Scarcliffe
Scarcliffe is a village and civil parish in the Bolsover district of Derbyshire, England. It is sometimes called Scarcliffe with Palterton. The population of the parish at the 2001 UK Census was 5,211, increasing to 5,288 at the 2011 Census.
Location
About two miles SSE of Bolsover, the village's main street is the B6417 road between Clowne and New Houghton, which connects at Scarcliffe to the A617 between Mansfield and Chesterfield. Other nearby settlements include Clay Cross, Matlock, Shirebrook, Warsop, North Wingfield, Tupton, Pilsley and Ashover.Scarcliffe is within a few miles of Junction 29 of the M1 motorway.
Palterton is a hamlet within the parish, one mile to the west of the main village. In the early 20th century it had both a school and a post office. It still has a school now, however the post office is no longer in use.
Palterton is recorded in 1086 in the Domesday Book under the land of Ralph Fitzhubert.
To the east of the main village are two areas of woodland, Langwith Wood and Roseland Wood.
Facilities
Both Scarcliffe and Palterton have its own primary school, which takes children between the ages of four and eleven and has some 80 places. There are two pubs in Scarcliffe and the 'Palterton Miner's Welfare' in Palterton, but no shop in the hamlet or village.Church
The most notable building is the Norman parish church of St Leonard, which is a Grade II* listed building. It contains a handsome marble monument, dating to the 13th century, of a Lady Constantia, who holds a child in her arms. A stone tympanum over an ancient door is carved with geometrical patterns, and there is a medieval piscina. The oak parish chest is almost ten feet long. The church tower is fairly modern, having been added in the 1830s. In the 21st century, the church has increased its peal of bells from five to eight.The Scarcliffe ecclesiastical parish includes Scarcliffe, Palterton and Hillstown. Scarcliffe now forms a united benefice with Ault Hucknall, Astwith, Bramley Vale, Doe Lea, Glapwell, Hardwick Hall, Stainsby, Rowthorne, and Hardstoft.
History
The village was part of the ancient hundred of Scarsdale. Before the Dissolution of the Monasteries the church was held by Darley Abbey, later becoming a vicarage in the gift of the Dukes of Devonshire, major landowners in the area. The 13th century resident Lady Constantia left of land to provide for the ringing of the church's curfew bell for three weeks on either side of Christmas in perpetuity. After some eight hundred years, the 'Bellrope Charity' continues to serve its founder's purpose.The surviving parish registers date from 1680.
The village school was built in 1868–1869. It was established opposite the former Primitive Methodist church, which had been founded in 1858.
John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales says:
Scarcliffe railway station opened in March 1897. It was built by the Lancashire, [Derbyshire and East Coast Railway], which later became part of the Great Central Railway and subsequently the LNER). The line through the station was brought to a premature demise in December 1951 by the deteriorating state of the 2,624-yard Bolsover Tunnel a short distance to the west. The tunnel was mostly filled in with colliery waste in 1966-7 but the eastern portal is still visible at the end of an unusually deep sheer-sided cutting.
Palterton also had a station – Palterton & Sutton – on the Doe Lea Valley Line from Staveley to Pleasley. It was opened in September 1890 by the Midland Railway, later part of the LMS. It closed to passengers in September 1930.
In the early 20th century, the main landowner was the 7th Earl Bathurst.