Derbyshire Church Crawl

On Friday a friend and I did a church crawl in Derbyshire. A few weeks ago we had picked up a leaflet from Leek Tourist Office entitled 'From Cradle to Grave', which listed various historic churches. http://www.peak-experience.org.uk/





We started in Ashbourne but could only admire the exterior of St Oswald's church as there was a lengthy funeral in progress.

In the nearby tiny village of Fenny Bentley the Norman church of St Edmund had an interesting alabaster tomb with shrouded effigies of Thomas Beresford and his wife surrounded on all sides by their 21 shrouded children. It also had an area of painted aluminium ceiling - the first of it's kind in England. Work from the local school children was very much in evidence, showing it was well patronised.

St Mary's at Tissington was a further Norman church with a good view from the teashop opposite. The lady doing the weekly cleaning was assisted by a small child and dog!

Finally St Peter's church at Alstonefield was bathed in late afternoon sunshine and looked over towards Dovedale. In the well-tended churchyard we found the oldest gravestone in the country dated 1518. Looking over the wall I spotted many wild cowslips which like the limestone in this area.