Alport Height

Duffield Frith was, in medieval times, an area of Derbyshire in England, part of that bestowed upon Henry de Ferrers (or Ferrars) by King William, controlled from his seat at Duffield Castle. From 1266 it became part of the Duchy of Lancaster and from 1285 it was a Royal Forest with its own Forest Courts. It extended from Duffield to Wirksworth and from Hulland to Heage. Most of it became the ancient parish of Duffield, which contained the townships of Hazlewood, Holbrook, Makeney and Milford, Shottle, and Windley, and the chapelries of Belper, Heage and Turnditch. The chapelry of Belper – or "Beaureper" – was built by the Duke of Lancaster for the use of the foresters. The area had been noted for centuries for the quantity of deer, mostly fallow, but there was also wild boar. There were also wolves, at least until the end of the thirteenth century.

Shottle is a village approximately 3 miles (4.8 km) south of the market town of Wirksworth in Derbyshire. The population of the civil parish (Shottle and Postern) at the 2011 Census was 266.In Norman times, the manor of Shottle, referred to as Sothille in the Domesday Survey, belonged to the Ferrers family. In 1086, the book notes that "In Shottle and Wallstone Gamal had six carucates of land to the geld. There is land for as many ploughs. There are now one ploughs in demesne and three villans and three bordars having one ploughs and five acres of meadow. Woodland pasture 3 and a half leagues by one and a half leagues. (TRE worth ten shillings now ten shillings. Godric holds it" Shottle Park was one of the seven parks within Duffield Frith. The gate at its south-east corner is still known as Shottle Gate. To the south was the much smaller Postern Park. The present-day parish is known as Shottle and Postern. It was annexed to the Duchy of Lancaster after the rebellion by Robert de Ferrers, 6th Earl of Derby. It is thought to have passed to the Earl of Shrewsbury during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. It was sold in 1630 by Philip, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, to Christian, the wife of William Cavendish, 2nd Earl of Devonshire.Shottle is a rather straggling rural village spread out on the road from Shottlegate to Wirksworth via Alport Height (Chequer Lane). Its main industry was, and remains, agriculture. Shottle Hall dates from 1841 and is a pleasant building in the late Georgian style, now used mainly for weddings and events. Whilst some way out of the village itself, Shottle has its own railway station – called Shottle after Shottle Hall, which is nearby. The station, which is on the Wirksworth Branch, was closed in 1947 to passengers and the building is owned by Peak Oil Ltd. The railway line has been reopened to passengers as the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway.

Alderwasley ( AL-ərz-LEE) is a village and civil parish in the Amber Valley district of Derbyshire, England. The population of the civil parish as of the 2011 census was 469. Alderwasley Hall is the home to one of the sites of Alderwasley Hall School which is a special school for children and young people with Aspergers and/or Speech and Language Difficulties. It is about six miles north of Belper. The village's name derives from the Old English for "clearing near alluvial land growing with alders". In the Middle Ages, it was a manor within Duffield Frith and contained the Royal Park of Shining Cliff Woods and a later park was formed to the south called Bradley Laund. In 1284 the Shining Cliff was given to William Foun by Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster. Foun was given the job of maintaining the boundaries between the Pendleton and Peatpits Brooks. This passed to Thomas Lowe by marriage in 1471. His son Anthony Lowe, as gentleman of the bedchamber for Henry VIII, was made a hereditary forester of Duffield Frith in 1523, and awarded the Manor of Alderwasley, with Ashleyhay, in 1528. In 1670 the whole estate passed, again by marriage, to Nicholas Hurt of Casterne in Staffordshire, a direct descendant of William Foun, and in 1715 he formed a new park. In 1905 this contained a herd of eighty fallow deer and what was considered to be the finest timber, especially oak, to be found. However, the estate was sold and broken up in the 1920s.The village has a reputation for its findings of silver treasure, namely coin clippings. The church plate of Alderwasley (a chalice, paten, flagon, and alms dish) were made from clippings of Charles I silver coins weighing 8lb, dug up in Bacon Meadow on 27 March 1846, according to a label on an earthenware jar in which the clippings had been hidden. Further clippings were uncovered by three brothers in their garden in the village, as recorded on a BBC Blue Peter programme in 1971.

Ashleyhay (Old English Enclosure at the ash-tree wood or clearing ) is a village and civil parish in the Amber Valley district of Derbyshire, England, about five miles north-west of Belper. It is also situated one and three-quarters of a mile south of Wirksworth and eleven miles north of Derby city centre. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 105, increasing to 118 at the 2011 Census.

Breamfield is a hamlet in Derbyshire, England. It is located 1 mile south-east of Wirksworth.

