Little Eaton: A brief history

Little Eaton began in Saxon times as a few wattle and thatch huts clustered around Bottle Brook. People who lived there scratched a living by growing vegetables and perhaps keeping a cow or a pig. It was a precarious existence, subject to disease, floods and hunger. The settlement became known as “Little Eyrton” – little town by the water.

The area at that time lay in the kingdom of Mercia. There were constant battles between English kingdoms. Mercia was at war with Northumbria to the north, Wales to the west, the Danes to the east and Wessex to the south. It became very powerful, extending from the Humber to the Thames but in the eight and ninth centuries its power drifted away, first to the Danes and then to Wessex.  By the year 950 the land became part of a united England under Christian kings. The village became part of the parish of St Alkmunde’s Church, along with Quarndon and Litte Chester in Derby.

In about 1030, King Edward the Confessor gave eight “bovates” of land from the parish to St Alkmunde’s, on condition that priests would visit and preach in the village.(a “bovate” is the amount of land that can be ploughed by an ox in a day– about an acre). The land donated was north of what is now Rigga Lane. It was divided into strips and leased to villagers for them to grow their crops. In return, villagers would give a proportion of their produce as tithes to the church.

Little changed for the people in the village when the Normans arrived in 1066. The De Ferrers family built castles at Horsley and Duffield to assert their control but this did not affect life for villagers. Then, in about the year 1100, King Henry I gave the Manor of Little Chester , comprising little Eaton, Quarndon and Little Chester, to his friend Philip De Willoughby who was, amongst his other positions, the Dean of Lincoln cathedral. De Willoughby was building the cathedral and castle and needed the money. Apart for a short period during the Commonwealth, the manor remained in the hands of the Deans of Lincoln until 1845 when it was transferred to The Church Commissioners in London.

The Deans did not administer the manor directly but leased it to local families including various members of the Curzon family, John Bullock, Sir John Fitz Herbert  and Sir Simon Degge. From 1764 onwards, it was leased by the Dukes of Devonshire. The lessees took on the role of “Lord of the Manor” locally. They set up a “Manor Court” in Little Chester which sorted out matters of land transfers, allocating strips of land to villagers, together with the right for some of them to graze animal on common land. Tenants would receive a copy of the document which set out these rights and so became “copyholders” of the land. If there was a dispute between copyholders, the Court would impose “fines” on those who they thought deserved them. Copyhold rights could be passed on through several generations. The court also and received copies of the wills of local grandees.

 These transactions were recorded in the “manor court rolls” which still exist from 1642 onwards.  The first of these contains notes from a much earlier date and records that “The Dean had a wood at Eyton. The copyhold rents are said to be £18.4.10. The piscary was then valued at 8/- per an. He had upon the death of the m’ of every house the best plow and irons, a brasse pot and a piece of cloth. He had the custody of infants till 25. He had 5/4 of every corrupt woman.” So, the Court had a significant powers, including control of the workforce of people of under 25. (Who knows how the levy for “corrupt women” was raised?)

In 1329 the Little Eaton estate included a water mill and a quarry – probably a corn mill (later a Bleach Mill) and the Rigga Lane quarry. In 1489, Thomas Stanley was granted permission to divert “Colebrook” and to erect another corn mill above Jack O Darley Bridge. The rental for1638 included “The parke” (now Park Farm) , Eaton milne”(later the Bleach Mill), “fishing and Colebrooke” (then the name for Bottle brook) and “Outwood every other year” and “the quarry”.

In 1653, Oliver Cromwell established the Commonwealth and the Manor of little Chester passed briefly to the Borough of Derby. Then, with the restoration in 1660, it passed back to the Dean of Lincoln. One consequence of the restoration was that all priests in England were require to teach to Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer. Some them refused to do this, including the Rector of Breadsall, Reverend John Hieron. He was “ejected” from his job and moved to little Eaton where he bought some land and started to build a house at what is now Elms Farm. John Hieron did not stay long in Little Eaton but his son and grandson, both wealthy lawyers in London bought more land here and bult a more substantial house.

From 1779 onwards, the development if the village is set out in the “Award Map” which was drawn up when the common land was enclosed. It shows how the fields were organised and gives a list of who they were allocated to (unfortunately half the list is missing). Later, in 1850, there was a “Tithe Map” which shows who owed tithes to the church. There were also registers of land taxes and, from 1830, list of people eligible to vote. From 1841, there are the censuses, taken every 10 years. The censuses are published from1841 to 1921. The census for 1931 was lost in a fire but there was published a shorter “record” of the population in 1939 – though details of many younger people have been redacted. From 1870 we have the Ordinance Survey Maps.

From these records it is possible to paint a reasonable picture of how the village would look between 1779 and 2000.