Middleton by Youlgreave

Middleton is served by the Mobile Library on route N, which makes a stop in the village on Main Street every fourth Friday in the early afternoon.

You may want to use the Library in Bakewell, which has a Local Studies Section and a Family History section and is open six days per week.

• Our Middleton : An historical celebration of the ancient parish of Middleton and Smerrill. Middleton Village History Group, 2001. No ISBN.

• The parish was in the Bakewell sub-district of the Bakewell Registration District.
   
• The table below gives census piece numbers, where known:
   

• The Anglican parish chapel is dedicated to Saint Michael and All Angels.
   
• The chapel was for many years disused, then it was restored in 1899.
   
• Peter BARR has a photograph of St. Michael's Church on Geo-graph, taken in December, 2009.

• The church was in the rural deanery of Bakewell.
   
• A Congregational chapel was built here in 1826.
   
• A Primitive Methodist chapel was built here of wood in 1850.

• Civil Registration began in July, 1837.
   
• The parish was in the Bakewell sub-district of the Bakewell Registration District.

"MIDDLETON-WITH-SMERRIL, a township in the parish of Youlgreave, hundred of Wirksworth, county Derby, 1½ mile S.W. of Youlgreave, and 3 miles S.W. of Bakewell. In the neighbourhood is a Druidical circle called "Arborlowe's ring", and several barrows, in which Celtic antiquities have been found."

[Description(s) from The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868)
Transcribed by Colin HINSON ©2003]

• Basher EYRE has a photograph of the village Drinking Fountain on Geo-graph, taken in July, 2015.
   
• Jonathan CLITHEROE has a photograph of The River Bradford on Geo-graph, taken in August, 2010. This shot is just north-east of the village.
   
• Visit the Middleton by Youlgrave website before you travel to the village.
   
• Malcome NEAL has a phtograph of the Village Sign on Geo-graph, taken in August, 2018. Obviously the sign could use some of your artistic talent to improve it.

• Geograph
• Flickr

• Mel LOCKIE has a transcription of the Middleton with Smerril entry under Youlgreave from Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of England, 1831.
   
• Ann ANDREWS provides a transcription of the Middleton with Smerril entry under Youlgreave from Kelly's Directory of the Counties of Derby, Notts, Leicester and Rutland (1891).

• The transcription of the section for Middleton with Smerril from the National Gazetteer (1868) provided by Colin HINSON.

• Ask for a calculation of the distance from Middleton by Youlgreave to another place.

Arbor Low, a significant Neolithic barrow, lies two miles west of the village.

The parish is mentioned in the 1086 Domesday Book.

The village grew during the Middle Ages.

The entire village was rebuilt in the 1820s by Thomas BATEMAN.

Neil THEASBY has a photograph of the tomb of Thomas and Sarah BATEMAN on Geo-graph, taken in August, 2013.

Basher EYRE has a photograph of the historic Drinking Fountain on Geo-graph, taken in July, 2015. This structure is a Listed Structure under English Heritage.

Thomas BATEMAN rebuilt Middleton Hall in the 1820s as his own residence.

You can see maps centred on OS grid reference SK195631 (Lat/Lon: 53.164667, -1.709787), Middleton by Youlgreave which are provided by:

• OpenStreetMap
• Google Maps
• StreetMap (Current Ordnance Survey maps)
• Bing (was Multimap)
• Old Maps Online
• National Library of Scotland (Old Ordnance Survey maps)
• Vision of Britain (Click "Historical units & statistics" for administrative areas.)
• English Jurisdictions in 1851 (Unfortunately the LDS have removed the facility to enable us to specify a starting location, you will need to search yourself on their map.)
• Magic (Geographic information) (Click + on map if it doesn't show)
• GeoHack (Links to on-line maps and location specific services.)

• All places within the same township/parish shown on an Openstreetmap map.
• Nearby townships/parishes shown on an Openstreetmap map.
• Nearby places shown on an Openstreetmap map.

• There is a window in the parish church of Youlgreave, dated 1912, that is dedicated to Major Michael McCREACH -THORNHILL.
   
• There is also a War Memorial in Middleton. It is a small stone by the side of the main road across from Rock Farm.
   
• During WWII a Wellington bomber crashed near Middleton village. The RAF crew, mostly Australian, is remembered on the plaque below and at a Derbyshire Dales History page.
   
• There is a framed white-stone plaque in a grey frame inside the parish church for the 41 people who died in World War One.
   
• Peter BARR has a photograph of the RAF War Memorial on Geo-graph, taken in March, 2009.
   
• Peter BARR has a photograph of the WWII War Memorial on Geo-graph, taken in December, 2009.

The RAF Memorial reads: "In Memory of the crew of Wellington Bomber RAF No.BJ 652 which crashed at Smerrill on January 21st, 1944". The men who died were:

1. R.A.A.F. Flying Officer Keith Jobson PERRETT aged 27 of Brisbane, Queensland.
2. R.A.A.F. Flt. Sgt. Frederick Popham DESHON aged 27 of Brisbane, Queensland.
3. R.A.A.F. Flt. Sgt. William Thomas BARNES aged 27 of Queensland
4. R.A.A.F. Flt. Sgt. James KYDD aged 26 of Wynnum, Queensland.
5. R.A.A.F. Flt.Sgt. Lloyd George EDMONDS aged 25 of Unley, South Australia.
6. R.A.A.F. Sergeant Thomas Dudley MURTON aged 19 of Tatura, Victoria.

• This place was an ancient Chapelry and Township in Youlgreave parish in Derby county and it was incorporated as a separate, modern Civil Parish in December, 1866.
   
• This parish was in the ancient Scarsdale Hundred (or Wapentake).
   
• Note: Several sources report that this parish was in the Wirksworth Hundred.
   
• The official name of the Civil Parish is "Middleton and Smerrill".
   
• The parish is governed by the joint Middleton and Smerrill Parish Council. You may contact them regarding civic or political matters, but please do NOT ask them to do family history work for you.
   
• District governance is provided by the High Peak Borough Council.

• Bastardy cases would be heard in the Bakewell petty session hearings each Friday.
   
• As a result of the Poorlaw Amendment Act reforms of 1834, this parish became a member of the Bakewell Poorlaw Union.

In a Will proved in 1875 (made in 1873), Isaac GRINDEY the elder of Middleton by Youlgreave, yeoman, mentions:

1. sons Isaac, John, Wm, Sampson and James
2. a farm at Brassington Moor
3. lands at Bentey Grange in occupation of James PETT
4. dau. Hannah wife of John WALLWIN of Grange Mill
5. John PRINCE of Biggin by Hartington
6. John R. RIGBY Clerk to Mr. HOLLAND Solr, Ashbourne witness
7. Peter BONSALL Monyash witness

A Public Elementary School (mixed) was built here in 1882 to hold 60 children.