Bradley, Derbyshire
Historical Description
Bradley, a parish and picturesque village in Derbyshire, 3 miles E by S of Ashbourne railway station. There is a post office under Ashbourne; money order and telegraph office, Osmaston. Acreage, 2422; population, 217. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Southwell; net value, £227 with residence. Patron, the Dean and Chapter of Lichfield. The church is ancient, and contains various monuments of the Knivetons.
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 | Bradley All Saints | |
| Hundred | Appletree | |
| Poor Law union | Burton-upon-Trent |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The register dates from the year 1579, but its earlier portions are in a very dilapidated condition; the last Kniveton entry is in 1633: Thomas Bancroft, an epigrammatic poet who flourished here in the 17th century, is styled in the register "the Muses' Friend."
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
All Saints (parish church)
The church of All Saints, an edifice in the Decorated style of the early 14th century, consists of a small chancel and nave under a single roof, and south porch; originally there was a wooden turret at the west end containing 3 bells, two of which dated from 1722, the tenor being undated: the east window has three lights, the mullions intersecting each other diagonally in the head; the windows on either side of the nave are all good examples of Decorated work: in 1893 the south window in the chancel was filled with stained glass: the eastern wall of the chancel retains two stone brackets, carved with bearded faces, but the most interesting feature of the interior is a fine circular font, the shaft of which has all the appearance of the upper part of a clustered pier, the bowl is divided into eight compartments by round-headed trefoil arches: the church contains a wooden mural achievement of the Knivetons, about 300 years old, gaudily repainted; Sir Andrew Kniveton died at Bradley in 1696, and there is a monument to his eldest son, Godfrey, who died in 1708, besides others to William Byrom, who died in the 17th century, Thomas Byrom, his son (1714) and Dorothy his wife (1730), and Emma Harriet Sgambella (1821): in the chancel are the arms of the Meynell family: the communion plate of silver gilt was the gift of Lady Frances Kniveton and is dated 1572.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Bradley from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Bradley (All Saints))
Land and Property
A full transcript of the Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Derbyshire is online.
Maps
Online maps of Bradley 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: