From "A History of Derbyshire" by Pendleton 1886
CHAPTER III.
WlRKSWORTH AND ITS BORDERS— Singular Mining Customs —
The Church and its Monuments— A Curious Epitaph —
Homely Folks — George Eliot and ' Dinah Bede ' — Well-
Dressing— A Giant's Tooth— Tradition— Old English Life—
A Marvellous Escape — Cromford and Sir Richard Arkwright.
Even more picturesque than Ashbourne is Wirks-
worth, a patriarchal-looking town, with its irregular
streets, odd nooks and corners, and houses dusky
with age and the weather's freaks. It lies in a quiet,
fertile valley, edged about with great limestone
rocks ; and although not many miles from Derby, it
gives one the impression that it has been entirely
overlooked by the eager go-ahead world outside,
until you stumble upon the modest branch-line that
connects the town with the Midland Railway
system. As far back as 1086, Wirksworth possessed
'a priest and a church,' and was a place of some
industrial prosperity. Its population, then number-
ing about 1,000 people, were chiefly engaged in
lead-mining and in smelting, the ore being placed in
wood-fires on the hills. Fuller says that Derbyshire
lead is the best in England ; good-natured metal,
Wirksworth and its Borders. 41
not curdling into knots and knobs; and if this be
true, Wirksworth must have done a good business
even at the time the manor belonged to the Nunnery
of Repton. There is a curious record that in 714
the abbess of this religious house sent to Croyland in
Lincolnshire a sarcophagus of Wirksworth lead,
lined with linen, to receive the remains of the
esteemed and dearly loved saint, St.Guthlac.
What tons of ore, of gleaming lead, and glittering
spar have been turned out of the King's Field (the
chief mining tract) since that time. A hundred
years ago the produce of the mines was so great that
the vicar's tithe alone reached a princely sum. Many
quaint laws have sprung up (and some have died out
again) since the Romans first worked these mines.
Edward Manlove, one of the stewards of the Bargh-
moot Court, composed a poem, published in 1653,
descriptive of some of the liberties and customs ;
and it begins :
'By custom old, in Wirksworth wapentake,
If any of this nation find a rake,*
Or sign, or leading to the same, may set,
In any ground, and there lead ore may get.
They may make crosses, holes, and set their stowes, f
Sink shafts, build lodges, cottages, or coes; %
But churches, houses, gardens, all are free
From this strange custom of the minery.'
* The 'rake' does not refer to a person of dissolute
habits, but means a perpendicular vein of lead.
f 'Stowes' are small windlasses ; also pieces of wood
placed together to indicate possession of the mine.
% 'Coes' are small buildings over the shafts,
generally used for dressing the ore.
42 History of Derbyshire.
Afterwards the poet grows satirical about the vicar's
tithe, saying the good man daily ought to pray; for
if though the miners lose their lives, their limbs or
strength, he loseth not, but looketh for a tenth.'
The most singular part of this interesting mining
record, however, is that dealing with the punishment
for dishonesty; a punishment barbaric in its cruelty,
and now happily obsolete:
'For stealing ore twice from the minery,
The thief that's taken fined twice shall be;
But the third time that he commits such theft,
Shall have a knife stuck through his hand to the haft
Into the stow, and there till death shall stand,
Or loose himself by cutting loose his hand.'
Ore is not so plentiful now at Wirksworth ; and such
mines as 'Goodlack,' and others with odd but familiar
names, have been ruthlessly stripped of their riches ;
but the Moothall, where the courts for the regulation
of trade have been so long held, still exists, and con-
tains the famous 'Miners' Standard Dish.' This
brazen vessel, which, according to Lowpeak custom,
measures fourteen pints, was made in the reign of
Henry VIII., with the consent of the lead-getting
toilers, and has 'to remayne in the moote hall at
Wyrksworth, hangyng by a cheyne so as the mer-
chauntes or mynours may have resorte to the same
at all times to make the true measure after the same.'
