Swarkestone

There is so much history in England, but we don’t need to travel far to find it. The village of Swarkestone has been occupied for at least 4,000 years as evidence from the burial mounds of the Bronze Age “Beaker” people across from our house demonstrates. Apparently, there is also evidence of an Iron Age settlement just around the corner dating to 2,500 years ago.

Long an important river crossing, the village was named after a Dane who was granted the land during the Danish occupation in 874 AD. Swarkestone is most well known, however, for its bridge which is documented as early as 1204 AD. It was here the Bonny Prince Charlie’s army turned back for Scotland in 1745.

The Church of Saint James in Swarkestone was first built in the 12th century, though it has been much altered since then and most of it dates to the Victorian Gothic period.

The church and the Swarkestone Pavilion (below) were both part of the Harpur estate, which grew to encompass vast tracts of land in South Derbyshire. After the civil war, Calke Abbey become the center of the Harpur activity and the importance of Swarkestone declined. Apparently, though, the Harpur Crewe estate owned essentially the entire village until the 1980s. The Landmarke Trust since bought the Pavilion and has restored it for use as a holiday home.

The Trent and Mersey canal was constructed in 1777, the same year that the our farm complex was built by the Harpur family.

I found this history of Swarkestone published by the South Derbyshire Council to be most interesting.