Wormhill
| Wormhill | |
| Derbyshire | |
|---|---|
 St Margaret's Church, Wormhill | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SK121749 |
| Location: | 53°16’16"N, 1°49’12"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 1,020 (2011) |
| Post town: | Buxton |
| Postcode: | SK17 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | High Peak |
Wormhill is a village in the north of Derbyshire, in the Peak District to the north of Buxton.
The name of the village is said by the English Place-Name Society to be derived from the Old English 'Wyrma's hyll'.[1]
The population of the civil parish including Peak Dale was 1,020 at the 2011 Census.
Parish church
The parish church is St Margaret's Church. It began as a mediæval chapel, but was enlarged and altered in 1746 when a low porch and west gallery were erected. In 1826 another gallery was erected over the communion table to accommodate the singers.
The church was rebuilt by the architect T H Rushforth of London and reopened on 16 June 1864. Transepts were added between 1904 and 1910.
The church contains a pipe organ by J. Porritt. A specification of the organ can be found on the National Pipe Organ Register.[2]
History
Wormhill appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as belonging to Henry de Ferrers and as containing twenty acres of meadow.
There was a tradition of wolf hunting in Wormhill in the fourteenth century.[3] It was said that a living was made by some and that an annual tribute of wolfheads was shown. It has been reported that the last wolf killed in England was at Wormhill Hall in the 15th century.[3]
From 1863 to 1967 the village was served by Millers Dale railway station, some two miles away, which was on the Midland Railway's extension of the Manchester, Buxton, Matlock and Midlands Junction Railway]].[4] The disused railway line is now the Monsal Trail bridleway. A footpath south of the village leads to the nearby River Wye in Chee Dale.
About the village
The village has memorials to James Brindley, pioneer builder of Britain's canals, who was born in 1716 in the hamlet of Tunstead within Wormhill parish. The well in Wormhill is dedicated to Brindley.[5] As part of the annual well dressing festival the Brindley well is decorated each year.
Near the church and Brindley's well can be found the old village stocks.
There is also a well dressing in the churchyard of St Margaret's Church in the village.[6] The lower part of a cross shaft and its stepped base stand in the churchyard. A sundial dated 1670 tops the broken shaft.[7] Only the base of the church tower is mediæval; the rest of the church was "almost rebuilt" in 1864, and a transept added in 1904–10.[8]
At the north end of the village lies the hamlet of Hargate (now part of Wormhill), where the industrialist Robert Whitehead and notorious mill owner Ellis Needham once lived.[9]
The Peak District Boundary Walk runs past Wormhill on its way from Buxton to Peak Forest.[10]
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Wormhill) |
References
- ↑ English Place-Name Society database
- ↑ "NPOR A00029". National Pipe Organ Register. British Institute of Organ Studies. http://www.npor.org.uk/NPORView.html?RI=A00029.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Werewolves, Nigel Suckling, 2006, ISBN 1-904332-46-3
- ↑ Railways of the Peak District, Blakemore & Mosley, 2003 ISBN 1 902827 09 0
- ↑ Cressbrook pages - Wormhill
- ↑ Wormhill Well Dressing
- ↑ Neville T. Sharpe, Crosses of the Peak District (Landmark Collectors Library, 2002)
- ↑ Nikolaus Pevsner: The Buildings of England: Derbyshire, 1953; 1978 Penguin Books ISBN 978-0-300-09591-3page 361
- ↑ Hargate Hall - History
- ↑ McCloy, Andrew (2017). Peak District Boundary Walk: 190 Miles Around the Edge of the National Park. Friends of the Peak District. ISBN 978-1909461536.