Notwithstanding its restoration, from Sir Gilbert
Scott's designs, there is an air of great antiquity
about Wirksworth Church, which is dedicated to
St. Mary. Its numerous monuments are full of
Wirksworth and its Borders. 43
interest, giving as they do some idea of the lives
and work of those who bore distinguished local
names. Against the east wall is a tablet setting
forth that Anthony Gell, late of Hopton, and some-
time of the Worshipful Company of the Inner
Temple, who died in 1583, founded at his only cost
the free Grammar School, and Almshouses for
five poor persons ; while on the same wall is
another tablet in memory of bluff Sir John Gell,
the first baronet, who rode hither and thither
with such zeal, and fought with such avidity
wherever he found King Charles's soldiers, in the
war that ended in Cromwell's victory and sent a
monarch to the block. The memorials to the
Wigwells, Lowes, and Blackwells are also curious
and instructive. The latter is a very ancient
Wirksworth family, and flourished long before 1524,
when Thomas Blackwell, anxious about the future
welfare of himself and relatives, left £10 to a priest
to say mass for him, for the souls of his parents,
and for the soul of his brother Henry, alter-
nately at St. Edmund's altar and Our Lady's altar,
Wirksworth, for three years from his death.
On one of the buttresses outside the church is this
whimsical epitaph: 'Near this place lies the body
of Phillip Shallcross, once an eminent quildriver to
the attorneys of this town. He died on the 17th
of November, 1787, aged 67. Viewing Phillip in a
moral light, the most prominent and remarkable
features in his character were his real and invincible
attachment to dogs and cats, and his unbounded
44 History of Derbyshire.
benevolence towards them, as well as towards his
fellow-creatures.
In addition to the ancient sculptured stone (repre-
senting in one part Christ bathing His disciples' feet),
there is much food for the antiquary in and around
this cruciform edifice, which possesses, moreover, a
parish-register full of peculiar entries, such as, 'Paid
to old Bonsall of Alderwastle, for a fox-head, one
shilling ;' and, '1688, June 14, for ale to ringers at
birth of Prince of Wales, nine shillings.'
Wirksworth has the honour of being the place
where the first Derbyshire county match was played ;
but it has apparently little ambition, nor does it
grow hastily. The population in 1881 numbered
3,678, and had increased by 75 in the last ten years!
The people who are born there like the peaceful
health-giving town so well that they seldom leave it
to seek better (or perhaps more harassing) fortune
elsewhere. They are in the main content to grow
up amid the scenes of their childhood, and to follow
in the footsteps of their fathers. 'It is remarkable
how the descendants of those who formerly lived
and toiled in the dale three or four hundred years
ago still live there. In the days of King Henry VIII.
there lived the Steers and Vallances, the Elses and
the Cadmans. The Steers have merged lately into
the Wardman family. The Vallances are still there,
and likely to be ; also the Elses, strong enough in
numbers to supply a regiment almost. These are
a few instances which show the strong instinct and
liking the families have for the haunts of their fore-
George Eliot. 45
fathers, and also for their employment, as they are all
connected with the lead business or getting of stone.'
It was among these homely folks that George
Eliot came, and found the germ of her most
striking character — the earnest woman who preached
so fervently on the hill-sides of Derbyshire. The
novelist's relatives, Mrs. Samuel Evans and her hus-
band (whom Wirksworth people maintain were the
'Dinah Morris' and 'Seth Bede' of George Eliot's
most popular story), then lived at Millhouses, just
outside the town, and the authoress was only seven-
teen when she first visited their 'humble cottage.'
But the impressions she got of her aunt, Mrs. Evans,
were very vivid and lasting ; for writing twenty years
afterwards, she says : 'I was delighted to see my aunt.
Although I had only heard her spoken of as a strange
person, given to a fanatical vehemence of exhortation
in private as well as public, I believed that I should
find sympathy between us. She was then an old
woman, above sixty, and I believe had for a good
many years given up preaching. A tiny little woman,
with bright small dark eyes, and hair that had
been black, I imagine, but was now grey ; a pretty
woman in her youth, but of a totally different phy-
sical type from " Dinah."' George Eliot contended,
too, that the preacheress she sketched was dif-
ferent in individuality also ; yet there is such a
similarity in the real life of Mrs. Samuel Evans and
the fictional career of 'Dinah Morris,' that the inha-
bitants of Wirksworth may be forgiven for thinking
that one is a poetic ideal of the other. 'Both wore
46 History of Derbyshire.
a Quaker's bonnet; "Dinah Morris" preached on
Hayslope Green, Elizabeth Evans on Roston Green;
the former stayed in prison with " Hetty Sorrell"
when she was lying under charge of murdering her
child ; the latter stayed in prison with a young
woman accused of a similar crime.'
