crich area community news

About Crich

On this page you will find a map of Crich and key places of interest in and around the village, a potted history of Crich and some useful links to other websites.

Map of Crich

Below is a map of Crich generated by Googlemaps. Click on the links to locate various places of interest in the village.

You can use the controls to zoom in and out or to move the map around and clicking on the markers will provide a description of that location.

Use Googlemaps to get directions to and from Crich.

The Transpeak bus service is FREE for Gold Card holders after 9.30am.

It goes from Manchester to Nottingham via Derby, stopping at Whatstandwell & Ambergate.

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A Short History of Crich Parish

The name 'Crich' may well have appeared in recognisable form around the end of the first Millennium. It seems to have evolved from the Celtic name for crag or hill ('crue' or 'cryc') - a sign of the importance of having a settlement at the highest point on an ancient north-south routeway running parallel to the River Derwent. This track was not along The Common, as we would know it today. More likely, it was a cattle drovers' route which would have climbed from Ambergate to the Hagg, and then on along the foot of the Tors, to the manor held in the early 1000s by the family of Godwin, the Saxon Earl of Wessex.

Our best record of the village and parish in these times comes from the Norman Domesday book of 1086. Much of the area would have been woodland pasture, where sheep or cattle were allowed to graze along with the King's or Lord's deer. The parish was still mostly woodland in the late 1600s, it was only with the final enclosures of land into farms and the felling of trees to provide for the navy in the Napoleonic wars that this landscape changed dramatically. In 1086 the manor was owned by Ralph Fitzhubert, with land worked by 4 ploughs, and a lead mine (valued then at 30 shillings). He became involved in a civil war and was hanged for his troubles, but the family continued to run the manor. What follows is an abbreviated history of some of the key dates of the next 900 years.

Brief Time-line

1135-54	Building of Crich church started - this area remained the geographical centre of the village until the 1700s.
1166	Crich manor pays a levy to the Crown equal to the value of supporting 30 knights.
1212	Crich Chase woods (along Derwent valley) are used by Hubert FitzRalph for hunting.
1390	First Whatstandwell bridge built by John de Stepul as an act of piety to the church. Wat Stonewell was previously the ford keeper.
1400s	Crich manor passes to Ralph, Lord Cromwell, Treasurer to Henry IV.
1550s	Crich cattle fair well established on land between the Church and the Cross - held until early 1900s.
1660	After this date, the family of the Earl of Shrewsbury begin selling off land to a new class of yeoman farmers in the village.
1734	Crich Workhouse built by the edge of the Common.
1759	The Nottingham - Newhaven turnpike road (now B5035 Roes Lane, Sandy Lane) is set up.
1765	Wesley Methodist Chapel is built in Crich (visited by John Wesley in 1766 and 1770)
1785	Francis Hurt rebuilds his family's wooden viewing platform as a conical stone tower -the second Crich Stand.
1786	Final enclosures of common land take place - this means farming for the first time in the Crich quarry area, Plaistow Green, the Tors area, the Common and Crich Chase. Only the area now known as the Jubilee is left for common grazing.
1794	First 'Friendly Society', 'for the benefit of sick and infirm members' is set up in Crich.
1811	Half of the working population of the parish earn a living through farming (this is less than 2% today).
1817-8	Belper to Cromford road? built, with Crich receiving a regular horse-drawn courier service en route from Derby to Manchester.
1841	George Stephenson begins the transport of limestone to Ambergate from the Cliff quarry site.
1848	Church of England National School (now Crich Infants) opened on Bowns Hill.
1852	Whatstandwell station opened.
1871	Crich's old wooden cross at the top of Bown's Hill is replaced by the present stone cross, designed by Isaac Petts.
1877	Baptist chapel opens on Market Place on the site of a manor house - replacing an earlier one on Roes Lane.
1883	Great rivalry between National (C of E) and British (Nonconformist) schools leading to a new British School - now Crich Juniors.
1887	Stone circle set up and trees planted to mark Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee - and in 1897 to mark her Diamond Jubilee.
1906	First piped water in Crich.
1921	Gas street lighting comes to Crich.
1923	Rebuilt Stand opened as a memorial to the Sherwood Foresters Regiment.
1923	Crich cinema opened.
1924	The first electricity in the village.
1928	The first council houses are built in Crich.
1951	Television reception possible in Crich.
1957	Tramway Museum Society moves to Crich, start of National Tramway Museum.
1996	Crich Area Community News launched
1997	Opening of the Glebe Field Centre.
2006	Crich Area Community News goes online.