Melbourne, Derbyshire
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Melbourne is a small Georgian market town (population 5,000) in South Derbyshire, England. It is about eight miles south of Derby and two miles from the River Trent. In 1837 a then tiny settlement in Australia was named after William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, Queen Victoria's first Prime Minister, and thus indirectly takes its name from the village.
Melbourne Parish Church has been described as a "cathedral in miniature". The country house Melbourne Hall is open in August to the public and its gardens are open from April to September. Calke Abbey and Staunton Harold Hall are within 3 miles of the town. The nearby villages of Ticknall, Swarkestone, Stanton-by-Bridge, Kings Newton, and Breedon on the Hill are also well-worth visiting.
Melbourne hosts an Arts' Festival in September each year.
[edit] History
Melbourne has a long and notable history. Its name derives from "mill on the brook". It was recorded in Domesday Book (DB 1086 Mileburne = mill stream) as a royal manor.
A castle was built here and the licence to crenellate (fortify) date backs to 1311. John 1, Duke of Bourbon, the most important French prisoner taken at the Battle of Agincourt (1416), was detained here for 19 years.
Mary, Queen of Scots, was to be imprisoned here but the castle was in too ruinous a condition. By the early 17th it had fallen into decay.
The parish church dates back to the late 11th or early 12th and is exceptional.
The Hall was originally owned by the church and is mainly now 17th and 18th century in construction.
Thomas Cook was born here in 1808.
The town contains many respectable Georgian buildings and in the 19th was a centre for framework knitting and boot and shoe manufacture. Market gardening has always been important here and continues to be so to the present day. East Midlands Airport (now renamed Nottingham East Midlands Airport), 5 miles to the east of the town was opened in the 1960s and has now become a significant regional transport hub.