Elizabeth Evans died at Wirksworth on the 9th
of May, 1849, and the following interesting appeal
for contributions towards a tablet to perpetuate her
memory and that of her husband was made in 1873:
"'Dinah Bede."
'A generation has nearly passed away since the
death of Airs. Elizabeth Evans, who was dis-
tinguished for extraordinary piety and extensive
usefulness. The remarkable circumstances of her
personal history, her preaching talents, and her phil-
anthropic labours have since been immortalized by
a popular author in our standard literature. The
name and doings of "Dinah Bede " are known over
the whole world, and yet no memorial whatever of
her has been raised in towns where she lived and
laboured, or on the spot in Wirksworth churchyard
where her ashes repose. We, whose names are here-
unto placed, having an imperishable recollection of
Mrs. Evans' gifts, grace, and goodness, are desirous of
placing a memorial tablet in the Methodist Chapel at
Wirksworth to perpetuate the memory and useful-
ness of the so-called "Dinah," and of "Seth Bede,"
her honoured and sainted husband. If you have
any wish to participate in this graceful memorial
George Eliot and ' Dinah Bede.' 47
and monument of these honoured servants of Christ
and benefactors of mankind, and desire to contribute
even the smallest sum for this object, be so good as to
communicate your intention to any of the under-
mentioned ministers and gentlemen as early as
possible: Adam Chadwick, Steeple Grange; William
Buxton, North End; Charles Wall, the Causeway ;
and Timothy Clarke, North End, Wirksworth.'
The appeal commended itself so thoroughly that
subscriptions were obtained without difficulty, and
now on the walls of the Wesleyan Chapel at Wirks-
worth is a tablet bearing the inscription :
'Erected by numerous friends to the memory of Elizabeth
Evans, known to the world as "Dinah Bede," who during many
years proclaimed alike in the open air, the sanctuary, and from
house to house, the love of Christ. She died in the Lord
May 9, 1849, aged 74 years. And of Samuel Evans, her
husband, who was also a faithful local preacher and class leader
in the Methodist society. He finished his earthly course
Dec. 8, 1858, aged 81 years.'
One of the daughters of this noted Elizabeth
Evans, living now at Sheffield, preserves with great
care the Quaker bonnet, the white net cap, and the
spun-silk shawl that were worn by 'Dinah Morris'
when she went preaching. This descendant well
remembers George Eliot's visit to her mother in
1837 and until recently had in her possession a
bundle of letters sent by the novelist to her parents
at Millhouses. Being privileged to peruse these
letters soon after George Eliot's death, we wrote of
them at the time : 'The letters are signed by the
talented authoress in her maiden name, "Mary Ann
48 History of Derbyshire.
Evans", and they are written from Griff and Foleshill,
near Coventry, at which places she lived with her
father during the years 1839, 1840, and 1841. Some
of them are brown with age, and much worn at the
edges, and in the folding creases. Others are in
better preservation. The letters, at least those
despatched in 1839, were sent to Wirksworth just
a year before Sir Rowland Hill's scheme of penny
postage was carried into effect, and before envelopes
had come into common use. They are written on
old-fashioned post-paper, and the address, "Mr. S.
