St Alkmund's Church (Demolished), Derby, Derbyshire, Church History

Derbyshire Places of Worship

We have 2 Images

St Alkmund's Church (Demolished), Derby (1) (161k)

Above Photograph(s)
Copyright of Mike Berrell
See more of Mike's photos on
The Churches of Britain and Ireland website.

St Alkmund's Church (Demolished), Derby

St Alkmund's Church (Demolished),
Queen Street / Bridge Gate,
Derby, Derbyshire.

Cemeteries

This Church had a graveyard.
Note: any church within an urban environment may have had its graveyard closed after the Burial Act of 1853. Any new church built after that is unlikely to have had a graveyard at all.

Church History

This Place of Worship was founded in the 9th century, but we understand it was closed in 1968.

St Alkmund's was one of the 6 churches in Derby mentioned in Domesday (others being All Saints, St Mary, St Michael, St Peter, and St Werburgh), and according to White's Directory of 1857, is "supposed to have been founded in the 8th or early in the 9th century".
The most recent building on this spot was however built in 1846, designed by architect Henry Isaac Stevens - "at a cost of above £10,000 ... a handsome and commodious edifice, with a tower and spire at the western end 207 feet in height (with) accomodation for 1,250 persons". This was sited in a square bordered on the west by Queen Street, and on the north by Bridge Gate, with the street on the east and south sides called St Alkmund's Churchyard.
By the 1950s, this in turn began to show signs of decay; but a proposed refurbishment was never completed. Derby City Council's plans to improve the city's traffic flow in the next decade resulted in the site being the subject of a compulsory purchase order, and demolition of the church began in 1968.
A tomb, believed to be that of St Alkmund, with other traces of earlier churches were discovered during the works, and today, these are on display in Derby Museum and Art Gallery.
An old photograph, captioned "St Mary's Bridge Chapel" showing St Alkmund's 'in situ' can be seen in the "Then and Now" section of Andy Savage's Derby Photos. The image is dated February 1958 - "the former Saint Alkmund's church can be seen in this glorious view of Mary's bridge chapel as viewed from across the river Derwent"; and of course there are other photographs of St Alkmund's on Andy's site too, including some showing it in the process of demolition. Today, however all that remains at the spot is a plaque marking the place where it stood.
See also various Old Maps, and the Wikipedia article on St Alkmund's Church, Derby is also a source of useful information.

Denomination

Now or formerly Church of England.

If more than one congregation has worshipped here, or its congregation has united with others, in most cases this will record its original dedication.

Maps

This Church was located at OS grid reference SK3515936716. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

St Alkmund's Church (Demolished), Derby shown on a Google Map.
Places of Worship in Derby shown on a Google Map.
Streetmap.co.uk (arrow on map shows the Place of Worship's location) (verified 2018-10-15)
Bing (Ordnance Survey option) (verified 2018-10-13)
Bing Maps ('Bird's Eye' View) (verified 2018-10-15)
Ordnance Survey "getamap" (NB some of the 'Change Map' options may require a subscription) (verified 2018-10-15)
OpenStreetMap (Maps © OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA) (verified 2018-10-15)
A Vision of Britain Through Time - useful for Boundary Changes (verified 2018-10-15)
www.magic.gov.uk (Modern Maps with various overlays) (verified 2018-10-15)

Resources

I have found many websites of use whilst compiling the information for this database. Here are some which deserve mention as being of special interest for Derby, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

“The official photo website for the City of Derby” - a large collection (over 3,000) of Andy Savage's Derby Photos (null) (verified 2018-10-06)
A link to an article from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, on St Alkmund's Church, Derby (null) (verified 2018-11-22)

The above links were selected and reviewed at the time I prepared the information, but please be aware their content may vary, or disappear entirely. These factors are outside my control.

Information last updated on 19 Dec 2018 at 11:18.

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This Report was created 27 Nov 2024 - 11:48:51 GMT from information held in the Derbyshire section of the Places of Worship Database. This was last updated on 13 Oct 2021 at 14:33.

URL of this page: https://churchdb.gukutils.org.uk/DBY235.php

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