Over Haddon is a small village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It borders Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, and South Yorkshire to the north, Nottinghamshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south-east, Staffordshire to the south a ...

, England. The population of the civil parish (including

Nether Haddon Nether Haddon is a sparsely populated village and civil parish in Derbyshire, England. It is immediately downstream along the River Wye from the small town of Bakewell and much of its land is owned by Haddon Hall, a medieval and Tudor building ...

) at the 2011 Census was 255. It is near the small town of

Bakewell Bakewell is a market town and civil parish in the Derbyshire Dales district of Derbyshire, England, known for Bakewell pudding. It lies on the River Wye, Derbyshire, River Wye, 15 miles (23 km) south-west of Sheffield. It is the largest se ...

, south of the B5055 road. Over Haddon overlooks

Lathkill Dale Lathkill Dale is the valley of the River Lathkill near Bakewell, Derbyshire in the Peak District of England. The river emerges into the dale from springs below Lathkill Head Cave (or, in wet conditions, from the cave itself). Towards the head o ...

and the

River Lathkill The River Lathkill is a river in the Peak District National Park in Derbyshire, England. First recorded in 1280, the name "Lathkill" possibly has Scandinavian roots, the old Norse ''hlada-kill'' translating as "narrow valley with a barn". C ...

, which may be crossed by a

clapper bridge A clapper bridge is an ancient form of bridge found on the moors of the English West Country (Bodmin Moor, Dartmoor and Exmoor) and in other upland areas of the United Kingdom including Snowdonia and Anglesey, Cumbria, Derbyshire, Yorkshire, L ...

on a footpath running south from the village.

The bridge The Bridge may refer to: Art, entertainment and media Art * ''The Bridge'' (sculpture), a 1997 sculpture in Atlanta, Georgia, US * Die Brücke (''The Bridge''), a group of German expressionist artists * ''The Bridge'' (M. C. Escher), a lithograph ...

may be medieval. The village has two churches, a

public house A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption Licensing laws of the United Kingdom#On-licence, on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the ...

, and a car park. Around the year 1667 Over Haddon was home to Martha Taylor, one of the earliest documented examples of a

fasting girl A fasting girl was one of a number of young Victorian era girls, usually pre-adolescent, who claimed to be able to survive over indefinitely long periods of time without consuming any food or other nourishment. In addition to refusing food, fasti ...

, who claimed to be able to survive for months without food. The name "Haddon" means "Heath Hill", the "Over" referring to being above "Nether Haddon" (Haddon Hall). The site of a

deserted medieval village In the United Kingdom, a deserted medieval village (DMV) is a former settlement which was abandoned during the Middle Ages, typically leaving no trace apart from earthworks or cropmarks. If there are fewer than three inhabited houses the conve ...

, Conksbury, is on the south bank of the River Lathkill, between Over Haddon and

Youlgreave Youlgreave or Youlgrave is a village and civil parish in the Peak District of Derbyshire, England, on the River Bradford south of Bakewell. The name possibly derives from "yellow grove", the ore mined locally being yellow in colour. The popul ...

, the village was abandoned during the

Black Death The Black Death was a bubonic plague pandemic that occurred in Europe from 1346 to 1353. It was one of the list of epidemics, most fatal pandemics in human history; as many as people perished, perhaps 50% of Europe's 14th century population. ...

. Over Haddon is the birthplace of

Maurice Oldfield Sir Maurice Oldfield (16 November 1915 – 11 March 1981) was a British intelligence officer and espionage administrator. He served as the seventh director of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), from 1973 to 1978. Early life Oldfield was b ...

, a former head of

MI6 The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...

and reputedly the inspiration for both

John le Carré David John Moore Cornwell (19 October 193112 December 2020), better known by his pen name John le Carré ( ), was a British author, best known for his espionage novels, many of which were successfully adapted for film or television. A "sophist ...

George Smiley George Smiley OBE is a fictional character created by John le Carré. Smiley is a career intelligence officer with " The Circus", the British overseas intelligence agency. He is a central character in the novels '' Call for the Dead'', '' A ...

and 'M' in the

James Bond The ''James Bond'' franchise focuses on James Bond (literary character), the titular character, a fictional Secret Intelligence Service, British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels ...

books. He died in 1981 and is buried in the village.

References

External links

Village websiteThe Peak District On-line, Over Haddon page
Villages in Derbyshire Towns and villages of the Peak District Derbyshire Dales {{Derbyshire-geo-stub

See also

References

External links