DARLEY-ABBEY, or Little Derby, a chapelry or liberty in the district and county of Derby; on the river Derwent, adjacent to the Derby and Leeds railway, 1¼ mile N of Derby. Post town, Derby. Real property, £4, 322. Pop., 967. Houses, 161. A small Augustinian priory was founded here, in the time of Henry I., by the Abbot of St. Helens; and given, at the dissolution, to the Wests. A mansion, called Darley Abbey, is now the seat of T. W. Evans, Esq. The living is a p. curacy in the diocese of Lichfield. Value, £150.* Patron, T. W. Evans, Esq. The church is modern.

(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))