valley and road in Derbyshire.
The Gell Baronetcy, of Hopton in the County of Derby, was a title in the Baronetage of England. It was created on 29 January 1642 for John Gell, Hopton Hall, Derbyshire, chief barmaster in the wapentake of Wirksworth from 1638–1644. The family gained importance and wealthy through their lead mining interests near Wirksworth. Sir John Gell, 1st Baronet received the baronetcy on the eve of the English Civil War, but fought for the Parliamentary side. The second and third Baronets both served as Members of Parliament for Derbyshire. The male line of the family became extinct on the decease of the 3rd Baronet in 1719. However, his nephew John Eyre took the name of Gell upon inheriting the estate. His son, Philip Eyre Gell (1723–1795) may have built the Via Gellia to serve the family lead mines; another son, John Gell (1740–1806), became an admiral. Philip Eyre Gell had two sons, Philip Gell (1775–1842), who inherited the estate, and Sir William Gell (1777–1836), an antiquarian. Philip left only a daughter, Isabella, who died in 1878, ending the line.
Carsington is a village in the middle of the Derbyshire Dales, England; it adjoins the hamlet of Hopton, and is close to the historic town of Wirksworth and village of Brassington.
Middleton or Middleton-by-Wirksworth is an upland village and civil parish lying approximately one mile NNW of Wirksworth, Derbyshire, England. Middleton was, in 1086, a berewick of the town and manor of Wirksworth. Middleton was formerly known for its lead mines and high quality limestone quarries, including the underground quarry site at Middleton Mine. The Middleton Mine networks underground for approximately 25 miles (40 km) with tunnels on three different levels running under Middleton Moor to the Hopton Wood quarry works at the other side of the hill below Ryder Point Works’. Part of the tunnel collapsed in the 1980s leaving a noticeable depression in the ground above on the eastern side of Middleton Moor. The population of the parish as taken at the 2011 Census was 775.
William Pole Thornhill was a British Whig and then Liberal Party politician. He sat in the House of Commons from 1853 to 1865.
Admiral John Gell (1740–1806) was from the Gell and Eyre families of Hopton Hall in Derbyshire. He served with the Royal Navy, fighting in India and taking part in the occupation of Toulon.
Hopton Hall is an 18th-century country house at Hopton, near Wirksworth, Derbyshire. It is a Grade II listed building.
Henry Chandos Pole Gell was a High Sheriff of Derbyshire in 1867. He took the additional surname Gell when he inherited the Gell fortune in 1842.
Sir John Gell, 2nd Baronet was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1654 and 1689.
St. Mary the Virgin is a parish church in the Church of England in Wirksworth, Derbyshire. It is a Grade I listed building. The existing building dates mostly from the 13th–15th centuries, but notable survivals from the Anglo-Saxon period indicate a church has stood on this site since at least the 8th century AD. It was restored in 1820, then in 1870 by Sir Gilbert Scott.
The Henmore Brook or the River Henmore is a tributary of the River Dove in Derbyshire, England, and is 20 km in length.
William Archer, of Coopersale, in Theydon Garnon, Essex, and Welford Park, Berkshire, was an English lawyer and Tory politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1734 to 1739.
Dream Cave is a natural limestone cavern located near Wirksworth in Derbyshire, England. It was discovered by lead miners in 1822 and was found to contain the almost complete skeletal remains of a woolly rhinoceros and other large mammal bones. These remains were acquired by the geologist William Buckland and are now housed in Oxford Museum.
Lutudarum was a small town in the Roman province of Britannia, in the area that is now mid-Derbyshire. The settlement is believed to have been at either Wirksworth or nearby Carsington, although Matlock and Cromford are other candidates. The town was recorded as Lutudaron between Derventio and Veratino (Rocester) in the Ravenna Cosmography's list of all known places in the world in about 700 AD.
Sir Philip Gell, 3rd Baronet of Hopton Hall near Wirksworth, Derbyshire was a lead-mining magnate and an English politician.
Philip Eyre Gell (1723-1795) of Hopton Hall near Wirksworth, Derbyshire was a wealthy lead-mining aristocrat.
