Pinxton is a village and
civil parish in
Derbyshire on the eastern boundary of
Nottinghamshire,
England, just south of the Pinxton
Interchange at Junction 28 of the
M1 motorway where the
A38 road
The A38, parts of which are known as Devon Expressway, Bristol Road and Gloucester Road, Bristol, Gloucester Road, is a major A-class trunk road in England.
The road runs from Bodmin in Cornwall to Mansfield in Nottinghamshire. It is long, mak ...
meets the M1. Pinxton is part of the
Bolsover District
Bolsover District is a local government district in Derbyshire, England. It is named after the town of Bolsover, which is near the geographic centre of the district, but the council is based in Clowne. At the 2011 Census, the district had a pop ...
and at the
2011 Census had a population of 5,699.
"Pinxton CCTV level crossing", located on the up and down Kirkby lines, is a major tourist attraction for train enthusiasts who come from all over the country to take photographs of some of the unique locomotives that pass over the crossing.
History
Etymology
In Anglo-Saxon times, Pinxton was a small agricultural community, thought to have been recorded in the
Domesday Book of 1086 as "Esnotrewic." It is also thought that it was known as "Snodeswic," given by
Wulfric Spott
Wulfric (died ''circa'' 1004), called Wulfric Spot or Spott, was an Anglo-Saxon nobleman. His will is an important document from the reign of King Æthelred the Unready. Wulfric was a patron of the Burton Abbey, around which the modern town of B ...
to
Burton Abbey. In Norman times, along with a number of other manors, it was under the control of
William Peveril, for whom it was held by
Drogo fitz Pons. It is thought that he renamed the manor "Ponceston" and it gradually changed to Penekeston and then to Pinxton.
Coal
Since 1800 BC,
coal had been extracted in the area. In 1794 the
Cromford Canal
The Cromford Canal ran from Cromford to the Erewash Canal in Derbyshire, England with a branch to Pinxton. Built by William Jessop with the assistance of Benjamin Outram, its alignment included four tunnels and 14 locks.
From Cromford it ran ...
encouraged this trade. By the beginning of the next century there were a number of deep coal mine