Beeley, Derbyshire
Historical Description
Beeley, a township and a parish in Derbyshire, on the river Derwent, adjacent to Chatsworth Park, 1 mile N of Rowsley station on the M.R., and 4¼ miles E by S of Bakewell, which is the post town. Acreage, 3237; population, 390. The Duke of Devonshire is the lord of the manor and principal landowner. Millstone grit is quarried on Beeley Moor. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Southwell; gross value, £160 with residence. Patron, the Duke of Devonshire. The church (dedicated to St Anne) was restored in 1883, and so effectively as to have elicited high commendation from Mr Butterfield, the eminent church architect, who congratulated the vicar on what he was pleased to call a "very effective restoration:" it may, in fact, be now considered a model village church. Two memorial windows were erected in 1892 and 1893 in the chancel - one to the memory of the seventh Duke of Devonshire, the other to that of his son, the late Lord Edward Cavendish, M.P. for West Derbyshire. The windows are much admired.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
| Ancient County | Derbyshire | |
| Civil parish | Bakewell | |
| Hundred | High Peak | |
| Poor Law union | Bakewell |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The register dates from the year 1538 and is of exceptional interest, containing among other memoranda the following:- "Imprimis - That the Free Chapell at Beligh (Beeley) Derbyshire was built and finished on or about (Thursdaie) the 17th of July 1375: Secondly: It was consecreted on or about (Thursdaie) the 10th of March 1378."
Ancestry.co.uk, in conjunction with the Derbyshire Record Office, have the Church of England Baptisms (1538-1916), Marriages and Banns (1538-1932), and Burials (1538-1991) online.
Churches
Church of England
St. Anne (parish church)
The church of St. Anne is an ancient building of stone, consisting of chancel, nave, south porch and an embattled western tower containing 3 bells, inscribed, but undated, and probably of the 16th century: its earliest portion is a round-headed Norman doorway, considerably mutilated, and may date from 1150-60: the north aisle, removed in 1806, was formerly separated from the nave by a Norman arcade With pointed arches: about a century later, during the Early English period, the chapel, then existing, was extensively rebuilt, and the present structure seems to belong to this style: the chancel and tower arches, as well as some features of the chancel and the belfry windows, are Decorated: a window in the chancel and the battlements and pinnacles of the tower are Perpendicular: there are memorial windows to William, 7th Duke of Devonshire K.G. d. 21 Dec. 1891, and to Lord Edward Cavendish, 3rd son of the 7th Duke, d. 18 May, 1891:, and there are monuments to the Savilles (1675-6) and a small brass in the chancel to John Calvert, aged 95 (1710), with an incised effigy: in 1819 the inhabitants applied to quarter sessions and obtained a brief for the repair of the fabric, and two other briefs were obtained for the same purpose in 1823 and 1826: in 1882-4 the church was thoroughly restored at a cost of £2,500: there are 200 sittings all free with the exception of about 16 belonging to Chatsworth: the churchyard contains the remains of a fine old yew tree.
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Beeley from the following:
Land and Property
A full transcript of the Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Derbyshire is online.
Maps
Online maps of Beeley are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Derbyshire papers online: