Shottle and Postern is a civil parish within the Amber Valley district, which is in the county of Derbyshire, England. Sparsely built up with much rural expanse, its population was 270 residents in the 2021 census. The parish is north west of London, north west of the county town of Derby, and equidistant of the nearest market towns of Belper and Wirksworth. It shares a boundary with the parishes of Alderwasley, Ashleyhay, Belper, Hazelwood, Idridgehay and Alton, Turnditch and Windley.
Geography
Location
Placement and size Shottle and Postern parish is surrounded by the following local Derbyshire places:
Alderwasley and Wirksworth to the north Hazelwood and Windley to the south Belper Lane End, Blackbrook and Farnah Green to the east Idridgehay Green and Turnditch to the west.
It is in area, in length and in width at its broadest, within the western portion of the Amber Valley district, and is to the centre south of the Derbyshire county. The parish is roughly bounded by land features such as the Wilder Brook to the east, Postern Hill to the south, and the River Ecclesbourne, Ecclesbourne Valley Railway line and Carr Brook to the west.
Settlements
There are a number of areas of built environment within the parish, outside of this containing substantial rural expanse and farmland. The main locales are:
Shottle - this is to the centre north of the parish and consists of a sparsely populated hamlet Cowers Lane - this is a linear settlement in the south west of the parish, surrounding a crossroads Shottlegate - split into two across the parish boundary into Belper in the south east. Postern, while referenced in the parish name, consists of the southern portion with scattered residences and farms, and is predominantly rural. A small portion of Hazelwood village falls into the parish by its south eastern extent, as well as for Turnditch in the south western area.
Routes The A517 road is the primary road within the parish, running through the south of the parish between Belper and Ashbourne. In the parish it cuts through the Shottlegate and Cowers Lane settlements. The B5023 runs through the south west of the parish from Wirksworth to Duffield, cutting across the A517 at the Cowers Lane crossroads, and exiting to the south of the parish.
Environment
Landscape The parish rests on the edge of the valley of the River Ecclesbourne, the ground lowest in the south and west, rising steeply towards the centre and north and hills in the south. The parish is urbanised mainly to the middle along communication routes, but is otherwise overwhelmingly rural and farmland. Substantial areas of trees are few, with a small coppice north of Hazelwood at Postern Hill, Handley Wood to the east of the parish north of Shottlegate, Gibbet Wood to the north west and scattered clusters to the parish centre around brooks near Shottle.
Geology The bedrock of the parish is complex with several layers found. In the parish south and south west is in the Morridge Formation, which is made up of mudstones, siltstones and sandstones, formed between 329 and 320 million years ago during the Carboniferous period. The Marsden Formation meets this in the south east and centre, again consisting of mudstone and siltstone formed between 321.5 and 320 million years ago during the same period. North and east has the Marsden overlain with Ashover Grit which is a sandstone sedimentary bedrock formed in the same era. North west is the Bowland Shale formation, primarily mudstone and siltstone bedrock formed between 337 and 319 million years ago during the Carboniferous period.
Towards the centre are till with diamicton, which is sedimentary superficial deposit formed between 860 and 116 thousand years ago during the Quaternary period. To the west around the River Ecclesbourne is alluvium with clay, silt, sand and gravel sedimentary superficial deposit formed between 11.8 thousand years ago and the present also during the Quaternary period.
Hydrological features The River Ecclesbourne runs alongside much of the parish western boundary but only enters south of Cowers Lane before exiting and draining into the River Derwent at Duffield. Other watercourses throughout the parish exist, including the Carr Brook to the north west and the Loud Brook/Franker Brook which is centrally placed and comes through Cowers Lane, all of which are subsidiaries of the Ecclesbourne. The Shipley Brook is to the east and runs near Shottlegate before feeding the Derwent at Belper.
Land elevation The south of the parish surrounding the Ecclesbourne valley where the river, parish boundary, B5023 road and railway meet contains the lowest area, at . The area rises towards the settlements in the centre and north: Cowers Lane is , Shottlegate and Shottle . The highest location is a point along the northern parish boundary, measuring .
History
Toponymy Shottle was the only settlement to be listed in the Domesday 1086 landholding survey. It was described as Sothelle, which was thought to mean a 'hill with a steep slope', likely in reference to the Ecclesbourne valley profile. Postern was first termed in the 14th century, sometimes as Postorne, and is possibly named from 'house made with posts' or 'back gate, side way'.
