Location: Findern is located just off the A38, south of Littleover, in South Derbyshire (SK308304).
Visit: Visit Dobbies Garden Centre, which holds many plants, garden furniture, and other items. – Stroll around Mercia Marina, browse the shops, and explore the sensory garden and wildlife walks. – Enjoy a walk along the canal bank, where there is plenty of activity on the water in the peak season and wildlife all year round.
Refreshments: Find Café, near the village green, Dobbies Garden Centre and Mercia Marina, where there is a good selection of restaurants, cafes, and a pub.
Walk: Findern, Trent and Mersey Walk is an easy, level walk along well-surfaced paths by the side of the canal. It is a great favourite with wildlife enthusiasts, and several short diversionary walks are available off the main walk’s route.
Special Places of Interest in the Locality: Melbourne has a wealth of historic buildings, a famous country house with formal gardens, one of the finest Norman churches in the country, and a lovely 20-acre pool. – Calke Abbey, ‘The place where time stood still’, was the phrase used to describe it when the National Trust opened it to the public in 1989. It is one of the most unusual English country houses with extensive collections of birds, ornaments, paintings, and photographs. – Mercia Marina is Europe’s largest inland Marina. It has over 630 berths, holiday lodges, and on-site businesses, including restaurants, retailers, and office space.
Church of St. Michael with St. Mary, Melbourne
Calke Abbey
INTRODUCTION
The pretty South Derbyshire village of Findern is five miles southwest of Derby. Its appearance is enhanced by a traditional village green with chestnut trees encircled by white posts and chains, overlooked by the church and picturesque, mainly whitewashed cottages.
Parish Rooms
VILLAGE GREEN
Before the Parish Council acted in the 1950s to restore the green, it looked a sorry sight, divided into four small grassed areas, split up by tarmac paths and frequently used by vehicles. The main problem was knowing who owned the green. Eventually, ownership was traced to the Crown, and the land was purchased for £50, and the restoration started.
A village sign has been erected on the green to mark the Millennium, and, more recently, a village map has been added. In 2006, the neglected Parish Rooms were transformed, and together with the village hall, they now provide much-needed facilities for what is a very active community.
FOOTPATHS
Findern Footpaths Group has improved over seven miles of public rights of way around the village. In addition to keeping the footpaths clear and the stiles in good repair, they have planted trees and wildflowers, helped create a new wood, and been involved in several other projects. These include Ballast Hole Pond, near the Trent and Mersey Canal, where a pond dipping platform has been installed, and the erection of bat and bird boxes.
Millennium Sign
THE VILLAGE
The Domesday Book mentioned the village when Burton Abbey held it as an outlier of Mickleover. A priory once stood near the church, where the monks were supplied with fresh food from the fishponds on Common Piece Lane. Following the abbey’s dissolution, the Fynderne family became the principal landowners. They lived in a fortified manor house on Castle Hill. Before the development of transport, Findern was self-supporting.
All Saints’ Church was rebuilt and consecrated in 1863, on a Saxon place of worship site. A Norman tympanum was rescued when the old building was demolished and can be seen in the church. The famous motor racing driver, Reg Parnell, is buried in the churchyard. He kept a herd of 700 pigs and 150 Ayrshire cattle at the farm next to Wallfield House.
Findern Church
JEDEDIAH STRUTT
It was here, in 1740, that Jedediah Strutt came as an apprentice wheelwright. He had an obsessive interest in machinery. However, when his uncle died and left him a smallholding, he took it over. Returning to Findern to marry Elizabeth Woollatt, who lived at the Old Hall, where he had previously lodged. Later, he went on to become a famous industrialist. He set up mills and employed many people at Belper and Milford. Now an integral part of the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Corridor.
COTTAGE INDUSTRIES
Silk weaving used to be a popular local industry, with nearly every cottage having its loom. Velvet-making is known to have taken place at the 17th-century Ivy Cottage, one of the oldest surviving properties in the village. The front garden of this property was once used as a pinfold to enclose stray animals.
Local farmers took their grain to the miller to be ground. One such miller was Joe Lovatt, a somewhat unusual character and a staunch Methodist. Once he had accumulated sufficient money from milling, like his predecessor John Wesley, he set off on horseback to preach around the villages in Derbyshire. When his money ran out, he returned to milling.
The mill was converted into a private house in 1914. Edwina Currie lived there in the 1980s when she was MP for South Derbyshire. It is claimed that 22 churches can be seen from the mill’s elevated position.
The Old Forge Childrn's Day Nursery, Findern
House by the Green, Findern
TEN FASCINATING FACTS ABOUT FINDERN
Village PumpFindern is a picturesque, quaint little village full of charm and character. Many of its buildings are of historical and architectural importance.
Somerville House, with its high gateway that allowed carriages to pass under it, was originally a gentleman’s residence built in the mid-18th century. Its porch, wall, and railings were added in the 19th century.
Wallfield House on Doles Lane was constructed in 1822 as a farm and became the home of racing driver and Aston Martin team manager Reg Parnell in the 20th century. He competed in the inaugural Formula One World Championship Grand Prix at Silverstone in 1950 and, in 1959, won both Le Mans and the World Sports Car Championship.
Castle Hill, which once led to a long-demolished manor house, is the site of a village pump that all the villagers used until 1931, when mains water came to the village.
Sir Geoffrey de Fynderne joined the Crusades and brought back the Findern Flower, which only grows in the village in the UK.
The flower has become an emblem of the village, including Findern Primary School.
Findern was the birthplace of Ben Spilsbury, who scored Derby County’s first league goal in 1884. He played for the Rams for five years and three times for England.
The village green plays host to an annual fete.
Spring Farm’s name comes from the well in the yard, which has been converted to a flower bed.
Findern once had an early 18th-century Unitarian chapel, built just over five miles from Derby. At that time, the law decreed that no Dissenting meeting house should be built less than that distance from the town. It was demolished in 1939.
