Alfreton, Derbyshire : Historical writing

Descriptive gazetteer entries

These other entries in our collection of descriptive gazetteers are also about Alfreton. You may be able to find further references to Alfreton in the descriptive gazetteers by doing a full-text search here.

Place Type of entry Source
Alfreton parish and market town Bartholomew
ALFRETON a small town, a parish, and a subdistrict Imperial

This additional information from our descriptive gazetteers is for locations within the parish or parishes associated with Alfreton.

Place Type of entry Source
Birchwood village Bartholomew
BIRCHWOOD a village Imperial
Greenhill Lane hamlet Bartholomew
Ironville village Bartholomew
Outseats hamlet Bartholomew
OUTSEATS a hamlet Imperial
RIDDINGS a village and a chapelry Imperial
Somercotes village Bartholomew
SOMERCOTES a village Imperial
Swanwick ecclesiastical district and village Bartholomew
SWANWICK a chapelry Imperial

Travel writing

This website includes the complete texts of books describing journeys around Britain, written between the twelfth and nineteenth centuries. Selecting one of the links below will take you to the first reference to Alfreton within the selected text. This will not always be a description of a visit: travellers often mention places other than where they are, for example as a basis for comparison.

Traveller Section No. of Refs.
William Camden Nottinghamshire, Derby and Warwick 1

This website includes two large libraries, of historical travel writing and of entries from nineteenth century gazetteers describing places. We have text from these sources available for these places near your location:

Place Mentioned in Travel Writing Mentioned in Historical Gazetteer
Somercotes 0 2
Birchwood 0 2
Swanwick 0 2
Riddings 0 2
Pye Bridge 0 2
Ironville 0 2
Butterley 0 2
Oakerthorpe 0 2
Pentrich 0 2
South Normanton 0 3
Pinxton 0 2
Codnor Park 0 2
South Wingfield 1 3
Selston 0 2
Ripley 0 2
Shirland 0 2
Codnor 2 2
Blackwell 0 2
Fulwood 0 2
Brinsley 0 2

Names from historical writing

The following appear as names for Alfreton. Follow the links for what the author actually said:

Name Author Source
ALFFRETON William Camden Britain, or, a Chorographicall Description of the most flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland (London: George Bishop and John Norton, 1610).
ALFRETON John Bartholomew Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).
John Marius Wilson Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (Edinburgh: A Fullarton & Co., 1870-72).

NB: These variant names come from our collections of historical travel writing and descriptive gazetteers:

  • The above links take you to the first reference to this particular version of the name within a book of travel writing, or to the relevant gazetteer entry.
  • Some names may derive from research by antiquarian writers such as William Camden and Thomas Pennant into the Roman, Saxon and medieval names of places. Their claims are not always supported by modern place-name researchers.
  • References by travel writers to the place using its "normal" name are not included. Descriptive gazetteer entries are included only if the name does not appear anywhere else.