THE CHURCH OF ST. HELENS, DARLEY DALE. 27 



registers has enabled us to identify this fragmentary monument, 

 for they contain an entry to the effect that Elizabeth Needham 

 was buried on the 27th of September, 1540. 



The Needhams were an ancient family of great repute in 

 North Derbyshire. In researches I am now making into the 

 history of the Peak Forest, I find that the Needhams were 

 hereditary foresters of fee from the time of Henry III. to that 

 of Elizabeth. Lysons makes a mistake in saying that they were 

 an offshoot of the Cheshire family of the same name. The 

 earliest in the pedigree is John Needham, of Needham, co. 

 Derby, temp. Edward III. His eldest grandson, Thomas, 

 married Maud, daughter of Roger Mellor, of Thornsett ; and 

 his younger grandson, William, settled in Cheshire. Otwell 

 Needham, of Thornsett, of the sixth generation in direct descent 

 from Thomas, married Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of 

 Nicholas Cadman, of Cowley. She brought the manor of 

 Cowley, in Darley parish, as well as certain lands in Snitterton, 

 to her husband. William Needham, the eldest son of this 

 marriage, took to wife the heiress of Garlick of Whitfield, and 

 increased his property in this parish by the purchase of a 

 moiety of Darley (Old Hall) Manor. William had no less than 

 eleven brothers and six sisters, the deaths of several of whom are 

 recorded in the parish registers. The name of one of these 

 younger brothers was Edward, who was buried 25th August, 

 1562, and we have no doubt that the mutilated slab in the porch 

 is to the memory of his wife. The Darley estates of the Need- 

 hams were sold at the beginning of the seventeenth century to 

 the Seniors of Bridgetown. 



Under the shelter of the porch is a large number of 

 interesting specimens of ancient sepulchral slabs and crosses. 

 See plate I. This number would have been considerably larger 

 if a good many of those discovered in restoring the church in 

 1854 had not been removed to the local museum of the late 

 Mr. Bateman. They are only second in interest to those found 

 at Bakewell, and afford an evident proof of the importance of the 

 Church of Darley both in the Saxon and Norman days. The 



