| SCARCLIFFE (St. Leonard), a parish, in the union of Mansfield, hundred of Scarsdale, N. division of the county of Derby, 6 miles (N. N. W.) from Mansfield; containing 582 inhabitants. The parish comprises the villages of Scarcliffe and Palterton, and the hamlets of Scarcliffe-Lane, Stockley, and Riley; and contains 3772 acres, of which 400 are wood. The surface is diversified by hill and dale; the soil in some parts is a calcareous loam, and in others a calcareous clay: there are some quarries of limestone. The village of Scarcliffe is situated on the Rotherham road. The living is a discharged vicarage, valued in the king's books at £5; net income, £68; patron, the Duke of Devonshire; impropriator, Earl Bathurst. The glebe consists of 14 acres of arable land, and there is a glebe-house. The church is situated on a gentle hill, in the centre of the village. The exterior of the nave is disfigured by alterations made in the two last centuries: the spire, which was unsafe, was taken down in 1842, and a tower erected in its place, at a cost of £500; it is a plain structure, in the Norman style, with pointed arches. In the chancel are a piscina, a tomb of the 13th century, and a statue of the 11th century. The last is of a lady, with her child, and is formed of a block of stone: she is represented in robes, with a coronet on her head, and from her breasts downwards is an inscription in Latin, in Lombardic characters. Tradition says, that this lady, whose name was Constantia, lost her way while journeying through a neighbouring forest, and that, attracted by the sound of the curfew at the church, she reached the village, where she died in childbirth, leaving property in jewels to purchase land to pay for the curfew being rung for ever. Some land belonging to the parish, said to have been purchased in consequence, now lets for £4. 10. a year. In the village is a school endowed with £6. per annum by Mrs. Vaughan, and having £6 yearly from Earl Bathurst.
| | See: A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848), pp. 26-30. [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=51258+ here]<br> |