Scarcliffe is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of Parish (administrative division), administrative parish used for Local government in England, local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below district ...

in 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 ...

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the no ...

, England. It is sometimes called Scarcliffe with Palterton. The population of the parish (including the hamlets of Palterton, Rylah, Stockley, and parts of Stony Houghton and Hillstown (Bolsover)) at the

2001 UK Census A nationwide census, known as Census 2001, was conducted in the United Kingdom on Sunday, 29 April 2001. This was the 20th UK census and recorded a resident population of 58,789,194. The 2001 UK census was organised by the Office for National ...

was 5,211, increasing to 5,288 at the 2011 Census.

Location

About two miles (3 km) SSE of

Bolsover Bolsover is a market town and the administrative centre of the Bolsover District, Derbyshire, England. It is from London, from Sheffield, from Nottingham and from Derby. It is the main town in the Bolsover district. The civil parish for th ...

, the village's main street is the B6417 road between Clowne and New Houghton, which connects at Scarcliffe to the A617 between

Mansfield Mansfield is a market town and the administrative centre of Mansfield District in Nottinghamshire, England. It is the largest town in the wider Mansfield Urban Area (followed by Sutton-in-Ashfield). It gained the Royal Charter of a market t ...

and Chesterfield. Other nearby settlements include Clay Cross, Matlock, Shirebrook,

Warsop Warsop is a town and civil parish in the Mansfield district, Nottinghamshire, England, on the outskirts of the remnants of Sherwood Forest.OS Explorer Map 270: Sherwood Forest: (1:25 000): At the 2001 census it had a population of 12,365, reduci ...

, North Wingfield,

Tupton Tupton is a village and civil parish in North East Derbyshire, Derbyshire, England, south of Chesterfield. The population of the civil parish including Egstow and Old Tupton was at the 2011 Census 3,428. It lies just north of Clay Cross o ...

, Pilsley and

Ashover Ashover is a village and civil parish in the English county of Derbyshire. It is in the North East Derbyshire district of the county. The population of the civil parish taken at the 2011 Census was 1,905. It sits in a valley, not far from the tow ...

.Scarcliffe, Derbyshire
– home page of scarcliffeweb.co.uk (accessed 14 November 2007) Scarcliffe is within a few miles of Junction 29 of the

M1 motorway The M1 motorway connects London to Leeds, where it joins the A1(M) near Aberford, to connect to Newcastle. It was the first inter-urban motorway to be completed in the UK; the first motorway in the country was the Preston By-pass, whic ...

. Palterton is a

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depi ...

within the parish, one mile (1.6 km) to the west of the main village. In the early 20th century it had both a school and a post office. It still has a school now, however the post office is no longer in use. Palterton is recorded in 1086 in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

under the land of Ralph Fitzhubert. To the east of the main village are two areas of woodland, Langwith Wood and Roseland Wood.

Facilities

Both Scarcliffe and Palterton have its own primary school, which takes children between the ages of four and eleven and has some 80 places. There are two

pubs A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...

in Scarcliffe ('The Elm Tree' and 'The Horse and Groom') and the 'Palterton Miner's Welfare' in Palterton, but no shop in the hamlet or village.

Church

The most notable building is the Norman

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activitie ...

St Leonard Leonard of Noblac (also Leonard of Limoges or Leonard of Noblet; also known as Lienard, Linhart, Leonhard, Léonard, Leonardo, Annard; died 559), is a Frankish saint closely associated with the town and abbey of Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat, in Ha ...

, which is a Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

. It contains a handsome marble monument, dating to the 13th century, of a Lady Constantia, who holds a child in her arms. A stone tympanum over an ancient door is carved with geometrical patterns, and there is a

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

piscina A piscina is a shallow basin placed near the altar of a church, or else in the vestry or sacristy, used for washing the communion vessels. The sacrarium is the drain itself. Anglicans usually refer to the basin, calling it a piscina. For Roman ...

. The oak parish chest is almost ten feet long. The

church tower Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chris ...

is fairly modern, having been added in the 1830s. In the 21st century, the church has increased its peal of bells from five to eight. The Scarcliffe ecclesiastical parish includes Scarcliffe, Palterton and Hillstown. Scarcliffe now forms a united benefice with Ault Hucknall, Astwith, Bramley Vale, Doe Lea, Glapwell,

Hardwick Hall Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire is an architecturally significant country house from the Elizabethan era, a leading example of the Elizabethan prodigy house. Built between 1590 and 1597 for Bess of Hardwick, it was designed by the architect R ...

, Stainsby, Rowthorne, and Hardstoft.

History

The village was part of the ancient

hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101. In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to des ...

of Scarsdale. Before the Dissolution of the Monasteries the church was held by

Darley Abbey Darley Abbey is a former historic mill village, now a suburb of the city of Derby, England. It is located approximately north of the city centre, on the west bank of the River Derwent, and forms part of the Darley ward along with Little Che ...

, later becoming a

vicar A vicar (; Latin: '' vicarius'') is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior (compare "vicarious" in the sense of "at second hand"). Linguistically, ''vicar'' is cognate with the English pr ...

age in the gift of the Dukes of Devonshire, major landowners in the area. The 13th century resident Lady Constantia (whose monument is in the church) left of land to provide for the ringing of the church's curfew bell for three weeks on either side of Christmas in perpetuity. After some eight hundred years, the 'Bellrope Charity' continues to serve its founder's purpose. The surviving

parish register A parish register in an ecclesiastical parish is a handwritten volume, normally kept in the parish church in which certain details of religious ceremonies marking major events such as baptisms (together with the dates and names of the parents), ma ...

s date from 1680. The village school was built in 1868–1869. It was established opposite the former

Primitive Methodist The Primitive Methodist Church is a Methodist Christian denomination with the holiness movement. It began in England in the early 19th century, with the influence of American evangelist Lorenzo Dow (1777–1834). In the United States, the Primit ...

church, which had been founded in 1858 but is now demolished.

