Stoney Middleton
Encyclopedia
Stoney Middleton is a village
in the Derbyshire Dales
district of Derbyshire
, England
. It lies in the White Peak
area of the Peak District southeast of Eyam
and northwest of Calver
, on the A623 road at the foot of the limestone valley of Middleton Dale.
settlement, perhaps based on lead mining
, but there is currently no archaeological evidence to prove this. A nineteenth-century bath house over a hot spring is known locally as The Roman Baths
but this was built in an unsuccessful attempt to establish a spa
resort. (Following the clearance of undergrowth by the Stoney Middleton Youth Club in the early 1980s the building was consolidated and made secure by local craftsmen with the aid of a grant by the Peak Park.)
It is speculated that a motte-and-bailey
castle was built overlooking the village by the Normans
during the pacification of the North in the late 11th and early 12th centuries. However, again, there is no direct archaeological evidence for this and the rather small flattened top of the site known as Castle Hill, overlooking the Nook, may have been used for nothing more glamorous than dog fighting. The origins of the name of the village go back to the Saxo-Norman period when it was known as Middletone or Middletune, the name Stoney Middleton literally meaning 'stony middle farm'.
. The manor is first recorded as being where the King had land:
The book then says under the title of "The lands of Ralph fitzHubert":
, may have been immediately to the south of the Old Hall, on a series of terraces (still visible from the public footpath overlooking the meadows between the lower, modern extension of the village and the bottom of the "Town" the hill by the Moon Inn which leads up to Stoney Middleton Junior School). Renewal of the village led to the construction of a stone chapel in the fifteenth century at the crossroads of the roads/tracks going between Eyam and Grindleford, which was dedicated to Saint Martin
, perhaps to cater for pilgrim
s to the spring. The tower survives, attached to an unusual octagonal nave
of 1759.
d in nearby Eyam
.
Atop a cliff
above Middleton Dale lies Lovers Leap, from which Hannah Baddeley is said to have jumped in 1762, but miraculously survived. Sadly she died two years later.
A road was blasted through Middleton Dale in 1830, and in 1840 an octagonal toll house
was built in the village, now a fish and chip shop which stands opposite the Royal Oak public house. Other notable buildings include Middleton Hall
.
A primary school was built in 1835 by public subscription and is the meeting place for the Parish Council, the PTA, W.I., Horticultural Society, Tennis Club, and other activities of the village. Despite a massive campaign by Stoney Middleton School governors, parents and friends, Derbyshire County Council voted at the Council Meeting on 12 December 2006 to propose the closure of Stoney Middleton school from 31 August 2007. This decision was, however, eventually overruled in May 2007.
A cross by the main road is dated 1846. It was erected to mark the repeal of the Corn Laws
.
In the dale
were several quarries
, once a major source of employment for the village. Footwear became a major industry, with one factory surviving to the present day. Lead mining also continued, with a Barmote Court
alternating between Stoney Middleton and Eyam until the early twentieth century One of the quarries was bombed by two Me110
during World War II, both of which were later shot down. A prisoner-of-war camp was situated at the bottom of the village and housed Italian prisoners (amongst others).
Several electric narrow gauge railway
s were operated in Stoney Middleton by Laporte Industries Ltd up to 1987 for the mining of fluorite
.
In January 2007 some houses in the village were damaged by a wall of mud
caused by the failure of a dam
near the top of the dale. The dam, which held a lagoon
of mud and water from a local mineral quarry, burst following heavy rainfall.
In May 2007 The Times
newspaper reported that a crystal meth factory had been discovered by police in Stoney Middleton. It was located in a rented industial unit in the Rock Hill business park and was the largest such facility discovered in the UK at the time.
The medieval packhorse track, a hollow way
known locally as Jacobs Ladder, can still be walked (or driven, in a suitable vehicle) from the centre of the village passing through Stoney woods. It affords fine views of Curbar
and Froggat Edge in the distance.
A well dressing
(a ceremony predating Christianity which now uses plant materials to decorate the well with — usually — Christian symbols) takes place annually in the village, usually spanning the last week in July and the first week in August.
in which the team investigates the death of a supposedly Scottish
peddler
and of Hannah Baddeley. Whilst investigating, they also conducted a vigil at the Moon Inn.
