Tideswell, Derbyshire
Historical Description
Tideswell, a small market-town, a township, and a parish in Derbyshire. The town stands in a valley almost surrounded with bleak hills, 2½ miles N of Millers Dale railway station, and 6½ E by N of Buxton, is said to have got its name from a well which was intermittent, dates from very early times, and has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Buxton, a remarkably fine 14th-century church called the Cathedral of the Peak, Congregational, Primitive Methodist, and Wesleyan chapels, a Roman Catholic chapel, an endowed grammar school with £300 a year, several charities, a weekly market on Wednesday, and five annual fairs. The staple industry is hand-loom weaving in silk dresses and handkerchiefs. There are also a velvet-cutting factory and a cotton mill. The township includes the town, and extends into the country. Acreage, 8232; population, 1936; of ecclesiastical parish, 2688. There is a parish council of seven members. The parish contains also the village of Cressbrook, part of Miller's Dale, and the townships of Litton and Wheston. Tideswell manor belongs to the Duke of Devonshire, and Litton manor to Lord Scarsdale. Much of the surface exhibits romantic scenery. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Southwell; gross value, £370 with residence. Patrons, the Dean and Chapter of Lichfield. The church is a cruciform building in the Decorated style with a large chancel, nave, aisles, transepts, and lofty tower, and was thoroughly restored during 1874-91.
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 | Tideswell St. John the Baptist | |
Hundred | High Peak | |
Poor Law union | Bakewell |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
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.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Tideswell from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Tideswell (St. John the Baptist))
Land and Property
A full transcript of the Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Derbyshire is online.
Maps
Online maps of Tideswell 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: