Sl)c stone ll^ottsc ^rcijcnlr, ULittlt Ci^cstcr, 



Bv George Bailey. 



HERE is frequent mention made in old documents of 

 land having been held by the clergy, at Little Chester, 

 from an early period. In Domesday Book we read, 

 " In eodem burgo erat in dominio regis i ecclesia 

 cum vii. clericis qui tenebat ii. caracutes terre libere in Cestre: " 

 (a.d. 1086.) And in 1316 the College of All Saints* held 

 several farms there. Of two of these farms, special mention 

 is made in a deed called Queen Mary's (1555), in which she 

 confirms a previous grant of these and other church lands, made 

 by Henry VIII. to the Bailiffs and Burgesses of Derby. It is to 

 one of these, to which the name of the " Stone House Prebend " 

 is therein given, that the following remarks apply. There is, at 

 the present time, an old farm house standing on the banks of the 

 Derwent, at Little Chester, of which some considerable portions 

 appear to be remains of this house. They not improbably date 

 as far back as the middle of the reign of Henry VI. This is 

 warranted by the architectural characteristics of these remains. 

 A reference to the drawing will render this evident. There 

 are two massive stone chimneys shown there ; and there is 

 another on the river front of the house, of the same date (as will 

 be seen from the drawing on the next page). These chimneys 

 prove that a good stone house once stood there, but that it was 



* See Chron. All Saints' Church. 