Prehistory to early modern history The parish holds very little proof of its prehistoric past, with relics from that era recorded mainly in the surrounding region outside the boundary such as at Ashleyhay and Milford, although a possible round barrow along with flints was found north of Shottle in 1957, dating from the Bronze Age (2350 BC to 701 BC). There is evidence of a Roman (AD 43 to AD 410) presence in the area with kilns and pottery fragments found in modern times within the Cowers Lane and Shottlegate vicinity. In 1066, at the time of the Norman Conquest, the area was held by Gamal who had oversight over a number of manors in Derbyshire, and by 1086, the Domesday Book recorded the Lord of the manor was Godric who answered to the overall tenant-in-chief, Henry de Ferrers. An outlying estate Wallstone, to the west of the parish was at the time associated to Shottle and also reported in the book. Further afield, Duffield, Shottle, Holbrook, Milford, and Makeney made up the two manors of Duffield and Shottle. Holbrook, Milford, and Makeney were considered to be waste lands, Duffield and Shottle together there were approximately 1,500 acres of arable land and 10,000 acres of pasturable woods, the remainder of the ancient Duffield parish was made up of meadow, swamp, river, brook, and detached pieces of waste land.
It is thought the Ferrers enjoyed the chase and used their manor for hunting, a moated enclosure 'The Mottes', was discovered north of Shottle, and believed to date from this period or later, it possibly was a hunting lodge or a deer enclosure, and in the 20th century designated a scheduled monument. The family were granted in 1252 free warren to the wider region by Henry III. In 1266, the estates of Robert de Ferrers, 6th Earl of Derby, a protagonist in the Second Barons' War, were confiscated by Henry III, who granted them to his son the Earl of Leicester, known as Edmund Crouchback. From that period these remained in the hands of the Duchy of Lancaster which was a private estate holding for heirs to the English throne, and the holdings in Derbyshire surrounding Duffield became part of the Duffield Frith royal forest. The term forest was not in reference to a thickly wooded region but instead was a location used for hunting, although it was more tree covered than in modern times. The area was by medieval times in the Appletree hundred, and what would become the Shottle and Postern area was split across the Colebrook and Duffield (sometimes called Chevin) wards respectively, the boundary meeting at today's modern A517 road, and within the ancient parish.
In the forest seven parks were formally established, used to hold deer and other wild animals for hunting. Royalty, nobility and gentry visited, but the primary park of the Frith was at nearby Ravensdale Park which contained a spacious lodge to cater to aristocrats. Shottle Park was demarcated north of the route between Belper and Ashbourne, and Postern Park was to the south, in later surveys Shottle Park was described as in circumference, and Postern as 'about'. The Duchy records for the parks show entries from the very late 13th century, but formally designated as parks by 1330. In 1398 a new entrance called Cowhouse Gate was to allow access to Postern Park which would become Cowhouse Lane, and came off the Belper-Ashbourne route. Shottle and Postern parks still contained functions other than holding deer, at Cowhouse Lane a large cattle dairy was kept, and Shottlegate was the main entrance to the parks, around which a community developed. Names of local roads and features betray this former use: Palerow Lane and Pale-fence Farm are examples of palisades being erected on the northern boundary. Forest law was used to administer the Frith from 1399, which still had locals accessing and using resources and whom had certain rights and privileges such as being able to obtain fuel, wood and graze animals amongst others. The King held oversight on these, as part of the feudal system then in place, inhabitants providing produce from land, tithe and other taxes, to local and national service in times of war. During the 14th and 15th century the parks began to be sometimes long term leased out to nobles.
During Henry VIII's rule the nearby manor of Alderwasley was granted to the Lowe family and Colebrook ward abolished, but Shottle Park was kept in the remaining area of the Frith and added to Duffield ward. Shottle and Postern was described as ‘mostly stony, indifferent land except here and there in the valley and by the rills thereof’, yet Postern had areas of good pasture too as it was in the midst of two river valleys which enabled the location of the cowhouse, this was able to support the main occupation in the area, which was reported in local population and tax assessments as husbandry and growing corn, with a large increase in population from 9 households in the late 16th century to nearly 70 in 1618 as the forest increasingly was unused for its original purpose and encroached upon. From the 16th century the park system was increasingly untenable after the Wars of the Roses and poaching which led to a loss in the deer population. This resulted in a review of the forest resources being made, and the main interests of the monarchs became the ancient timber to build ships and to counter the threat of the Spanish Armada during the Anglo-Spanish Wars, also to use as fuel for smelting.