Village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...
in the Derbyshire Dales
Derbyshire Dales
Derbyshire Dales is a local government district in Derbyshire, England. Much of the district is situated in the Peak District, although most of its population lies along the River Derwent....
district of Derbyshire
Derbyshire
Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. A substantial portion of the Peak District National Park lies within Derbyshire. The northern part of Derbyshire overlaps with the Pennines, a famous chain of hills and mountains. The county contains within its boundary of approx...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. It lies in the White Peak
White Peak
The White Peak is the lower, southern part of the Peak District in England. In contrast to the Dark Peak, the underlying limestone is not capped by impervious millstone grit, so caves and dry river valleys are common features of the area...
area of the Peak District southeast of Eyam
Eyam
Eyam is a small village in Derbyshire, England. The village is best known for being the "plague village" that chose to isolate itself when the plague was discovered there in August 1665, rather than let the infection spread...
and northwest of Calver
Calver
Calver is a village in Derbyshire, England.-Overview:Calver is a small village situated in the Derwent Valley, Derbyshire. The village is bordered by the River Derwent and intersected by the A623 trunk road, responsible for carrying traffic between Manchester to the west, Sheffield to the north &...
, on the A623 road at the foot of the limestone valley of Middleton Dale.
History
The village may have been a RomanAncient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
settlement, perhaps based on lead mining
Derbyshire lead mining history
This article details some of the history of lead mining in Derbyshire, England.- Background :On one of the walls in Wirksworth church is a crude stone carving, found nearby at Bonsall and placed in the church in the 1870s. Probably executed in Anglo-Saxon times, it shows a man carrying a kibble or...
, but there is currently no archaeological evidence to prove this. A nineteenth-century bath house over a hot spring is known locally as The Roman Baths
Roman Baths
The Roman Baths complex is a site of historical interest in the English city of Bath. The house is a well-preserved Roman site for public bathing....
but this was built in an unsuccessful attempt to establish a spa
Spa town
A spa town is a town situated around a mineral spa . Patrons resorted to spas to "take the waters" for their purported health benefits. The word comes from the Belgian town Spa. In continental Europe a spa was known as a ville d'eau...
resort. (Following the clearance of undergrowth by the Stoney Middleton Youth Club in the early 1980s the building was consolidated and made secure by local craftsmen with the aid of a grant by the Peak Park.)
It is speculated that a motte-and-bailey
Motte-and-bailey
A motte-and-bailey is a form of castle, with a wooden or stone keep situated on a raised earthwork called a motte, accompanied by an enclosed courtyard, or bailey, surrounded by a protective ditch and palisade...
castle was built overlooking the village by the Normans
Normans
The Normans were the people who gave their name to Normandy, a region in northern France. They were descended from Norse Viking conquerors of the territory and the native population of Frankish and Gallo-Roman stock...
during the pacification of the North in the late 11th and early 12th centuries. However, again, there is no direct archaeological evidence for this and the rather small flattened top of the site known as Castle Hill, overlooking the Nook, may have been used for nothing more glamorous than dog fighting. The origins of the name of the village go back to the Saxo-Norman period when it was known as Middletone or Middletune, the name Stoney Middleton literally meaning 'stony middle farm'.
Domesday Book
Stoney Middleton is mentioned in 1086 in the Domesday bookDomesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...
. The manor is first recorded as being where the King had land:
In Stoney Middleton, Godgyth had four bovates of land to the geld.. Land for four oxen. There 6 villans and one bordar have 2 ploughs and four acres of meadow and a little scrubland. TRE as now worth six shillings.
The book then says under the title of "The lands of Ralph fitzHubert":
In Stoney Middleton Leofnoth and his brother had one carucate of land. There is land for one plough. It is waste. This manor is one league long and 4 furlongs broad.
Change in location
The original location of the village, which was ravaged by the Black DeathBlack Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...
, may have been immediately to the south of the Old Hall, on a series of terraces (still visible from the public footpath overlooking the meadows between the lower, modern extension of the village and the bottom of the "Town" the hill by the Moon Inn which leads up to Stoney Middleton Junior School). Renewal of the village led to the construction of a stone chapel in the fifteenth century at the crossroads of the roads/tracks going between Eyam and Grindleford, which was dedicated to Saint Martin
Martin of Tours
Martin of Tours was a Bishop of Tours whose shrine became a famous stopping-point for pilgrims on the road to Santiago de Compostela. Around his name much legendary material accrued, and he has become one of the most familiar and recognizable Christian saints...