Evans, the Millhouses, Wirksworth," appears on the
outer sheet. Most of the epistles are addressed to
"My dear uncle and aunt," and all reveal George
Eliot's great talents. The style is elegant and grace-
ful, and the letters abound in beautiful metaphor;
but their most striking characteristic is the religious
tinge that pervades them all. Nearly every line
denotes that George Eliot was an earnest Biblical
student, and that she was, especially in the years
1839 and 1840, very anxious about her spiritual
condition. In one of the letters, written from Griff
to " Dinah Morris" in 1839, sne says she is living in
a dry and thirsty land, and that she is looking for-
ward with pleasure to a visit to Wirksworth, and
likens her aunt's companionship and counsel to a
spring of pure water, acceptable to her as is the
well dug for the traveller in the desert.' These
communications, eloquent with the ardent feeling
that distinguished George Eliot's earlier life, are
now in the possession of Mr.Cross, and should he
Well-Dressing. 49
give them to the public, they will shed consider-
able light on the most impressionable part of his
wife's career, when 'Dinah Morris' was her friend,
and she did not hesitate to write 'that love of human
praise was one of her great stumbling-blocks.'
At Wirksworth, and other places in Derbyshire,
following in the wake of Tissington, the pretty,
innocent custom of decking the wells with flowers
is fostered even in this practical age, and gives a very
pardonable excuse for a bright, mirthful holiday.
At Wirksworth, however, the custom is not in con-
nection with natural springs as at Tissington, but is,
as it is called, a 'Tap-Dressing' of the water-supply
of the town. Seneca said : 'Where a spring or a river
flows there should we build altars and offer sacri-
fices ;' and it is possible that from a spirit of thank-
fulness for the gift of pure water arose this innocent
practice, which, as education spreads, is becoming
a more delicate and beautiful art. The floral de-
signs, the chaplets, and garlands, that decorate the
Wirksworth taps and pipes on Whit-Wednesday are
as attractive in their simple loveliness as the offerings
the shepherds threw to the goddess Sabrina in
Milton's 'Comus,' or 'the thousand flowers of pale
lilies, roses, violets, and pinks,'the nymphs in
Dyer's 'Fleece' spread on the surface of 'the dimpled
stream.' And they have this advantage over the
floral tributes of the poet's dream: they bring useful
prizes that still further encourage a love of flowers.
The rocks and caves around the town have yielded
something more marvellous than lead ore. Who
50 History of Derbyshire,
shall say, after knowing what wonders have been
imbedded in their depths, that geology has no charm ?
George Mower, a miner, discovered in a cave in the
mountain limestone, at Balleye, near Wirksworth,
in 1663, the bones and molar teeth of an elephant,
and in a startling description of 'how the giant's
tooth was found,' wrote : 'As they were sinking to
find lead ore upon a hill at Bawlee, within two miles
of Wirksworth, in the Peake, about the year 1663,
they came to an open place as large as a great
church, and found the skeleton of a man standing
against the side, rather declining. They gave an
account that his braine-pan would have held two
strike of corn, and that it was so big they could not
get it up the mine they had sunk without breaking
it. Being my grandfather, Robert Mower, of Wood-
seats, had a part in this said mine, they sent him
this toothe, with all the tines of it entire, and it
weighed 4 lbs. 3 oz.'
Nor has this been the only geological prize
obtained in the locality, for in another lead mine,
poetically known as ' The Dream Cave,' about a
mile from Wirksworth, was found in 1882 the
skeleton of a rhinoceros, whose bones 'were in a
high state of preservation.'
Within a stone's-throw, as it were, of the place in
which George Eliot wandered in her youth, lie two
historic mansions — Alderwasley Hall and Wigwell
Grange. The former has long been the residence of
the old county families, the Lowes and the Hurts, and
a singular tradition attaches to a part of the estate
Old English Life. 51
called 'The Shining Cliff' — that it was granted to a
previous owner by the King, in these words :
'I and mine
Give thee and thine
Milnes Hay and Shyning Cliff,
While grass is green and berys ryffe.'*
Wigwell Grange has sheltered some illustrious
people, and Sir John Statham's description of it,
more than a century ago, has never been excelled,
so straightforward were the brusque knight's words.
