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The history of Birchover Village

The first trace of man around Birchover was about 3,500 years ago in the Bronze Age. There are many burial mounds and several stone circles. The dead were cremated and the remains placed in clay urns that were buried with a few flint weapons, tools and food vessels for use in the next world. Although it was the Bronze Age very few bronze articles were found amongst the grave goods. No doubt the new metal was too precious for the use of the living so the dead were given the flint and stones. No trace of any living quarters has been found – probably because their shelters were built of wood and animal skins. It is during this period that the Nine Ladies were erected as well as the Nine Stones behind Robin Hood’s Stride.

An Iron Age hill fort called Castle Ring is to be found on Harthill Moor, beyond Robin Hood’s Stride. The ground slopes away steeply on the north and west sides and traces of the ditch can still be seen.

The Portway, an ancient track-way, runs close by running from Wirksworth, behind the Miner’s Standard Inn, down Dudwood Lane, up between Robin Hood’s Stride and Cratcliff Rocks to Alport and beyond, to Bakewell. The Portway was closed in 1810 when the Toll Road was opened.
Traces of the Romano-British hut sites have been found at Cratcliff close to the Nine Stones (only four remain standing now) and in Cratcliff Wood, nearer to Eagle Tor. Alas, these sites have been planted with conifers and are hidden once more. There were several rock shelters on the south side of Robin Hood’s Stride; socket holes are still visible, cut into the rock where roof and cave front supports were located.

Many pieces of broken pottery have been found in the area and in fact can still be found if one looks carefully. A few Roman coins have also been found some from Emperor Tetricus who set himself up as Emperor of Gaul in 270AD. This means people had settled here around the end of the third century AD.

Birchover is mentioned in the Doomsday Book of 1086:
‘In Barcovere 1 Carucate of land to the geld. Land for 1 plough. It is waste. There are 8 acres of meadow. Underwood half a league in length and 3 furlongs in breadth the third part suitable for pannage.’
In King Edward’s time it was worth eight shillings.

The Hermit’s Cave at the foot of Cratcliff Rocks contains a crucifix carved into the cave wall. From the way it is sculpted with buds of foliage on the stem some experts have dated it as far back as the 13th Century. The Hermit would be able to help travellers on the Portway road that ran close by. Two yew trees shelter the cave.

Tradition has it that Birchover was originally at Uppertown and that a Norman Church stood opposite Phillips Farm, before Thomas Eyre built his church on the present site of the Parish Church. Several stones belonging to the Norman Church have been found with chevrons and faces carved on them, some were included in the alterations to the entrance porch of the Parish Church relatively recently.

In a charter of 1349, Thomas of Birchover granted to Thomas of Alport the Birchover Water Mill for which William de Hulle paid homage and five shillings and tenpence (about 30p) per annum. The mill was at Eagle Tor and no doubt built and rebuilt several times, finally ceasing operation around 1890. It was pulled down in 1948 but the remains of the mill dams can still be seen in the fields above the site.

The house at the top of Winster Lane (Uppertown Farm) was originally a public house. Inside is an oak cupboard built into a wall with the date AD1571 carved inside. By the side of the house stand the stocks and the open area where the roads meet was said to be the Bull Ring, which suggests that at one time this was the centre of the village.

During the mid-1600s Thomas Eyre built Rowtor Hall and, around 1700, his own private chapel. It is thought that he had the work done on Rowtor Rocks where caves, fonts and chairs are carved out of the natural rocks. It seems it may have been the fashion of the day to have ‘Druid’ relics on one’s property.
The relocation of Birchover may have been forced by the lack of an adequate water supply as the population grew, so a lower position nearer the new quarry workings seems logical.

When the Toll Road opened in 1810 it allowed access up the valley to Birchover and when the railway was built in the 1860s there was an increase in work at the quarries, for stone could be sent by rail from Rowsley.

In 1823 it is rumoured that both Rowtor Hall and the chapel had got into such a desolate state that the hall was uninhabitable and cheeses were stored on the stone seats of the chapel! Then the Thornhill family took over the estate. They rebuilt the Hall as the Vicarage and the Chapel as Birchover Church on the original sites.

The Wesleyan Chapel and Methodist Church, both at the eastern end of the village, were built in 1851 and 1868 respectively. Birchover School, near the Parish Church, was opened in 1881.
When the quarry at the top of the village was opened several houses were demolished. Some of them had mottoes carved over the door.
One read, "Many a day in labour and sorrow I have spent.
But now I find no riches like content. 1751."

And another said, "In times of prosperity, friends are plenty
But in adversity not one in twenty."

Between 1890, when the new quarry started up, and the First World War of 1914 more house building took place including Keeling Terrace, Eagle Terrace, Harthill Green and the six houses on the Myres between the Druid and Eagle Tor.
The Reading Room was built in 1907 but remained the property of Stanton Estate until 1946 when it was purchased for the village. During the 1920s and 1930s work at the quarries swung between boom and gloom. In 1936 no fewer than 55 Birchover men worked in the quarries and another 45 worked at Mill Close lead mine.

Between the wars another dozen or so houses were built but then no more until the four council houses and flats on The Green in 1963, then two more in 1968 followed by another eight houses and four flats in 1974. Five private houses were built on Keeling Lane in 1981 and then six council houses in Annie’s Close in 1986.