, perhaps to cater for pilgrim
Pilgrim
A pilgrim is a traveler who is on a journey to a holy place. Typically, this is a physical journeying to some place of special significance to the adherent of a particular religious belief system...
s to the spring. The tower survives, attached to an unusual octagonal nave
Nave
In Romanesque and Gothic Christian abbey, cathedral basilica and church architecture, the nave is the central approach to the high altar, the main body of the church. "Nave" was probably suggested by the keel shape of its vaulting...
of 1759.
Modern history
During the Great Plague, the 17th-century villagers left food for those self-quarantineQuarantine
Quarantine is compulsory isolation, typically to contain the spread of something considered dangerous, often but not always disease. The word comes from the Italian quarantena, meaning forty-day period....
d in nearby Eyam
Eyam
Eyam is a small village in Derbyshire, England. The village is best known for being the "plague village" that chose to isolate itself when the plague was discovered there in August 1665, rather than let the infection spread...
.
Atop a cliff
Cliff
In geography and geology, a cliff is a significant vertical, or near vertical, rock exposure. Cliffs are formed as erosion landforms due to the processes of erosion and weathering that produce them. Cliffs are common on coasts, in mountainous areas, escarpments and along rivers. Cliffs are usually...
above Middleton Dale lies Lovers Leap, from which Hannah Baddeley is said to have jumped in 1762, but miraculously survived. Sadly she died two years later.
A road was blasted through Middleton Dale in 1830, and in 1840 an octagonal toll house
Toll house
A tollhouse or toll house is a building with accommodation for a toll collector, beside a tollgate on a toll road or canal. Many tollhouses were built by turnpike trusts in England, Wales and Scotland during the 18th and early 19th centuries...
was built in the village, now a fish and chip shop which stands opposite the Royal Oak public house. Other notable buildings include Middleton Hall
Middleton Hall, Stoney Middleton
Middleton Hall is a restored 17th century country house at Stoney Middleton, Derbyshire. It is a Grade II listed building.The house was built in the mid 17th century for Robert Ashton whose son sold it to Edward Finney in 1690...
.
A primary school was built in 1835 by public subscription and is the meeting place for the Parish Council, the PTA, W.I., Horticultural Society, Tennis Club, and other activities of the village. Despite a massive campaign by Stoney Middleton School governors, parents and friends, Derbyshire County Council voted at the Council Meeting on 12 December 2006 to propose the closure of Stoney Middleton school from 31 August 2007. This decision was, however, eventually overruled in May 2007.
A cross by the main road is dated 1846. It was erected to mark the repeal of the Corn Laws
Corn Laws
The Corn Laws were trade barriers designed to protect cereal producers in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland against competition from less expensive foreign imports between 1815 and 1846. The barriers were introduced by the Importation Act 1815 and repealed by the Importation Act 1846...
.
In the dale
Valley
In geology, a valley or dale is a depression with predominant extent in one direction. A very deep river valley may be called a canyon or gorge.The terms U-shaped and V-shaped are descriptive terms of geography to characterize the form of valleys...
were several quarries
Quarry
A quarry is a type of open-pit mine from which rock or minerals are extracted. Quarries are generally used for extracting building materials, such as dimension stone, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, and gravel. They are often collocated with concrete and asphalt plants due to the requirement...
, once a major source of employment for the village. Footwear became a major industry, with one factory surviving to the present day. Lead mining also continued, with a Barmote Court
Barmote Court
The Barmote Court is a court held in the lead mining districts of Derbyshire, England, for the purpose of determining the customs peculiar to the industry and also for the settlements of any disputes which may arise in connection therewith.The Barmote Courts were set up in 1288, their jurisdiction...
alternating between Stoney Middleton and Eyam until the early twentieth century One of the quarries was bombed by two Me110
Messerschmitt Bf 110
The Messerschmitt Bf 110, often called Me 110, was a twin-engine heavy fighter in the service of the Luftwaffe during World War II. Hermann Göring was a proponent of the Bf 110, and nicknamed it his Eisenseiten...
during World War II, both of which were later shot down. A prisoner-of-war camp was situated at the bottom of the village and housed Italian prisoners (amongst others).
