Carsington (St. Margaret)

CARSINGTON (St. Margaret), a parish, in the hundred of Wirksworth, S. division of the county of Derby, 2¼ miles (W. by S.) from Wirksworth; containing 235 inhabitants. The village is situated in a valley, surrounded by hills in which are quarries of limestone and some lead-mines; and the Peak Forest railway passes through the parish. The living is a discharged rectory, valued in the king's books at £5. 1. 10., and in the patronage of the Bishop of Lichfield: the tithes have been commuted for £109, and the glebe comprises 46 acres. The church is a small ancient building, without a steeple, and scarcely distinguishable from the cliffs that overhang it. A school, founded by Mrs. Temperance Gill, in 1726, has an endowment of £60 per annum, arising from land. John Oldfield, an eminent nonconformist divine, was ejected from the benefice of the parish, in 1662: his son, Dr. Joshua Oldfield, of some literary celebrity, was born here in 1656. The Rev. Ellis Farneworth, an able translator from the Italian, was presented to the rectory in 1762.