WHITWELL is a parish, in the hundred of Scarsdale; the village is situate at the N.E. extremity of the county, and is twelve miles N.E. from Chesterfield. The Duke of Portland is lord of the manor. The church is dedicated to St. Lawrence; the living is a rectory, in the patronage of the Duke, and in the incumbency of the Rev. George Mason, of Cuckney, Nottinghamshire; the Rev. J. Harnage is the present curate.

Here is a school, founded by the Duchess of Portland, in which seventy girls are taught sewing, reading, writing, and arithmetic. At Steetly, said to have been at one period a distinct parish, is a desecrated church, exhibiting a curious and good specimen of the enriched style of Norman architecture; it is an interesting ruin, and is preserved with great care. A statute fair for hiring servants, formerly held in November, has fallen into disuse.

The parish contained, by the returns for 1821, 873 inhabitants, and by those for 1831, 1,007.

CLOWN, a village and parish, in the same hundred as Whitwell, is about three miles N.W. from that village, two S.S.E. from Barlhorough, and three and a half N. from Bolsover. In the neighbourhood of the village coal and lime-stone are obtained, and there is a small manufactory for sail-cloth; but the inhabitants are chiefly employed in agricultural labours. There is a chalybeate spring, called Shuttlewood Spa, in this parish; and a piece of water, called Harlesthorpe Dam, covering about four acres.

The places of worship are, the parish church, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, of various styles of architecture, and chapels for Calvinists and Wesleyan methodists: the living is a rectory, in the patronage of the crown. The free school here, originally founded in 1730, has been the subject of litigation; about twenty-four children are at present educated in it. The parish (which has no dependent township), contained, in 1821, 616 inhabitants, and in 1831, 637.

POST:- Letters arrive from and are despatched to CHESTERFIELD every day (Sunday excepted.)

Description(s) from Pigot and Co's Commercial Directory for Derbyshire, 1835.
Transcribed by Rosemary Lockie in May 1996.