In the district, he said, 'was all the convenience
of life — wood, coal, corn of all sorts, park venison,
a warren for rabbits, fish, fowl in the utmost per-
fection, exempted from all jurisdiction; no bishops,
priests, proctors, apparators, or any such vermin
could breathe there. Everyone did that which
was right in his own eyes, went to bed, sat up, rose
early, got up late, all easy. In the park were
labyrinths, statues, arbours, springs, grottoes, and
mossy banks ; and if retirement became irksome,
on notice to Wirksworth, there were loose hands,
gentlemen and clergymen, ever ready at an hour,
willing to stay just as long as you'd have 'em and
no longer.' Kindly John Statham. He understood
the secret of hospitality, and although 'the vile
calumnies and envenom'd arrows' of his enemies
now and then excited his wrath, he did not let them
interfere much with his pleasures.
Near the road leading from Wirksworth to Crom-
ford is a famous mine, the scene in 1797 of a
* Plentiful.
52 History of Derbyshire.
disaster which gave not only a new illustration of
the perils of lead-getting, but showed how great is
the tenacity of human life. While Job Boden and
Anthony Pearson were at work in the mine, the one
at a depth of twenty yards, and the other at forty-
four yards, there was a huge fall of earth, and a rush
of water. The mine was choked to a depth of over
fifty yards, and it seemed almost incredible that the
men beneath could escape death. Yet, eager with
hope, the miners not in the workings laboured for
three days in emptying the mine of debris, and then
discovered Pearson, who was standing in an upright
posture, dead. At the end of eight days' digging
they reached Boden, who, to their surprise, was still
living, although he had been entirely without nourish-
ment from the moment he was buried in the mine.
When brought out he was terribly emaciated, but
ultimately recovered from the effects of his adventure,
and lived for many years to tell the story of his
marvellous rescue.
Cromford lies amid charming scenery, and is
within easy distance of Via Gellia, of the bold grit-
stone rocks that singularly overlap the limestone at
Stonnis, and the pretty village of Bonsall, where the
rivulet, rippling past the cottages and beneath each
doorstep, has prompted the saying that the hamlet
has 150 marble bridges. But after all, Cromford is
not so celebrated for its scenery as for its association
with Richard Arkwright, the lowly barber and
itinerant hair merchant, who invented spinning by
rollers, and erecting his first cotton-mill in Matlock
Cromford and Sir Richard Arkwright. 53
Dale, in 1771, made such additional improvements
in the process of carding, roving, and spinning, that
despite grievous difficulties his ingenuity and
perseverance were rewarded by wealth and fame.
The manor of Willesley, which belonged in the time
of Henry VI. to Richard Minors, was purchased by
the successful cotton spinner in 1782, and four
years afterwards he was knighted. And it seemed
as if some good fairy had determined that he should
have money enough to uphold the title, for his 'riches
increased to such an enormous extent, that besides
possessing, exclusive of his mill property, one of the
largest estates in England, he was able on several
occasions to present each of his ten children with
£10,000 as a Christmas box.'
CHAPTER IV.
Matlock Bath— Man's Energy— The Bath Years ago— Lord
Byron — The Water Cure — Rocks and Caverns — Matlock and
its Church — A Remarkable Woman.
No such comfortable, contented serenity as satis-
fies Wirksworth is tolerated at Matlock Bath.
There the inhabitants do not fold their hands and
sit wrapt in admiration of the beauties of nature.
They believe in 'making hay while the sun shines,'
use nature to their own profit, and their enterprise is
so great that 'no man knoweth' what delights may
be in store for the excursionist in years to come!
Matlock Bath's chief street is fringed with fine shops,
in which are displayed many clever examples of the
spar worker's art; its petrifying wells and caverns
reveal marvels of nature, and show man's ingenuity
in turning them to profitable account; and its
attractive pavilion, recently erected, indicates that the
inhabitants are thoroughly cognisant of the needs
of the time. But all this energy is almost entirely
modern. Like the parvenu who secretly bewails his
lack of blue-blood ancestry while he sports his sham
crest, Matlock Bath is linked with few famous deeds,
The Bath Years Ago. 55
and has little history. It was not until about 1690
that the place sprang at all into notice, and then not
so much because of the wild beauty of its scenery as
the possession of mineral waters, which, bubbling out
of subterranean chambers, wrought such cures upon
the debilitated and enfeebled that the people mar-
velled. Hitherto the dale scarcely contained any
habitations except a few miners' huts, and 'presented
only the appearance of a narrow gorge, walled in by
stupendous crags and lofty eminences, overgrown
with tangled brushwood and shrubs, beneath which
flowed the dusky waters of the Derwent, seldom
seen by the eye of man.' But with the discovery of
the warm springs, 'raised in vapour by subter-
ranean fires deep in the earth,' Matlock Bath
awoke from its long sleep. The first bath, built and
paved, it is said, by Mr. Fern, of Matlock, and Mr.
