Great Longstone
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Great Longstone with Little Longstone is one of two villages in the local government district of Derbyshire Dales in Derbyshire, England.
The church of St. Giles, in Great Longstone, dates from the thirteenth century. The manor house, Longstone Hall, has its origins in the following century, but was rebuilt in the mid 18th. That century was one of prosperity, with lead-mining and shoemaking (The public house is dedicated to St. Crispin, the patron saint of cobblers).
Little Longstone is further west, with a manor house from the seventeenth century and still has its village stocks.
To the north Longstone Edge, a gritstone ridge some 1300 feet in height, on an upfolding of the Derbyshire limestone known as the Longstone Anticline. It has been, and is, intensively quarried for galena, fluorspar and barytes. Being with in the Peak District National Park, it is strictly controlled, nevertheless, as a noted beauty spot, there is strong local pressure for it to stop altogeter. Further north is the White Cliff, where the exposed limestone contains fossilised corals.
There was a railway station, built by the Midland Railway in 1863, when it extended the Manchester, Buxton, Matlock and Midlands Junction Railway towards Buxton. Originally known as "Longstone", in 1913, it was renamed "Great Longstone for Ashford" (Ashford in the Water). It closed in 1962, but the building, designed to match the nearby Thornbridge Hall, survives as a domestic residence, and the track bed has been converted into the Monsal Trail.
[edit] Famous residents
Lord Hattersley, former Labour party deputy leader
