Derbyshire Places of Worship

We have 6 Images St Giles's Church, Great Longstone (1) St Giles's Church, Great Longstone (2) St Giles's Church, Great Longstone (3) St Giles's Church, Great Longstone (4) St Giles's Church, Great Longstone (5) St Giles's Church, Great Longstone (6) Above Photograph(s)
Copyright of Alf Beard/Janet Kirk
St Giles's Church, Great Longstone
St Giles's Church,
Church Lane,
Great Longstone, 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 in the 13th century, and we understand it is still open.

Kelly's Directory of 1932 records Great Longstone chapelry as including Great Longstone, Little Longstone, Hassop, Rowland and part of Wardlow townships, out of the parish of Bakewell. It describes the village as consisting of one long street on high ground sheltered by a range of hills called "Longstone Edge", and with a station on the Ambergate and Manchester section of the London, Midland and Scottish railway, 3 miles north-west from Bakewell, 12 west from Chesterfield and 154 from London. It was said to be supplied with water from springs on Stoke Flatt Moor, from which the water is conducted by pipes to the dwelling houses of the inhabitants.

The church of St Giles consists of chancel, clerestoried nave with arcades of 6 narrow arches on octagonal pillars, aisles, south porch, organ chamber, vestry and a battlemented western tower, with pinnacles, containing a clock and 6 bells, five of which were the gift of G.T. Wright esq.; the sixth was added in 1924 by T.H. Tonge esq. The earliest portions of the structure date from the 13th century. The arcades, south porch and priest's door belong to the following century; and the chancel windows are Perpendicular, also the fine roofs of the chancel, nave and aisles - "wrought with extreme care, and have embattled cornices and carved bosses at the intersections, some being of eccentric design and others bearing various heraldic shields".

The clerestory windows are said to belong to the 17th century. The east end of the south aisle is inclosed by a screen of old oak, with the Eyre crest over the entrance. Within, attached to a slab of black marble against the wall, is a plate of copper, finely engraved with the figures of a man and woman kneeling face to face at desks; below is a shield with the Eyre crest and a long latin inscription to Rowland Eyre esq. of Hassop ob. 1624, and Gertrude (Stafford) his wife. The register dates from 1638 and is in good preservation, "with the exception of several pages rendered illegible by damp". The living, in the gift of the vicar of Bakewell, had been held since 1932 by the Rev. Ernest Richard Wright Higham M.A. of Keble College, Oxford.

The return to the Religious Census of 1851 (HO 129/449/1/1/1) for "S. Giles - Church of Ancient Chapelry" recorded an estimated congregation on March 30th of 84 in the morning and 138 in the afternoon, with 80 and 81 Sunday Scholars respectively. It was completed by Jas. S. Hodson M.A., Perpetual Curate, living at "Gt. Longstone, Bakewell". The Living, he said, was "in Gift of Vicar of Bakewell, Parsonage House" [as it still was in 1932, as mentioned above].

Times have moved on since then, however, and these days some vicars have websites! By way of example, I am happy to say that thanks to one, a transcription of Memorials in St Giles's Churchyard is available by courtesy of the Rev. Clive Thrower, a former vicar of the parish.

There may be more information available by by selecting one or more of the accompanying images on the right.

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 SK2002571901. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

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 Great Longstone, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

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 8 Dec 2018 at 11:02.

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This Report was created 25 Nov 2024 - 06:44:20 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/DBY322.php
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