Heyward, of Cromford, was ultimately purchased by
Messrs. Smith and Pennel, of Nottingham, who not
only erected two large commodious buildings, but
'made a coast-road along the river-side from Crom-
ford, and improved the horseway from Matlock
Bridge.'
'This bath,' said Defoe, however, writing in the
eighteenth century, 'would be much more fre-
quented than it is if a bad stony road which leads
to it, and no accommodation when you get there,
did not hinder.' Nevertheless, its development had
begun. And the place had much improved in Lord
Byron's time, for he wrote gracefully of Matlock
Bath's loveliness, and spoke in praise of his quarters.
56 History of Derbyshire.
It was here that the distinguished poet, the gifted
writer of 'Childe Harold' met Mary Chaworth, the
heiress of Annesley, and indulged in the hapless
love-dream that only ended in — farewell. 'Had I',
he regretfully said, 'married Miss Chaworth, perhaps
the whole tenor of my life would have been different.'
Since the days when Lord Byron looked joyously
through love's spectacles at the bold cliffs and
gently gliding river, Matlock Bath has become a
kind of Pool of Bethesda, to which the grievously
afflicted, and those who suffer for luxury and satiety,
go in hope of finding relief. Matlock Bank and
Matlock Bridge, modern offshoots of the older Mat-
lock, are as thickly studded with baths as Rome during
Diocletian's reign of splendour; and Smedley, the
local pioneer of hydropathy, and the builder of Riber
Castle, on the summit of Riber, has had a host of
imitators, who are gradually increasing the number
of believers in the water-cure.
Lady Mary Wortley said her little chalet at
Avignon commanded the finest land prospect she
had ever seen, except Wharncliffe ; and Derbyshire
people, with equal truth, might affirm that Wales,
with its tree-crowned heights, and mist-capped
mountains, and swirling streams, contained the
finest pictures of nature's loveliness, except Matlock.
'The great rent in the strata of Derbyshire,' which
has made the county so rich in crags, and peaks,
and sheltered dales, exciting the zeal of the geologist
and the wonder of the tourist, 'first manifests itself
in the neighbourhood of Matlock.' And familiarity is
The Heights of Abraham. 57
powerless to breed contempt of the beauteous gorge,
with its gigantic masses of limestone, towering high
above the white roads, and the petrifying wells, and
the wooden boathouses. How mighty and rugged in
its grandeur is the High Tor, rising perpendicularly
more than 300 feet above the river's brink, its brow
fringed with thick foliage, and its face brightened by
mosses and ferns that have struggled into existence
in crevices and rifts far beyond man's reach!
Less rugged in character, but equal in beauty,
are the Heights of Abraham; and they have in-
spired much poetry — spontaneous and sincere, if
not over-brilliant tributes to nature's lavish gifts.
Robinson, in his 'Derbyshire Gatherings,' gives an
example, remarking that in an alcove on the heights
about twenty-five years since, some would-be poet,
no doubt after cudgelling his brains severely for a
verse, wrote:
'He who climbs these heights sublime,
Will wish to come a second time.'
But he goes on to say that beneath these words was
added in another handwriting the scathing couplet :
'And when he comes a second time,
I hope he'll make a better rhyme.'