Several electric narrow gauge railway
British industrial narrow gauge railways
British industrial narrow gauge railways are narrow gauge railways in the United Kingdom and the Isle of Man that were primarily built to serve one or more industries. Some offered passenger services for employees or workmen, but they did not run public passenger trains...
s were operated in Stoney Middleton by Laporte Industries Ltd up to 1987 for the mining of fluorite
Fluorite
Fluorite is a halide mineral composed of calcium fluoride, CaF2. It is an isometric mineral with a cubic habit, though octahedral and more complex isometric forms are not uncommon...
.
In January 2007 some houses in the village were damaged by a wall of mud
Mud
Mud is a mixture of water and some combination of soil, silt, and clay. Ancient mud deposits harden over geological time to form sedimentary rock such as shale or mudstone . When geological deposits of mud are formed in estuaries the resultant layers are termed bay muds...
caused by the failure of a dam
Dam
A dam is a barrier that impounds water or underground streams. Dams generally serve the primary purpose of retaining water, while other structures such as floodgates or levees are used to manage or prevent water flow into specific land regions. Hydropower and pumped-storage hydroelectricity are...
near the top of the dale. The dam, which held a lagoon
Lagoon
A lagoon is a body of shallow sea water or brackish water separated from the sea by some form of barrier. The EU's habitat directive defines lagoons as "expanses of shallow coastal salt water, of varying salinity or water volume, wholly or partially separated from the sea by sand banks or shingle,...
of mud and water from a local mineral quarry, burst following heavy rainfall.
In May 2007 The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
newspaper reported that a crystal meth factory had been discovered by police in Stoney Middleton. It was located in a rented industial unit in the Rock Hill business park and was the largest such facility discovered in the UK at the time.
Attractions
The Dale became a major centre for Peak District rock climbers in the 1960s and 1970s, mainly developed by people like Jack Street, Geoff Birtles and Tom Proctor, who in 1968 established one of the hardest climbs in the world at that time, "Our Father" on Windy Buttress. The Lover's Leap cafe has for many years been a wet-weather retreat and refuelling stop for cyclists, cavers and climbers. The Moon Inn was a pub much frequented by the climbing fraternity, and maintains the tradition today with a "muddy boots welcome" sign and Bed and Breakfast for walkers and climbers. It was not unknown for climbers to over-indulge at lunchtime and then set off to climb up the dale or as far away as Millstone Edge, resulting in trips to A&E. In the 1980s the dale began to wane in popularity having been largely worked out by climbers as well as the quarrymen.The medieval packhorse track, a hollow way
Sunken lane
A sunken lane is a road which has over time fallen significantly lower than the land on either side. They are created incrementally by erosion, by water and traffic...
known locally as Jacobs Ladder, can still be walked (or driven, in a suitable vehicle) from the centre of the village passing through Stoney woods. It affords fine views of Curbar
Curbar
Curbar is a village in the Derbyshire Dales district of Derbyshire, a mile north of Baslow, close to Calver on the A623.The village has a street with the highest average house value in Derbyshire. Close to the east are the popular rock-climbing escarpments of Curbar Edge and Baslow Edge. To the...
and Froggat Edge in the distance.
Well dressing
Well dressing is a summer custom practised in rural England in which wells, springs or other water sources are decorated with designs created from flower petals...
(a ceremony predating Christianity which now uses plant materials to decorate the well with — usually — Christian symbols) takes place annually in the village, usually spanning the last week in July and the first week in August.
On television
The village was featured in the first episode of Most Haunted: Midsummer MurdersMost Haunted: Midsummer Murders
Most Haunted: Midsummer Murders is a spin-off series of the paranormal television series, Most Haunted. It ran on LivingTV between 19 June 2007 and 7 August 2007.- Idea :...
in which the team investigates the death of a supposedly Scottish
Scottish people
The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...
peddler
Peddler
A peddler, in British English pedlar, also known as a canvasser, cheapjack, monger, or solicitor , is a travelling vendor of goods. In England, the term was mostly used for travellers hawking goods in the countryside to small towns and villages; they might also be called tinkers or gypsies...
and of Hannah Baddeley. Whilst investigating, they also conducted a vigil at the Moon Inn.