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2T4)e €l)ttvd) of St. fgrlrn'0, ^arlcj? 41alc. 



By the Rev. J. Charles Cox, LL.D., F.S.A. 



ARLEY was a royal manor at the time of the 

 taking of the Domesday Survey, and it was then 

 possessed of a priest and a church. At a very 

 early date the advowson of the rectory was conferred 

 upon the cathedral church of Lincoln, probably by Henry I. 

 Not only was the presentation to the living in the hands of 

 the Dean of Lincoln, but he received a pension of 40.?. from 

 the endowments of the rectory. The first mention we have 

 found of this pension of 40s. is in the Taxation Roll of Pope 

 Nicholas IV., compiled in 1291, wherein the total value 

 of the living — Ecclesia de Derlcy in Pecco — is estimated at ,£18. 

 An inventory of the Derbyshire possessions of the Dean of 

 Lincoln, taken in 13 10, says that the church of Darley was 

 divided into three portions, and that from each portion a mark 

 was yearly due — i.e., -£2 in all. A dispute as to the patronage 

 of Darley Church was brought into the courts in Easter term, 

 1285. The King sued the Dean and Chapter under a claim 

 to this advowson which had been made by Henry III. ; but 



* At the request of the Editor it has been a pleasure to revise for this 

 Journal the account that was published in 1876 {Churches of Derbyshire, 

 vol. ii., 151-174), and to which certain additions were made in 1879 (Churches 

 of Derbyshire, vol. iv., 5 O0 "5 02 ). Renewed careful search convinces me that 

 there is not much more of the history of this church to be discovered beyond 

 that already given ; but this account — condensed and altered, and in some 

 places expanded from that previously published — corrects a few architectural 

 lapses, and supplies additional particulars as to the good treatment the church 

 has received in quite recent times. For much of the corrected and additional 

 matter I am indebted to the kindness of the Rev. Canon Atkinson, in whom 

 the church has found so faithful a custodian since 1881, but the responsibility 

 is entirely mine for the phrasing of all such material. 



