Bolsover, Derbyshire

Description
Bolsover, a small town a township, and a parish in Derbyshire, with a station on a branch of the M.R. The town occupies the summit of a steep hill, 6 miles E of Chesterfield, 8 from Mansfield, and 4 from Langwith. It is rapidly growing, and bids fair to become soon a very populous place by the development of the coal industry. The East to West railway runs close to the town, which commands a splendid view, and retains traces of fortifications which once surrounded it. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Chesterfield, formerly had a market, and once carried on a famous manufacture of steel buckles and spurs, subsequently engaging in the making of tobacco-pipes and fire-bricks. The parisli includes also the hamlets of Whaley Thorns, Whaley, Oxcroft, Stanfree, Shuttlewood, Woodhouse, and the township of Glapwell. Acreage, 4955; population of the civil parish, 3662; of the ecclesiastical, 3748. The manor belonged at the Conquest to Peveril of the Peak, passed to the Earl of Morton, afterwards King John, went in the time of Henry III. to the Earl of Chester, and afterwards to Lord Abergavenny; was resumed, in 1243, by the Crown, passed to Roger Lovetot, the Pipards, the Sturys, the Earl of Richmond, and the Duke of Norfolk; reverted again to the Crown; went in the time of Edward VI. to Sir John Byron, and afterwards to Lord Talbot and Sir Charles Cavendish; descended from the last to the Dukes of Newcastle, and passed from them by marriage to the Dukes of Portland. A Norman keep was built on it by the Peverils, and was of military importance in the troubles of the time of King John. A palatial castle superseded this under Sir Charles Cavendish, the founder of the ducal house of Newcastle; was besieged and partly demolished in 1644 during the Civil War; underwent partial reconstruction after the Restoration, was unroofed about the middle of last. century, and is now a picturesque ruin. the Earl of Newcastle three times entertained Charles I. and his Court here, and on one of these occasions, which was assisted by the genius of Ben Jonson, spent about £15,000. The riding-house is still in good order, and the Tudor restoration of the Norman keep was till lately used as the parsonage. A yellow magnesian limestone is quarried in the parish. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Southwell; gross value, £120 with residence. Patron, the Duke of Portland. The church is Norman, withe later additions in different styles, and contains splendid monuments of the Dukes of Newcastle and Portland, and a number of other monuments. It was thoroughly restored in 1877. There are Congregational, Primitive Methodist, and Wesleyan chapels, and charities of over £100 yearly.