Chesterfield - A brief history

Chesterfield is a market town, which received it's market charter in 1204 from King John. It is also a local government district in Derbyshire, a county in England. It lies south of Sheffield, on a confluence of the rivers Rother and Hipper, and has a population of approximately 100,000. It is located at 53°34' N 1°25' W.

Chesterfield benefitted greatly from the building of the Chesterfield Line - part of the Derby to Leeds railway (North Midland Line), which was begun in 1837 by George Stephenson. During its construction, a sizable seam of coal was discovered. This and the local ironstone were promptly exploited by Stephenson who set up a company to trade in the minerals. During his time in Chesterfield, Stephenson lived at Tapton House, and remained there till his death in 1848. He is interred in Trinity Church.

Chesterfield is perhaps best known for the "crooked spire" of its Church of Saint Mary and All Saints. The twisted spire leans 9 feet 5 inches from its true centre. The twisting is probably the result of unseasoned timbers or insufficient cross-bracing, although there are other explanations: One is that the spire was so shocked to learn of the marriage of a virgin in the church that it bent down to get a closer look. Another is that a Bolsover blacksmith mis-shoed the Devil, who leaped over the spire in pain, knocking it out of shape.

The Channel Tunnel between England and France used boring machines manufactured in Chesterfield by the company Markham & Co., which no longer exists in the town..

Famous people to come from Chesterfield include Baron Bowden, footballer Bob Wilson, glamour model Jo Guest and actor John Hurt.

Chesterfield is twinned with:

• Darmstadt in Germany.
• Troyes in Northern France
• Yangquan in the Shanxi province of China
• Tsumeb in Namibia.

Accredited to Wikipedia