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St Helen's Church,
Main Street,
Etwall, Derbyshire.

Cemeteries

This Church has (or 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 before 1086, and we understand it is still open.

Kelly's Directory of 1895 tells us Etwall is a parish with a station on the Great Northern railway, 6 miles west south west from Derby. It describes St Helen's Church as "a building of stone, consisting of a chancel, nave, north aisle, south porch and a low embattled tower at the west end, containing a clock and 3 bells, two of which are dated 1841 and 1624, the third being medieval". There would have been a Norman chancel arch, but this was removed in 1805. The north aisle is separated from the nave by four semi-circular Norman arches on round pillars. The font is a massive but plain work of the 14th century style, with an octagonal basin", and "there is a stone gospel-desk or lectern... the nave windows still have some fragments of ancient glass and the Port chapel at the east end of the north aisle has some carved open seats and a reading desk dated 1635".

The "Port" chapel would be a reference to the Port family, Henry (d.1512) and his son Sir John Port (d.1541), founder of Etwall Hospital and Repton School. It is not only at the east end of the north aisle, but adjacent to the chancel, as can be seen on the "virtual" tour of St Helen's Church in the "Churches" section on the Etwall Village website.

In 1895, the living was said to be a vicarage, in the gift of Henry George Tomlinson esq. of The Woodlands, Burton on Trent, and had been held since 1887 by the Rev. David Crawford Cochrane, M.A. of Trinity College Dublin and Oxford.

There was a return to the Religious Census of 1851 (HO 129/375, Burton on Trent) for the Methodist Chapel in Etwall, but for some reason, there does not appear to have been one for St Helen's. This may have been a consequence of of the parish being "in between" vicars. The incumbent recorded in Bagshaw's History, Gazetteer and Directory of Derbyshire of 1846 was William Eaton Mousley, M.A. and William's entry in Alumni Cantabrigiensis tells us he became vicar of Etwall in 1842, and from 1849 until his death in 1863, rector of Somersal Herbert.

Bagshaw, in providing a basic description of the Church, adds that it was much damaged in a violent storm of 20th June 1545. Strangely, although one might have expected it, since at the time it would have been only 5 years old, he does not mention the new (1841) bell!

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 is located at OS grid reference SK2688931992. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• St Helen's Church, Etwall shown on a Google Map.
• Places of Worship in Etwall 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 Etwall, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

• For “a small village in Derbyshire, midway between Derby and Burton upon Trent”, the Etwall Village (null) (verified 2018-10-24)

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.