SHOTTLE and POSTERN are hamlets, in the parish of Duffield, and form a township and extensive agricultural district, having a station on the Wirksworth branch of the Midland railway, 3 miles west from Belper and 5 north-west from Duffield, in the Mid division of the county, Appletree hundred, Belper union and petty sessional division, Belper and Ilkeston county court district, rural deanery of Duffield, archdeaconry of Derby and diocese of Southwell. By Local Government Board Order detached parts of Duffield and Hazlewood, known as Cowers Lane and Beaconsfield Villas, were transferred to this township in 1886. Here is a small chapel erected by the late Duke of Devonshire, and licensed in 1861, in which divine service is conducted on Sunday by the Rev. W. H. Turner M.A. vicar of Hazlewood. There is also a Baptist chapel. Shottle Hall is at present unoccupied. The Duke of Devonshire K.G. is lord of the manor and principal landowner. The soil is clay; subsoil, clay and sandstone. The chief crops are wheat, oats and barley and about two-thirds pasture. The acreage is 3,808; rateable value, £4,662; the population in 1891 was 432.

School, erected in 1715, for 50 children; average attendance, 34; the school is endowed by Ralph Dowley, in 1745, with an income of £7 yearly, augmented by the Duke of Devonshire.