Alderwasley Hall Sixth Form is an independent special needs Sixth Form Centre located one mile south of Wirksworth in Derbyshire it is part of Alderwasley Hall School, previously a country club named Callow Park after the nearby village of Callow which is about a mile, the site was re-branded to its current name in 2012. The Ecclesbourne Valley Railway runs next to the site.

Shottle and Postern is a civil parish within the Amber Valley district, which is in the county of Derbyshire, England. Sparsely built up with much rural expanse, its population was 270 residents in the 2021 census. The parish is 120 miles (190 km) north west of London, 9 miles (14 km) north west of the county town of Derby, and 2+3⁄4 miles (4.4 km) equidistant of the nearest market towns of Belper and Wirksworth. It shares a boundary with the parishes of Alderwasley, Ashleyhay, Belper, Hazelwood, Idridgehay and Alton, Turnditch and Windley.

Anthony Gell School is a coeducational secondary school and sixth form located in Wirksworth in the English county of Derbyshire.It began as a Free Grammar School established by Anthony Gell in 1576. The school moved to its present site in 1908 and became a voluntary controlled school in 1944. It became a coeducational comprehensive school in 1965. As a voluntary controlled school, it is supported by the Anthony Gell School Foundation charitable trust, and administered by Derbyshire County Council.Anthony Gell School offers GCSEs and BTECs as programmes of study for pupils, while students in the sixth form have the option to study from a range of A Levels, OCR Nationals and further BTECs. As of 2011 the school's GCSE scores were increasing.

Haarlem Mill, on the River Ecclesbourne in Wirksworth, Derbyshire, was an early cotton mill. Built by Richard Arkwright, it was the first cotton mill in the world to use a steam engine, though this was used to supplement the supply of water to the mill's water wheel, not to drive the machinery directly.The site of the mill, including an older corn mill, was leased by Arkwright in 1777. Construction of the mill building in brick and stone was completed by June 1780, and the reported death of a young man attempting to climb on the water wheel suggests that it was operational at this date. After initially investigating the purchase of a steam engine from the Birmingham firm of Boulton and Watt, Arkwright installed a reciprocating steam engine, probably manufactured by Francis Thompson of Ashover, to supplement the occasionally inadequate water supply. This was a medium-sized engine with a 26-foot-long (7.9 m) beam, an 18-foot-diameter (5.5 m) flywheel a 30-inch-diameter (760 mm) cylinder and a stroke of 5 feet (1.5 m). Similar to engines commonly used at the time to pump out nearby mines, it operated 24 hours a day, powering two pumps.By 1789 the mill was employing almost 200 people, but it was sold by Arkwright three years later. The base of the original building survives, but the upper three floors have since been rebuilt. The empty grade II* listed building was listed on Historic England's Heritage at Risk Register but in 2018 was noted that a major phase of repair and conversion work had been completed.

Wirksworth Railway Station is a heritage railway station that serves the town of Wirksworth in Derbyshire. It was the former terminus of the Midland Railway Wirksworth branch line, leaving the Midland Main Line at Duffield. The line was reopened as the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway.

The Ecclesbourne Valley Railway is a 9-mile (14.5 km) long heritage railway in Derbyshire. The headquarters of the railway centre on Wirksworth station, and services operate in both directions between Wirksworth and Duffield and from Wirksworth to Ravenstor. Passengers are able to board and alight heritage services at Duffield where a station platform (3) has been re-constructed. Heritage services are timed to connect with East Midlands Railway Nottingham – Derby – Matlock service at the adjacent Duffield Network Rail platforms and therefore it is now possible for passengers to travel to and from Wirksworth by train from anywhere on the national network. The Ecclesbourne Valley Railway is named after the River Ecclesbourne and the track follows the river from its source to its confluence with the River Derwent at the Derbyshire village of Duffield. Despite being a branch in itself, there is also a separate 1⁄2 mile (0.8 km) branch operating from Platform 3 at Wirksworth Station up a 1 in 27 (3.27 %) gradient incline to Ravenstor (for the National Stone Centre and the High Peak Trail). The line is operated by a large fleet of heritage diesel multiple units (DMU), as well as diesel and visiting steam locomotives. Locomotive hauled trains initially only operated on enthusiast and special event days often alongside the DMU fleet, whereas now locomotive hauled services make up a larger part of the railway's timetable.

Idridgehay railway station is an intermediate station on the former Midland Railway branch line to the town of Wirksworth in Derbyshire. Off the Midland Main Line at Duffield, the line has been reopened as the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway, and Idridgehay station was reopened on 8 March 2008.