Whaley
Encyclopedia
Whaley is a small village in 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...

, located one mile from Whaley Thorns
Whaley Thorns
Whaley Thorns is a former colliery village in Bolsover , Derbyshire, close to the Nottinghamshire border. Whaley Thorns lies just north of Nether Langwith and Langwith, 1.5 miles south-east of Creswell, and west of Cuckney....

, 1½ miles from Elmton
Elmton
Elmton is a linear village. It is located in the parish of Elmton-with-Creswell in the Bolsover district of Derbyshire approximately equidistant between Bolsover Castle and Creswell Crags.- History :...

, 1½ miles from Langwith
Langwith, Derbyshire
Langwith is a close group of four villages crossing the Derbyshire-Nottinghamshire border, on the river Poulter only about two miles from Warsop, and about four miles from Bolsover, on the A632 road, south of Whaley Thorns....

 and 2½ miles from Bolsover
Bolsover
Bolsover is a town near Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England. It is 145 miles  from London, 18 miles  from Sheffield, 26 miles  from Nottingham and 54 miles  from Manchester. It is the main town in the Bolsover district.The civil parish for the town is called...

.

The village has a pub, garage and a former watermill, now a home, of which the large mill pond still survives.

Set in arable farmland, the village was a farming settlement, and remains so to this day with several farming families living in the village. The Diocese of Derby archives record that there was an ancient chapel in the village, but no traces of that remain. A school, known as St Mary's Mission, and school house were built in the 1860s but both these are now residential.

There are three pre-historic rock shelter
Rock shelter
A rock shelter is a shallow cave-like opening at the base of a bluff or cliff....

s behind the former school, on Magg Lane and opposite the pub, the Black Horse. These are linked to the Creswell Crags
Creswell Crags
Creswell Crags is a limestone gorge on the border between Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, England near the villages of Creswell, Whitwell and Elmton...

.

Scarcliffe Park, an area of woodland to the south end of the village, has Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...

and Roman
Roman Britain
Roman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...

 remains. It is surrounded by a Pale ditch.

The village is a Conservation Area and has an active residents' association. The majority of the buildings are constructed from the local limestone.

The Waterworks on Whaley Moor featured in Channel 4 series, Grand Designs
Grand Designs
Grand Designs is a British television series produced by Talkback Thames and broadcast on Channel 4 which features unusual and often elaborate architectural home-building projects....

.

Etymology

Whaley most likely comes from the Celtic word Whallis, meaning water. A tributary of the River Poulter
River Poulter
The River Poulter is a tributary river of the River Idle in Nottinghamshire, England, which rises near Scarcliffe in Derbyshire. It has supplied power for a number of mills along its route, most of which are now gone, although the mill ponds remain, and Cuckney mill building is still used as a...

runs through the village, and there are a number of local springs. A well, now capped, was situated near Red Brick Cottage.
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