Bygone Derbyshire Author:William Andrews Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Curious Derbyshire Customs. By William Andrews, F.r.h.s. DERBYSHIRE has been celebrated from time immemorial for its lead-mines. Several pigs of lead bear... more »ing Latin inscriptions have been found, which go to prove that during the Roman occupation of England lead-mining operations were carried on in this county. Our Saxon ancestors have also left numerous traces of their activity in this industry. It is recorded that in the year 714, a lead coffin was sent from Wirksworth to contain the remains of St. Guthlac, Prior of Croyland Abbey. In 835, Humbert the Alderman obtained from Kenewara, abbess of Repton, an estate at Wirksworth in return for lead, to the value of three hundred shillings, to be used at Christ's Church, Canterbury. The Derbyshire mines were largely worked after the Norman invasion. The mineral laws and customs of the county are extremely curious, and are of great antiquity.Edward Manlave, for some time a steward of the ancient Barmote Court, holden at Wirksworth, to conduct the affairs connected with lead-mining, put into rhyme the regulations, so that the miners might commit them to memory, and thus be able to maintain their rights. This book was printed in London during the Commonwealth, and issued in 1653. It was reprinted, with a glossary and other important additions, in 1851, by Mr. Thomas Tapping, of the Middle Temple, Barrister-at-Law. In 1871, he published, through the English Dialect Society, a third and revised edition. The poem opens as follows :— " By custom old in Wirksworth Wapentake, If any of this nation find a rake Or sign, or leading to the same, [he] may set In any ground, and there lead ore may get. They may make crosses, holes, and set their stowes, Sink shafts, build lodges, cottages and coes, But churches, houses, gardens, all are f...« less