Bonsall, Derbyshire

Coordinates: 53°07′16″N 1°35′02″W / 53.121°N 1.584°W / 53.121; -1.584

Bonsall
Bonsall village.
Bonsall  Bonsall shown within Derbyshire
OS grid reference	SK279582
District	Derbyshire Dales
Shire county	Derbyshire
Region	East Midlands
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	Matlock
Postcode district	DE4
Dialling code	01629
Police	Derbyshire
Fire	Derbyshire
Ambulance	East Midlands
EU Parliament	East Midlands
List of places: UK • England • Derbyshire

Bonsall is a village in the Derbyshire Dales on the edge of the Peak District.

Geography

It is five miles from Matlock and 18 miles from Derby. Bonsall has a long history of lead mining, along with its neighbouring town of Wirksworth probably going back to Roman times, and is even mentioned in the Domesday Book.

The village lies on the Limestone Way, at the head of its branch to Matlock. The village lies on the edge of the Peak District National Park, the border of which bisects the 'Uppertown' suburb. Approaching the village is done via a very steep 1:5 hill, which leads down to Via Gellia (A5012) and nearby Cromford. This road is known as the 'Clatterway', or occasionally the 'Col du Bonsall'.

The village church is dedicated to St James. There is a C of E primary school.

A market cross lies in the village centre, probably dating from the Mediaeval period. Bonsall applied for a market charter some three hundred years ago, but was rejected.^[1]

History

Textiles and lead mines

Bonsall inhabitants have been involved in the textile industry, pre- and post-Arkwright. In around 1850, Bonsall was a farming village surrounded by lead mines and busy outworker frame-knitting workshops. Many people also worked in the cotton spinning mills at Cromford and the Via Gellia ^[2]. In early modern times it was on an important salters' route, and was a staging post on the road between Derby and Manchester.

Contemporary period

Bonsall is still a working village, involved in agriculture, heavy goods transport and a range of forms of information technology. However, most people in the village travel to larger conurbations such as Derby, Nottingham and Sheffield for work. Attractions include the Annual "World Championship Hen Race" held annually in August at the Barley Mow. This event was run for the first time in 1992.

Local Businesses and Attractions

Bonsall Camp

Uppertown in Bonsall is the site of Bonsall Camp, a Christian Youth camp that has been running for over 60 years. Today it is overseen by Wardens Matthew and Dawn Quinn and is available for residential trips and day groups throughout the year. It is owned by the Charity "Christian Youth Foundation" which runs several residential Children's and Youth weeks in the summer holidays. Many notable Preachers and Evangelists cite the camp as the starting point of their call to ministry. The famous Christian author Selwyn Hughes recalls, in his biography, the time he was sent home from the camp for bad behaviour.

Extraterrestrial visits

For two years after October 2000, there were 19 sightings of UFOs in the area. On October 5, 2000, Sharon Rowlands caught one sighting of a circular object on film. The circular object showed a similarity to a circular object seen on the STS-75 Columbia Space Shuttle mission in early 1996^{[citation needed]}.

Since 2002, the landlord of the Barley Mow pub conducts UFO walks every Bank Holiday, and this has featured on BBC's 'Country File'.

References

1. ^ Neville T. Sharpe, Crosses of the Peak District (Landmark Collectors Library, 2002)
2. ^ Bonsall Village, retrieved September 19, 2007

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Bonsall, Derbyshire

• Village web site
• Primary school
• Bonsall and District Film Society
• The Bonsall History Project
• The Bonsall UFO
• BBC News item on the 'Bonsall UFO'
• Discover Derbyshire
• The Barley Mow pub
• The Bonsall Field Barn Project
• Bonsall Camp Website

An aerial photo of Bonsall village taken from a helicopter.