Church Of St Edmund

Parish church of 12th and 13th-century origin, substantially rebuilt in 1865-66 by the Derby architects H.I. Stevens and F.J. Robinson. Stevens was a noted ecclesiastical architect who built many churches across the East Midlands.

The church is constructed in coursed local gritstone with tooled dressings to the 19th-century work, graded slate roofs, and a timber-framed porch. The plan comprises a nave with aisles under separate roofs that incorporate chapels, a lower chancel, south porch, south-east vestry, and north-west parish room.

The exterior is mainly in Decorated style with buttresses, corbel tables, and coped gables. The three-stage west tower has angle buttresses in its 13th-century lower stage, with upper stages that are possibly 15th-century, topped by a plain parapet that may date to the 19th century. A round north-west turret is clearly 19th-century work. The second stage contains a small narrow window, while the top stage features a round clock made in 1853 by John Whitehurst of Derby, together with two-light belfry openings with Y-tracery. The west window itself is 19th-century work.

The south aisle features two three-light windows and a porch in the first bay. The porch has open sides on moulded posts and arcading with iron gates beneath an open truss. Inside is a re-set 12th-century doorway, substantially restored, displaying continuous chevron decoration to an inner order. The outer order comprises attached shafts with possible seed pods and demon sprouting branches. The arch contains an order of beak head with a label featuring saltire crosses, and outer orders comprising scroll-like leaves on the left side and circles with crossed ferns on the right. The chapel at the end of the south aisle retains a three-light east window and has a late 20th-century added vestry. The north aisle contains two three-light windows, while its chapel features cusped windows either side of a buttressed stack and a three-light east window. The chancel has a similar three-light east window and a two-light south window.

The interior features a 13th-century tower arch with three orders of chamfer, the inner on responds with the outer dying into the imposts. A blocked north arch, which once opened to what is now the church hall, displays similar detail. The three-bay nave arcades are in Early English style with round piers and stepped arches. The chancel arch stands on short corbelled shafts. The nave has an arched-brace roof on corbels, while the aisles are fitted with crown-post roofs with quatrefoils below the apex. Two-bay chancel arcades rest on double round piers with foliage capitals. The chancel itself features a closed polygonal roof with moulded ribs and bosses. Walls are of exposed freestone. The north chancel wall contains an arched tomb recess, into which a fragment of a medieval grave slab has been placed. A 19th-century cusped piscina is set in the chancel south wall. Floors are laid with 19th-century tiles, with floorboards beneath pews, and a 20th-century wood-block floor in the north chapel.

The 19th-century font is of Norman influence, fashioned in polished marble with a square bowl on corner shafts and a central round stem. A plain panelled polygonal pulpit, dating to around 1962, stands in the north aisle. The wrought-iron chancel screen is late 19th or early 20th-century work with a central gable. Pews have plain square ends, and choir stalls are dated 1932. Several 18th and 19th-century wall tablets are present. The church contains several late 19th and 20th-century stained-glass windows, including an Angel of the Resurrection in the chancel east window from 1890, and patterned coloured and etched glass in the south aisle.

A timber-framed lych gate with hipped shingled roof stands within the churchyard.

The village church originated in the 12th century, as evidenced by the re-set south doorway. The tower dates to the 13th-15th centuries with a 19th-century stair turret and remodelling; otherwise the church represents the 1865-66 rebuilding by Stevens and Robinson. The chancel and tower incorporate medieval fabric, but the aisles are entirely 19th-century work.