Peak Experience

Churches are involved in people’s lives from birth to death.  Church architecture and features reflect this. In our Peak District churches you’ll find a wealth of historic church features. Some are over 1,000 years old.  Read on to find out what to look for in identifying church features.

 

Fonts are used for baptizing babies.  In Saxon or Norman churches, the font is often the only surviving original feature.  These fonts tend to be round and heavy with distinctive stylized carving.  Later fonts are lighter and more decorative.

 

A picture of a norman font

 

Some older fonts have been through bad times in the past.  They were used as cooking pots, washing-up bowls and even pig troughs.  Look carefully to see if you can find traces of their being moved around.

 

When fonts came back into fashion in Victorian times, many of the older ones were rediscovered and restored.

 

Some fonts have been moved from church to church.  The font at Youlgreave originally came from Elton church, which tried very hard, but failed, to get it returned.

 

For liturgical reasons, fonts are almost always found at the back of the church, near the entrance.  However, modern fashions have begun to change this and more recent fonts tend to be placed closer to the pulpit.

Derbyshire churches boast graves and memorials dating back over 1,200 years!  Why not design your trail to take in this vast sweep of history.

 

From Saxon times to the sixties, you can see a Saxon coffin lid (800 AD) at Wirksworth church, and John F. Kennedy’s sister’s grave at Edensor.

 

In Fenny Bentley you can see the Beresford family tomb.  Sir Thomas Beresford was a knight at Agincourt.  Now he lies shrouded beside his wife, Agnes, surrounded by their 21 shrouded children in this elaborate and unusual memorial.

 

You’ll find the knightly tombs of the Cokayne family in the north chapel of Ashbourne church.  Here you can also see the lovely memorial to young Penelope Boothby, dating from the 1700s.

 

The Fitzherbert founders of Norbury church lie splendidly illuminated by the medieval stained glass of their chancel.  They are not in their original places.  Over the years many tombs get shuffled around into more convenient places.

 

Ilam church contains the tomb of St Bertram in its own chapel.

 

And of course, you’ll find in churches and churchyards everywhere more of these engrossing insights into past lives.  Longnor church has a collection of gravestones with fascinating inscriptions.  Bakewell has a memorial to a workman who died while working on the tower.

 

Richard Arkwright, one of the founders of the Industrial Revolution, is modestly commemorated in Cromford church.  In Tissington churchyard, there is a memorial to a victim of the Titanic disaster.  The oldest gravestone in the county is that of Anne Green in the churchyard of Alstonefield church.

 

A picture of the oldest gravestone in the county A picture of the tomb at ilam A picture of the inside of the church at ilam