John Marius Wilson John Marius Wilson (c. 1805–1885) was a British writer and an editor, most notable for his gazetteers. The ''Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales'' (published 1870–72), was a substantial topographical dictionary in six volumes. It was a c ...

's ''

Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales The ''Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales'' is a substantial topographical dictionary first published between 1870 and 1872, edited by the Reverend John Marius Wilson. It contains a detailed description of England and Wales. Its six volumes ...

'' (1870–1872) says:

Scarcliffe railway station Scarcliffe railway station is a former railway station in Scarcliffe, Derbyshire, England. History The line was opened by the Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway (later part of the Great Central Railway and subsequently the LNER ...

opened in March 1897. It was built by the

Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway The Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway (LD&ECR) was built to connect coalfields in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire with Warrington and a new port on the Lincolnshire coast. It was a huge undertaking, and the company was unable to raise ...

, which later became part of the

Great Central Railway The Great Central Railway in England was formed when the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway changed its name in 1897, anticipating the opening in 1899 of its London Extension. On 1 January 1923, the company was grouped into the ...

and subsequently the LNER). The line through the station was brought to a premature demise in December 1951 by the deteriorating state of the 2,624-yard (2,399-metre) Bolsover Tunnel a short distance to the west. The tunnel was mostly filled in with colliery waste in 1966-7 but the eastern (Scarcliffe) portal is still visible at the end of an unusually deep sheer-sided cutting. Palterton also had a station – Palterton & Sutton – on the Doe Lea Valley Line from Staveley to Pleasley. It was opened in September 1890 by the

Midland Railway The Midland Railway (MR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844. The Midland was one of the largest railway companies in Britain in the early 20th century, and the largest employer in Derby, where it had its headquarters. It ama ...

, later part of the

LMS LMS may refer to: Science and technology * Labeled magnitude scale, a scaling technique * Learning management system, education software * Least mean squares filter, producing least mean square error * Leiomyosarcoma, a rare form of cancer * Lenz ...

. It closed to passengers in September 1930. In the early 20th century, the main landowner was the 7th Earl Bathurst.

Geology

The soil is predominantly

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms wh ...

and the subsoil limestone and clay. The village is in a region which is underlaid by a large porous water-bearing rock structure called the Magnesian Limestone

aquifer An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing, permeable rock, rock fractures, or unconsolidated materials ( gravel, sand, or silt). Groundwater from aquifers can be extracted using a water well. Aquifers vary greatly in their characteri ...

, which dips downwards to the east. Magnesian Limestone is so called because it contains quantities of the mineral Dolomite, which is rich in

Magnesium Magnesium is a chemical element with the symbol Mg and atomic number 12. It is a shiny gray metal having a low density, low melting point and high chemical reactivity. Like the other alkaline earth metals (group 2 of the periodic ...

. Where the aquifer comes to the surface, springs appear, and the River Poulter rises from such a spring to the south west of the village, after which it flows around the southern edge on its way to join the

River Idle The River Idle is a river in Nottinghamshire, England whose source is the confluence of the River Maun and River Meden near Markham Moor. The Idle flows north from its source through Retford and Bawtry before entering the River Trent at West St ...

Elkesley Elkesley is a village in Nottinghamshire, England. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 805, increasing to 822 at the 2011 Census. It is located 6 miles south of Retford. The parish church of St Giles was built c. 1300 in Deco ...

Local government

Scarcliffe has its own elected parish council. While this has few powers, it is consulted on all decisions affecting the village by Derbyshire County Council and

Bolsover District Council Bolsover is a market town and the administrative centre of the Bolsover District, Derbyshire, England. It is from London, from Sheffield, from Nottingham and from Derby. It is the main town in the Bolsover district. The civil parish for th ...

, which together provide most of the local government services. Before a reorganisation in 1974, Scarcliffe was part of the Blackwell Rural District.

Parliament

The village is in the

parliamentary constituency An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger state (a country, administrative region, or other poli ...

and elects its

MEPs A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the ECSC) first met in 1952, it ...

as part of the

East Midlands The East Midlands is one of nine official regions of England at the ITL 1 statistical regions of England, first level of International Territorial Level, ITL for Statistics, statistical purposes. It comprises the eastern half of the area tradi ...

region.

Notable people

* Harry Elliott (1891–1976),

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

cricketer Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...

References

Kelly's Directory Kelly's Directory (or more formally, the Kelly's, Post Office and Harrod & Co Directory) was a trade directory in England that listed all businesses and tradespeople in a particular city or town, as well as a general directory of postal addresses ...

of the Counties of Derby, Notts, Leicester and Rutland (London, 1891) p. 296
Scarcliffe
at genuki.org.uk (accessed 19 October 2007)
Scarcliffe
home page at scarcliffeweb.co.uk (accessed 19 October 2007)

at Ault Hucknall & Scarcliffe Churches and Charities online (accessed 19 October 2007)
Scarcliffe Primary School
at ofsted.gov.uk (accessed 19 October 2007)

External links

at roll-of-honour.com

at scarcliffeweb.co.uk {{authority control Villages in Derbyshire Civil parishes in Derbyshire Bolsover District