Blackwell, Derbyshire
Historical Description
Blackwell, a parish, including the hamlets of Hillcote and Newton, in Derbyshire. The parish lies on the verge of the county, and has a station (Westhouses and Blackwell) on the M.R., 137 miles from London. It has a post and money order office under Alfreton; telegraph office, Tibshelf and Newton (R.S.) Acreage, 1739; population, 3140. There are extensive collieries, and the district is noted for its cheese. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Southwell; gross value, £260 with residence. Patron, the Duke of Devonshire. The church was rebuilt in 1827-28 and enlarged in 1879. There are Primitive Methodist and Wesleyan chapels. An institute and reading-room was erected by the Blackwell Colliery Company in 1878. The same company also support a colliery hospital.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
| Ancient County | Derbyshire | |
| Ecclesiastical parish | Blackwell St. Werburgh | |
| Hundred | Scarsdale | |
| Poor Law union | Mansfield |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The register of St. Werburgh dates from the year 1685.
The Wesleyan chapel is registered for solemnization of marriages.
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. Saviour's Mission church, Westhouses
St. Saviour's Mission church, at Westhouses, erected in 1898, at a cost of about £350, is a structure of iron, and will seat 150 persons.
St. Werburgh (parish church)
The church of St. Werburgh is a small edifice of stone, consisting of chancel, nave, south porch and a lofty embattled western tower containing 5 bells, dated respectively 1878, 1611, 1587 and 2 hung in 1902 in commemoration of Her late Majesty Queen Victoria: the church, with the exception of part of the arcade on the north side, was rebuilt in 1824-5, and again rebuilt and enlarged, with the exception of the tower, in 1879, at a cost of £2,260, under the direction of Mr. J. B. Mitchell-Withers, architect, of Sheffield; in 1891 the church was decorated at a cost of £100, and a brass lectern provided; the church affords 220 sittings: in the south-east corner of the churchyard is an old Runic stone, supposed to be part of an ancient cross, coeval with and closely resembling the cross at Taddington; it stands 5 feet out of the ground and measures 16 inches by 12 inches; the east and west sides are carved with interlacing knot work and the north and south with circular braids.
Methodist
Primitive Methodist Chapel, Westhouses
Wesleyan Chapel
The Wesleyan chapel was erected in 1875 with seating for 500 persons, and has a minister's residence attached.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Blackwell from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Blackwell (St. Werburgh))
Land and Property
A full transcript of the Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Derbyshire is online.
Maps
Online maps of Blackwell 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: