The small market-town of Tideswell is but indifferently built, but the Church is a handsome edifice of the conventual form, with a neat tower at the west end, terminated by eight pinnacles, those at the angles rising from octagonal bases, and being much higher than the intermediate ones. This town is reported to have received its name from an ebbing and flowing well, in the neighbourhood, but which has long since ceased to flow. This well is considered as one of the wonders of the Peak, and has been described as being about three feet deep and three feet wide ; and the water, in different and uncertain periods of time, sinking and rising with a gurgling noise, two thirds of the perpendicular depth of the well. Many conjectures have been formed to account for this phenomenon. Some have thought that in the aqueduct a stone stood in equilibrio, and produced the rise and fall of the water by vibrating backwards and forwards; but it is as difficult to conceive what should produce this vibration at uncertain periods, as what should produce the rise and fall of the water; others imagine that these irregular ebbings and flowings, as well as the gurgling noise, were occasioned by air, which agitated or pressed the water from the subterraneous cavities; but these do not tell us what can be supposed first to move the air; others have imagined the spring have been occasionally supplied from the overflowings of some subterraneous body of water, lying upon a higher level.

At Tunstead, a small village about two miles to the west of Tideswell, was born, in the year 1716, the celebrated John Brindley, whose superior judgment and ability in the planning of canals, will ever render his name distinguished in the annals of inland navigation. His father had been in the possession of a small freehold, but through a destructive partiality for the amusements of the field, had been forced to alienate his property, and the education of his son was consequently neglected, the latter being obliged to contribute to the support of the family by the lowest occupations of rustic labour.—Young Brindley however, at the age of seventeen, apprenticed himself to a millwright, at Macclesfield, in Cheshire, where he executed several ingenious pieces of mechanism, without any previous instruction, and introduced several improvements into his business, by which he obtained great celebrity, and on the expiration of his apprenticeship he was entrusted by his master with the management of his manufactory. Some years afterwards he commenced business for himself, and in the year 1752 was employed in the erection of a water-engine of extraordinary powers, for the purpose of draining some coal mines, in the neighbourhood of Clifton, in Lancashire. In the progress of this undertaking, he drove a tunnel through a rock nearly 600 yards in length, to convey a stream of water from the river Irwell, for the purpose of turning a wheel, which was fixed 30 feet beneath the surface of the earth. "In the year 1755 (says Mr. Aikin,) he was employed to execute the larger wheels for a silk-mill at Congleton ; and a person who was engaged to make other parts of the machinery, and to superintend the whole, proving incapable of completing the work, the business was entirely committed to Brindley ; who not only executed the original plan in a masterly manner, but made many curious and valuable improvements, as well in the construction of the engine itself as in the making the wheels and pinions belonging to it. About this time also the mills for grinding flints in the Staffordshire potteries received several improvements from his ingenuity, which he continued to exert till September 1772, when he died in the 56th year of his age, and was buried at New Chapel in Staffordshire.

TIDESWELL is a market town and parish 2 ½ miles north from Miller’s Dale station on the Ambergate and Manchester section of the Midland railway, 7 north-north-west from Bakewell, 7 east-by-north from Buxton and 157 from London, in the Western division of the county, in the hundred of High Peak, Bakewell union, petty sessional division and county court district, rural deanery of Buxton, archdeaconry of Derby and diocese of Southwell. The town is supplied with water derived from springs on Tideswell Moor, and lighted with gas from works on the Buxton road, the property of the Tideswell Gas Company. The church of St. John the Baptist is a cruciform building of stone, belonging almost exclusively to the Decorated style of the latter half of the 14th century, consisting of an unusually large chancel, clerestoried nave, aisles, transepts, a south porch with parvise, and a lofty embattled tower at the west end, with battlemented turret-like pinnacles at the angles, terminating in crocketed spirelets; the tower contains a clock with chimes, erected at a cost of over £300, and 6 bells, the 4th of mediaeval date, the 2nd, 3rd and 5th dating from 1659: the chancel has three stone sedilia and a crocketed piscina, and on the north side are two low arches; the ancient stone reredos, which stands 5 feet from the east window and is flanked on either side by canopied niches with crocketed pinnacles, extends completely across the east end and has a door on the north side leading to the sacristy; there is also an elaborately carved oak reredos in the form of a triptych immediately above the communion table: the stained east window was inserted in 1876 by Cecil G, Savile Foljambe esq, (now Lord Hawkesbury) in memory of his 1st wife Louisa (Howard), d. 1871, and of the Foljambe family, who were great benefactors to the church and the Lady chapel in the 14th century: the innermost bay of the south transepts was anciently the” Meveril” or, as it is now called, “De Bower chapel;” in its south wall is a high canopied niche, with a piscina beneath it; the adjoining chapel, being a continuation of the south aisle, belonged to the manor of Litton or Lytton and to the family of that name; both these, as wall as the other chapel in the north transept, were once inclosed by wooden parcloses which have lately been renewed: the portion of the north transept corresponding with the Litton chapel appears to have belonged to the manor of Wheston, the transept proper forming the Lady chapel or Guild chapel, and having a piscina in the eastern wall: an ancient stone pulpit, or more probably some access to the chancel screen, was removed in 1824, when a new western gallery was built: the beams and principals of the nave and transept roofs are part of the original roof of the Decorated period; the rest has been carefully renewed in oak and the whole covered with lead: the font is an ancient octagon, carved with various devices: on the moulded shafts in the jambs of the south doorway are two small incised crosses, 3 inches in length and bifurcated at the ends: the old chancel screen, reduced in 1724, when a faculty was granted for the erection of a gallery, has been successfully restored from plans by the late Mr. J. D. Sedding, architect, of London, the cost being defrayed by a bequest of £300 by Mr. Harrop for this purpose: the earliest monuments in the church are two effigies in the north transept, both females, and probably of the 14th century: on the north side of the chancel is a slab with the effigy in brass of Sir Thomas Foljambe, ob. 4 Aug. 1358, with arms and inscription, which has been restored by his descendant, the present Lord Hawkesbury; three other brasses of this family from 1283 to 1323, existing in the early part of the 17th century, have disappeared: in the south transept is a large raised tomb of stone and alabaster, with effigies to Sir Thurstan de Bower and Margaret his wife; the figures are clad in the costume of the 14th century, the knight wearing a collar of SS, and there is a marginal inscription and one recording the restoration of the tomb and south transept in 1876 by J. Bower Brown esq. of Woodthorpe Hall, Sheffield: in the centre of the chancel is a large altar tomb to Sir Sampson Meverell, ob. 1462, the upper slab of Purbeck marble bearing a variety of symbolical brasses with inscriptions and an inscribed marginal ribbon of brass, comprising a biography of the knight; the lower portion of the tomb is open and contains the effigy of an emaciated corpse, carved in stone, with angels supporting the head: on the floor of the Litton chapel is a brass to Sir Robert Lytton and his wife Isabella, with an inscription (1458—83), and excavations have shown that the leaden coffins, of both rest immediately beneath the eastern portion of this chapel: westward of the Foljambe tomb is the fine brass of Robert Pursglove or Silvester, prior of Gisburne and seventh and last provost of Rotherham College, dissolved about 1550, and consecrated suffragan Bishop of Hull in 1538, ob. 1579; the figure is in eucharistic vestments bearing a pastoral staff on the left shoulder and below is a doggrel epitaph of later date; the corners of the slab bear evangelistic symbols, and there is a marginal inscription, dated 1579: in the south transept is a monument to Capt. Thos. Statham, an officer of cavalry with Charles I. during the civil war, and immediately below is the vault in which many of this family were buried: the restoration of the church has been going on since 1874, and is still (1899) incomplete: in 1884 new oak stalls in the chancel and seats fox the choir were provided and a fine oak Teredos, communion table and oak eagle lectern erected: a small desk and chair, finely carved, have been executed and presented to the vicar by Mr. Advent Hunstone, of Tideswell, who has also been employed on the carved work of the organ screen and that of the north transept: there are 800 sittings. The register dates from the year 1635. The living is a rectory, net yearly value £308, with 121½ acres of glebe and residence, in the gift of the Dean and Chapter of Lichfield, and held since 1864 by the Rev. Samuel Andrew, of St. Bees and of St. John’s College, Cambridge, hon. canon of Southwell, rural dean of Buxton and surrogate. St. John’s Library is contained in premises granted by the trustees of John Harrop’s bequest, which affords room for books, reading and the holding of classes; the library consists at present of 200 volumes. The small Catholic chapel hew is dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The Congregational chapel, built in 1888, affords 300 sittings; the old chapel is now used as a school. The Wesleyan chapel, built in 1889, has 250 sittings. The Primitive Methodist chapel will seat 150. There is a police station with 4 cells for prisoners. The inhabitants are partly employed in agriculture, some in weaving and others in the neighbouring cotton mills and stone quarrying. Lime kilns and stone quarries are in the neighbourhood: the lead mines are for the present closed. A market, to be held on Wednesdays, was granted as early as the year 1250 to Paulinus Bampton, and is still held on that day, a cattle market being held the second Wednesday in every month, and fairs on March 24th, May 15 th, last Wednesday in July, second Wednesday in September, and October 20th, for cattle, horses and sheep. Bishop Pursglove directed that any sums remaining over, from time to time, out of the income of the Grammar School, after paying the master and providing for keeping the farms and premises in proper repair, should be distributed in doles to the poor and needy of the parish of Tideswell and especially to such as should be “aged, impotent, blind, lame and most needy;” a new scheme for the management of this charity received the royal assent on the 12th August, 1876, by which the fixed sum of £50 a year is directed to be given away to the poor, in doles. The Rev. Francis Gisborne, rector of Staveley, left a sum of money in 1818 to be invested and the interest yearly applied to the purchase of flannel for the poor of certain parishes in Derbyshire, and directed that the incumbents of the parishes, or in their absence or through their failing to act, the churchwardens should distribute the same according to their discretion: £6 15s. is yearly paid to this parish and regularly given away by the vicar. Miss Downes, of Sheffield, by her will in the year 1811, left £100 to the poor of Tideswell; this sum is received in the month of February, but advanced by the vicar in order to make the dole on the 1st of January. Hodgkinson's charity, paid by the Duke of Devonshire K.G. amounts to £1 15s. a year, and is expended in flannel for the poor. In 1736 Nathaniel Hammersley left £100, the interest of which was then £5 a year, and directed the same to be applied as follows:-£3 12s. to the vicar, £1 4s. to be expended in bread for the poor, and 4s. to the sexton; the amount was invested in the Sheffield Turnpike Trust, and by a vote of the vestry £36 has been accepted as a composition. Ann Rossington left by will, in 1737, £20 to the poor; William Holmes £60, to be given in bread, and some person unknown £20. This was also invested in the Sheffield Turnpike Trust and a composition of £36 accepted. Robert Mellor left by will in 1736 the sum of 10s. a year, to be distributed on Christmas eve. Bagshaw Hall, in the Market square, erected in 1872, at a cost of about £2,000, on a site given by the Duke of Devonshire, was the gift of the late John Bagshaw esq. of Tideswell, to the “Humane Friendly Indefatigable Union Society,” established in 1764 and of which he was a member, its object being the relief of sickness and payment of funeral expenses of members; it is a fine building of limestone in the Italian style; the hall itself is about 60 feet long, 36 wide and 21 high, and has a gallery, supported by five arches: there are reading and committee rooms, a large platform, and an illuminated clock over the entrance: since the death of Mr. Bagshaw the residuary legatee has claimed the hall and taken possession of it under the Mortmain Act.

The town is considered healthy, and is seated in a valley nearly surrounded by bleak and naked hills, with a clear stream of water running through it, furnished by the overflow of the reservoir from which the inhabitants are supplied. The ebbing and flowing well, from which it is asserted the town took its name, is still in existence. Upon the summit of the hill near the town is a stone of rude workmanship, embedded in the earth, with a deep socket, in which a cross was inserted. In the vicinity is Monsal Dale, celebrated for its romantic scenery and picturesque beauty. The Duke of Devonshire K.G. is lord of the manor and principal landowner.

Tideswell Dale, leading to Litton Mill, is a romantic spot, diversified with huge rocks, covered with luxuriant ferns and surrounded with a tangle of bushes, through which runs a small stream. About 500 yards above the town on the west side is a hill called “Summer Cross,” affording an extended view; about half-a-mile north, on the same ridge, is Wheston Bank, whence, on a clear day, looking west, the hills above Buxton and the famous Axe Edge can be sighted: south-west are Hindlow, Chelmorton Low, Priestcliffe Low and Taddington church: to the south is Stang Wood, above Stanton village, a distance of about 13 miles, and Haddon Hall, nearer to Bakewell, Colton pastures being also in view: south-east a fine view is obtained of Curbar and Froggatt Edge, and above Great Hucklow can be traced a road, which many years ago was the great coaching road from Cheshire to Yorkshire, along the Sir William hills, with a descent of three miles to Grindleford Bridge; this road is now little traversed and is nearly overgrown with grass: far to the east can be seen Winnil Knowl, beyond it Hope; a little to the right Bamford Edge, with the spire of Bamford church and Stanedge Pool on the same range, near Red-mere dams, which supply Sheffield with water; somewhat to the left of Winnil Knowl can be seen Loose Hill, further beyond, the Woodland Hills and the top of Mam Tor: to the north lies Coombs Moss, beyond this Chapel-en-le-Frith and Rushop Edge; while on the way from Tideswell to Litton-about mid-way-is a grand view of Taddington Hills, Great Fin and Sheldon; the Wheston Bank is a favourite resort of tourists in the summer season. The soil is loamy and light, on limestone, and mostly used as pasture. The area of Tideswell is 3,225 acres of land and 7 of water; rateable value, £6,079; the population in 1891 was 1,936 in the township and 2,688 in the parish.

The parish embraces the hamlets of Litton, Cressbrook, Wheston and Miller’s Dale.

Schools

The Grammar School, near the church, was founded as a free school in 1560 by Robert Pursglove, bishop of Hull & suffragan of York, who also endowed it with property until lately producing £300 yearly arising from land & houses: from the autumn of 1872 the school remained closed for six years, during which time it was reconstituted by the Charity Commissioners, by a scheme dated 12th of August, 1876, under which the management is entrusted to a body composed of 13 governors; the scheme allows the headmaster to receive boarders; the school was reopened January 28th, 1879, & has five exhibitions of £5 a year each open to residents in the parish, three being open to scholars from elementary schools; this school is now (1899) affiliated to the scheme of the Derbyshire County Council for technical education.

British (mixed), erected in 1844, for 230 children; average attendance, 180.

Cressbrook (mixed), erected in 1842, for 100 children; average attendance, 70; chiefly supported by the Cressbrook Mills Company Limited.

Litton National & Sunday (mixed), built in 1869 for 100 children; average attendance, 70.

National (mixed), erected in 1841, & enlarged in the year 1895 for 287 children; average attendance, 170.