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St James's Church,
Norton Lane, S8 8JQ,
Norton, 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 by 1174, and we understand it is still open.

Kelly's Directory of 1932 describes Norton as a pleasant village and civil parish, 2½ miles from Beauchief station on the Midland section of the London, Midland and Scottish railway, 4 south from Sheffield, 8 north-west from Chesterfield and 164 from London. Under the provisions of the Sheffield Corporation Act, 1903, the districts of Norton Woodseats, Meersbrook and Meersbrook Bank were transferred to the borough of Sheffield.

The church of St James is "a spacious building of sandstone in the Late Norman and Perpendicular styles, consisting of chancel, nave, aisles south-east or Blythe chapel, south porch and an embattled tower with pinnacles, containing a clock and 8 bells". The Blythe chapel, a structure of magnesian limestone, was erected by the family of that name in the early part of the 16th century. There are monuments to the Blythe and Bullock families, and a tablet with a medallion portrait to Sir Francis Chantrey R.A. who was born here in 1781, and is buried in the churchyard. He died 25 Nov 1841.

The foundation of a place of worship here (if not the building itself) may be traced to 1174 or earlier, as when Robert FitzRanulph, lord of Alfreton, founded Beauchief Abbey that year, he endowed it with the churches of Alfreton, Norton, Edwalton (Notts.), and Wymeswold (Leics.)

The return to the Religious Census of 1851 (HO 129/507/3/2/2) for "St James's Church, Ancient Parish Church" recorded it as consecrated (or licensed) "about 350 years ago" [ie about 1500]. The building had free seating for 70, and 450 "other" sittings; and the estimated congregation on March 30th was 126 in the morning and 166 in the afternoon, with 52 and 60 Sunday Scholars respectively. The return was completed by Henry Hollingworth Pearson, its Vicar, who gave his address as "Norton, near Sheffield".

The parish records date from 1559. The living in 1932 was a rectory in the gift of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and had been held since 1929 by the Rev. John Stanton Pegge M.A. of that college. There is a rectory library bequeathed by the Rev. Cavendish Neville, a former incumbent.

A further portion of the parish was transferred to the City of Sheffield in 1933, and the whole to the diocese of Sheffield in 1974. The parish records are held by Sheffield Archives.

For more information on the Church's history, a description of the Churchyard, a list of former Incumbents, and the opportunity to take an "electronic church tour", see St James's Church website.

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 SK3587582171. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

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

• You may want to visit St James's Church website for present-day information.

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.