General history: Ecclesiastical and civil division

Division of the County, Ecclesiastical and Civil.

The civil subdivisions of Derbyshire, like those of most other northern counties, were anciently called wapentakes. In the Domesday Survey, we find mention of the wapentakes of Scarvedale, Hamestan, Morlestan, Walecross, and Apultre, and a district called Peche-fers (fn. n1); but we gain no information from it, as to the extent of the several districts. The Hundred Roll, a record of the year 1273, speaks of the wapentakes of Peck, Scarvedale, Apeltre (fn. n2), Repindon, Greselegh, Little-chirch, and Wyrkesworth. Other records speak of the hundreds of Risley and Sawley. This seems to have been the same district, and probably a part of the wapentake called in the Domesday Survey, Morlestan, and in the Hundred-Roll, Littlechirch, now the hundred of Morleston and Litchurch. The Wirksworth division still retains the name of a wapentake ; the other modern divisions, Apple,tree, High-Peak, Scarsdale, Repton and Gresley, and Morleston and Litchurch are called hundreds. The hundred of Repton and Gresley, which seems to have been two wapentakes, in 1273, is supposed to answer to the .wapentake of Walecross, spoken of in the Domesday Survey ; and tjhe Wapentake of Hamestan there mentioned, is supposed to have consisted chiefly of what is now the hundred of High-Peak.

In the reign of Edward I., the wapentakes of Apeltre and Repington, which had belonged to the crown, were by the King's grant, vested in Edmund Earl of Lancaster. (fn. n3) The wapentake of Greselegh belonged to the heirs of the Earl of Chester (fn. n4), and the wapentake of Scarvedale to Nicholas Lord Wake. The Lordship of this wapentake (now the hundred of Scarsdale) has always passed with that of Chesterfield, and is vested in his Grace the Duke of Devonshire, who is lessee under the Duchy of Lancaster of the hundred of the High-Peak.

The hundred of Appletree, of which Lord Vernon is lessee, has been held by the Vernon family on lease under the Duchy of Lancaster, ever since the year 1660. Richard Arkwright, Esq., M. P., is lessee of the wapentake of Wirksworth, under the Duchy. The Lordship of the hundred of Repton and Gresley, which has long passed with the manor of Repton, is vested in Sir Henry Crewe, Bart. The hundred of Morleston and Litchurch is in the crown.

Derbyshire is an archdeaconry in the diocese of Lichfield and Coventry, and is divided into six deaneries ; Alto Pecco or High-Peak, Ashborne, Castillar, Chesterfield, Derby, and Repington.

Bakewell, Hope, Tideswell, and their chapelries, Chapel-en-le-Frith and Kniveton, are in the peculiar jurisdiction of the Dean and Chapter of Lichfield ; Sawley and its chapelries are in the jurisdiction of the prebendary of that corps, in the church of Lichfield ; Calke, Dale-Abbey, and Hartington, with the chapel of Sterndale, and Peak-Forest chapel, are exempt from ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

According to Wolsey's list, the number pf parishes in this county, in the reign of Henry VIII., was 106. Pilkington was very nearly correct instating them at 116 in 1789 ; the number, as will be seen by the following table, is 117. There are also forty-nine parochial, and three extraparochial chapels, in which the rites of baptism and sepulture are performed. Many of these have long been deemed, and are usually described as separate and distinct parishes ; there are thirteen chapels of other descriptions, and two extra-parochial chapels, in which the rites of baptism and sepulture are not performed.

Fifty of the benefices in Derbyshire are rectories ; fifty-eight vicarages, and nine donatives or perpetual curacies. Of the vicarages, donatives, &c. forty-seven were appropriated to religious houses ; five to the Dean and Chapter of Lichfield, three to the Dean of Lincoln, one (Kniveton) passed by exchange from the former to the latter, and was afterwards alienated to lay hands ; one (Tibshelf ) was appropriated to the vicars-choral of Lichfield, two to the Bishop of Carlisle, one (Scropton) to a chantry in.lhe parish church, and one (Longford) to the sine cure rector. Table of Parishes.