What myriads of tourists have climbed these
heights since the old mountain went by the name
of Nestes, or Nestus, and Matlock was a Liliputian
hamlet in the King's manor of Metesforde! Much
of the tangled undergrowth and gnarled wood have
been cleared from its steep sides, and about the zig-
58 History of Derbyshire.
zag paths that lead to the lofty tower. Cottages
cluster, tier on tier, like the dwellings of an Alpine
village. And higher still, nearer the summit of the
pine-clad heights, far away from the chief street, are
lovely walks, from which may be obtained delightful
views of the loftier crags of Masson, of bold cliffs,
wooded dells, and bits of emerald meadow skirting
the gleaming river; while stretching beyond the
dale is a pretty picture of hill and valley, of moor-
land and rich pasture, not framed by the horizon
until the eye has roamed over five counties.
Then its subterranean mysteries are curious and
almost fear-inspiring. The great caverns, reached
through little doors in the mountains' side, remind
one of the mysterious cavity into which the Pied
Piper of Hamlin decoyed the children with sweet
music and fair promises of a chimerical Garden of
Eden. In their natural darkness these vast chambers,
particularly the Rutland, the Devonshire, and the
Cumberland, help one to realize the meaning of
Chaos ; but when illuminated by the candle's or the
lamp's fitful gleam they reveal striking beauties of
vaulted arch, of brightly flashing minerals, of trick-
ling waters, of huge pyramids of stone, of gruesome
recesses, and walls of such strange shape that they
seem to be studded with grotesque faces. Nay, the
thought arises — are they the faces of indiscreet miners,
petrified just as they were chuckling, or indulging in
grimaces ?
Remembering its surface and underground beauties
and wonders, there is little exaggeration in the
Matlock and its Church. 59
poetical description of Matlock Bath as 'the fairy-
land that wins all hearts, the paradise of the Peak.'
The modern resort of the health-seeker, Matlock
Bath, stands on the western margin of the Derwent ;
the old village of Matlock, which Glover says is as
ancient as the Conquest, is on the opposite side of
the river, and cut off from the Bath by the huge
Tor and its chain of connecting rocks. Both are
thriving places now, and this is not to be wondered
at, considering that such a vast number of tourists
pour into the district during at least four months
of the year, swooping down upon nearly every
habitation and driving the caterers sometimes to
their wits' end.
Although the older portion of Matlock (which in-
cludes Matlock Bridge) has grown with some rapidity,
it still adheres pretty much to its former ways of life.
But the church, like many others in Derbyshire, has
been restored, and the tower is the only part of the
old edifice remaining. It is a 'good example of the
Perpendicular style at the beginning of the sixteenth
century,' and contains six bells. One of these,
bearing the letters O.P.N, (oro pro nobis), was evi-
dently cast before the Reformation, and Mr. Jewitt
says it 'is one of the oldest as well as most interest-
ing bells in the county.'
In the church itself there is comparatively little to
interest the antiquary, with the exception of an old
chest, to which is attached a chain that formerly
secured the parish Bible. But there is a tablet in
this place of worship that might be studied with
60 History of Derbyshire.
advantage by all cynical bachelors who believe
married life is made up of embarrassments and
annoyances not conducive to longevity. The tablet
is in memory of Adam Wolley, and Grace, his wife.
They were married at Darley in 1581, and continued
in wedlock 76 years. Adam did not die until 1657,
when he had reached the age of 100, and Grace
lived to be 110.
In the vestry are several relics of a pathetic custom
— six white paper garlands carried years ago at the
funerals of young maidens, and left in the church,
in memoriam, by grief-stricken friends.
A very thin partition separates tears from laughter,
so Phoebe Bown may be very appropriately intro-
duced here. She was a remarkable woman who
resided in a cottage near High Tor, and obtained
considerable local celebrity. Hutton, the historian,
who visited Matlock in the early part of the present
century, says she was five feet six in height, had a
step more manly than a man's, could walk forty miles
a day, hold the plough, drive a team, and thatch a
barn ; but her chief avocation was breaking in horses
at a guinea a week : and with all these masculine
tendencies she combined a taste for the works of
Milton, Pope, and Shakespeare, and had a passionate
love of music, playing the flute, the violin, and the
harpsichord. She died in 1854, and her epitaph is
almost as curious as her life :
'Here lies romantic Phoebe,
Half Ganymede, half Hebe ;
A maid of mutable condition,
A jockey, cowherd, and musician.'
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