Peak Forest, Derbyshire

Description
Peak Forest, a village and a parish in Derbyshire. The village lies 5 miles NE of Buxton, is very picturesque, and has a station on the M.R., and a post office under Stockport; money order office, Tideswell; telegraph office at railway station. The parish comprises 5299 acres ; population, 502. There is a parish council consisting of six members. The manor belongs to the Duke of Devonshire. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Southwell; net value, £195 with residence. Patron, the Duke of Devonshire. The church was built in 1657 by a lady member of the Devonshire family, for the use of the foresters in the king's forest, and though erected in Cromwell's lifetime it was dedicated to Charles, king and martyr. It was a peculiar, extra-parochial and extra-episcopal. The minister held a peculiar court for the proving of wills, making affidavits, creating bonds, &c., but it was as a church where what were locally called foreign marriages were solemnized that it was most widely known. The average number of these runaway marriages from 1657 to 1804 was about ninety a year, and the parties came from all parts of England. The new church, built by the seventh Duke of Devonshire and consecrated in 1877, is also dedicated to King Charles. There are extensive limeworks in the neighbourhood and a Wesleyan chapel.