Hazelwood 1895, pages 658 and 659
MID PARLIAMENTARY DIVISION – HAZELWOOD
Hazelwood, formerly included in the parish of Duffield, comprises an area of 1,235 acres; rateable value, £2,679; and population (1891), 398. The principal landowners are the Executors of George Henry Strutt, Esq., Belper; George Herbert Strutt, Esq., Makeney; Lord Scarsdale; the trustees of Beamsley Charity; and Sir John Gay Newton Alleyne, Bart., Hazelwood. The soil is clay and loam, subsoil clay and ratchel; the land is chiefly in pasture. There is a good stone quarry in the township. Hazelwood is in the hundred of Appletree, petty sessional division, county court district, and poor law union of Belper, and the electoral division and rural deanery of Duffield.
The manor anciently belonged to the Blounts, of Barton Blount. In 1367, Sir Walter Blount granted it to Sir Godfrey Foljambe. This appears to have been only a temporary transfer, as another Sir Walter Blount, a little more than a century later, died seized of this and other manors.
There is a hazy tradition of there having formerly been a castle here, but there is no authority for the story other than the traces of the foundations of a large building, and of the moat that surrounded it, on a farm near the Wesleyan chapel.
The village, if houses so scattered can be called such, is 6 miles north-west from Derby, 2½ south-west from Belper, and 1 mile from the station of its own name on the Wirksworth branch of the Midland Railway.
The church, dedicated to St. John, was erected in 1845 at a cost of about £2,000, raised by subscription, and soon afterwards a district was allotted to it. It is a handsome edifice of stone in the Gothic style, strongly buttressed, and comprises chancel with organ chamber, nave, south porch, and a western bell turret containing two bells.
The chancel is separated from the nave by a handsome moulded arch springing from three circular piers on either side. The east window of three lights is filled with stained glass, as also are the windows of the nave, six of which are memorials. On each side of the chancel arch is a marble tablet: one to the memory of the Rev. John Horner Jenkins, first vicar of Hazelwood; the other to Colonel Robert Henry Colvile, of Kempsey House, Worcester, to whose piety are mainly due the church, school and vicarage house, the assignment of the district, and the endowment of the benefice of Hazelwood.
The nave is spacious, and well furnished with low-backed pews of pitch pine to seat 290. The pulpit is sculptured stone, and the lectern elaborately carved oak, designed, made, and presented by Sir John Gay Newton Alleyne, Bart., in 1893. The font was given by Julia Colvile.
The living is a vicarage, worth £200 per annum, with residence, in the gift of the Bishop of Southwell, and held by the Rev. William Henry Turner, B.A., since 1885. The ecclesiastical district includes part of Shottle, where there is a Mission Church.
The National School, with teacher’s house, is a good building of stone, erected at the same time as the church, at a cost of about £1,000, the greater portion of which was contributed by Colonel Colvile. There are two departments, with an average attendance of 88.
The Wesleyans have a chapel here, built in 1814, and enlarged and improved in 1890 at a cost of £120.
Hazelwood Hall, now a farmhouse, bears unmistakable traces of former splendour. The Knowle is a commodious residence, the property of Mr. Percival Hull. Holmside is a large stone house, occupied by C. H. Burbidge-Hambley, Esq.
Chevin House, the property and residence of Sir John Gay Newton Alleyne, Bart., M.I.C.E., J.P., C.A., is a large mansion of stone, pleasantly situated on an eminence 536 feet above sea level. In the grounds is an observatory, erected by the present owner, and fitted with a large telescope and other astronomical instruments for observing the “orbs of heaven.”
Sir John is the third baronet of the family. His ancestor, Reynold Alleyne, was one of the first adventurers to the settlement made in the island of Barbados. He acquired considerable wealth there, and the family subsequently rose to the highest distinction in the legislative assembly of the island.
The district abounds with beautiful scenery, but the only spot we need particularise is a deep narrow ravine, through which a brook flows, hissing and splashing amongst the rocks. The sides are exceedingly steep, and permit only a few alders, sloe bushes, and brambles to find sufficient root-hold; and so deep and narrow is the gorge that the sun scarcely penetrates to the bottom of the chasm.
This ravine, known as the Depth of Lumb, is much frequented by tourists and pleasure seekers in the summer time, but is seen to the best advantage when the brook is swollen after a season of rain.
CHARITIES.—The sum of 11s. is distributed amongst poor widows; 18s. 4d. is received from Gisborne’s Charity, and spent in flannel, which is given to the deserving poor; and the sum of 50s. is given in sums of 10s. to aged and needy parishioners who are not in receipt of parish relief from the Belper Union.