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St Michael's Church,
Church Lane, NG19 7TD,
Pleasley, 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 12th century, and we understand it is still open.

Pleasley is situated 9 miles south-east from Chesterfield, and 3 miles north-west of Mansfield. Kelly's Directory of 1932 records St Michael's Church as "a building of stone in the Early English, Decorated and Perpendicular styles, consisting of chancel, nave, south porch and an embattled western tower containing 5 bells". The chancel arch is Norman, highly ornamented, and the tower Perpendicular. The parish records date from 1553. The living was in the gift of Mrs McCreagh Thornhill, and had been held since 1918 by the Rev. John Whatley Pyddoke M.A. of Trinity College, Cambridge.

Pleasley was described as "a parish and pleasant village, on the road from Mansfield to Chesterfield, with a goods station on the Teversall branch of the London, Midland and Scottish railway". It included the township of Shirebrook until 1849, when the latter was created a separate parish. The process was completed when a formerly detached part of Pleasley was transferred to Shirebrook in 1884. The Lene valley extension of the London and North Eastern railway ran through the parish. Pleasley Vale, "a romantic spot extending from a mile and a quarter to a mile and a half north-east of the village", is the site of the extensive cotton, silk and merino spinning mills of William Hollins and Co. Limited, giving employment to 1,300 hands; both water and steam power are employed; the river Meden or Mayden winds for a mile through the valley, and previous to reaching the first mill spreads itself into a wide sheet. On the north-east side of the lower mills are precipitous rocks or ravines of limestone.

A market formerly held here on Mondays has been discontinued, but the pedestal of the market cross still remains on the brow of the hill in the village. Two fairs were formerly held for cattle, horses and sheep, on May 6th and October 29th. The parish was said to include the hamlet of Stoney Houghton, and the colliery villages of Upper Pleasley and New Houghton.

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 SK5042964571. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• St Michael's Church, Pleasley shown on a Google Map.
• Places of Worship in Pleasley 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)