THE KNIGHTS HOSPITALLERS
IN DERBYSHIRE
COMMANDERY OF YEAVELEY
The Knights Hospitallers at Yeaveley and Stydd
The Hospitaller preceptory of Yeaveley, more accurately located at Stydd, about a mile west of Yeaveley village in Derbyshire, was one of the Order’s most important medieval estates in the county. It began not as a large monastery, but as a hermitage, granted to the Knights Hospitallers in the reign of Richard I by Ralph le Fun / Foun. His gift included the hermitage with its lands and rights, and the site developed into a preceptory dedicated to St Mary and St John the Baptist.
Lands and income
The Yeaveley estate formed the centre of a wider Hospitaller bailiwick. A medieval account of the Bajulia de Yieuelerecords that the Order held at Yeaveley:
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one messuage, with a garden;
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one dovecote;
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100 acres of arable land;
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8 acres of meadow;
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rents from tenants;
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profits from manorial courts;
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income from livestock or estate stock;
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income from half the appropriated church of Staveley;
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and a substantial but uncertain income from the confraternity.
This shows that Yeaveley/Stydd was both an agricultural estate and an administrative centre. The land itself provided crops, hay, livestock income and rent, while the Order also drew money from ecclesiastical rights and lay supporters across the region.
The preceptory later became associated with Barrow upon Trent, and the two were known together as the preceptory of Yeaveley and Barrow. The Victoria County History notes that Yeaveley or Stydd was a vigorous Hospitaller preceptory, from which yearly subscriptions were collected across Derbyshire.
Benefactors and ownership
Ralph le Fun’s foundation gift was followed by later benefactions. Sir William Meynell, lord of Yeaveley, was a major benefactor in 1268, helping to strengthen the estate. Other benefactors connected with the wider preceptory included families and individuals who gave lands, churches, rents or rights at places such as Barrow, Staveley, Longford and Barlow.
The Hospitallers did not necessarily own the whole manor of Yeaveley outright. Instead, their estate at Stydd sat within a landscape of lay lordship, tenant holdings and ecclesiastical rights. The Order’s power came from accumulated gifts: land, meadow, rents, church income, court profits and confraternity payments.
Buildings at Stydd
The preceptory stood within a moated enclosure at what is now Stydd Hall. Historic England records the site as including a moated preceptory, chapel and fishpond. The moat surrounded a platform of about 80 metres square, with a fishpond nearby, and buried remains of further medieval buildings are expected to survive below ground.
The known medieval buildings included:
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the preceptory chapel, dedicated to St Mary and St John the Baptist;
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domestic ranges for the preceptor, brethren and household;
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agricultural buildings such as barns, stores and service buildings;
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a dovecote;
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a fishpond;
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and probably workshops, stables and other estate buildings.
The surviving chapel remains are early medieval in character, with standing masonry, pointed-arch windows and carved details. Historic England also notes that medieval masonry was reused in the later Stydd Hall, probably from one of the domestic buildings of the preceptory.
Who was present there?
Yeaveley was not a large abbey filled with monks. It was a working Hospitaller commandery, run by a preceptor, supported by a small religious and lay household.
One named Hospitaller official was Brother William Brex, described in 1328 as being “in Yeaveley” when the English Hospitallers wrote to the Master of the Order after their provincial chapter at Melchbourne. This places him among the senior men representing the English Priory.
The 14th-century community would have included:
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the preceptor of Yeaveley;
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one or more Hospitaller brothers or chaplains;
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lay servants and estate workers;
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tenants paying rent;
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agricultural labourers;
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corrodians or dependants maintained by the house;
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and lay associates or donati, who had attached themselves and sometimes their property to the Order.
The confraternity income recorded for Yeaveley is especially important. It suggests that the preceptory had a wider spiritual and social network beyond the immediate estate, with lay people contributing money or goods in return for association with the Order, prayers, protection or charitable connection.
Yeaveley church and the Hospitaller chapel
It is important to distinguish between Yeaveley’s village chapel and the Hospitaller chapel at Stydd. Yeaveley itself was historically connected with the parish of Shirley, while the preceptory chapel at Stydd belonged to the Hospitallers and served their own religious community. The Hospitaller chapel was dedicated to St Mary and St John the Baptist, not simply the ordinary village church.
Dissolution and later history
The preceptory survived until the Dissolution of the religious houses in the 16th century. After the suppression of the Hospitallers in England, the former preceptory lands passed into secular hands. Tanner records that the preceptory was granted in the reign of Henry VIII to Charles, Lord Mountjoy.
What remains today?
Today the site is represented by Stydd Hall and the surviving ruins of the medieval Hospitaller chapel. The preceptory site is protected as a Scheduled Monument, while the chapel remains are listed, and Stydd Hall itself incorporates medieval fabric from the former preceptory buildings.
Although much of the Hospitaller complex has disappeared above ground, the moat, fishpond, chapel ruins and reused masonry preserve the outline of a once-important medieval estate. Stydd remains one of the clearest surviving physical reminders of the Knights Hospitallers’ presence in Derbyshire.
TEMPLE NORMANTON
The Knights Templar at Temple Normanton
Temple Normanton, near Chesterfield in Derbyshire, takes its name from its medieval association with the Knights Templar. In Domesday Book, Normanton was royal land, held by the king, and was already a small agricultural settlement with villagers, smallholders, a priest, meadow, woodland, two mills and a church. This shows that the estate had an established rural and ecclesiastical life before it passed into Templar hands.
The manor is first securely mentioned in connection with the Templars in 1185. By the 13th century it was held by the Order of the Temple, although the surviving evidence suggests that Normanton was a Templar manor or estate, rather than a fully documented preceptory with resident brethren. The medieval manorial centre is traditionally associated with the former Manor House Farm site at Temple Normanton, though no firm archaeological remains of a Templar house have been confirmed.
The original donor of Normanton to the Templars is not clearly identified in the readily available records. Since the manor was royal land in 1086, it may have passed through royal or baronial hands before reaching the Order, but this should not be stated with certainty unless a charter of gift is found. What can be said securely is that by the late 12th century the Templars were receiving income from the estate.
A surviving rental records named tenants and payments from Normanton. These included an unnamed “hospes noster”, or “our tenant/guest”, who paid 5 shillings from the king’s fee, together with Gilbert, Adam, Hucceman, John, Thurgot, Roger, Gunware, John the forester, Gilbert Colville, Ralph Dugger, Roger son of William, Gunford and Geoffrey. Their payments ranged from 10 pence to 2 shillings and 6 pence, showing a small community of rent-paying tenants occupying and working the estate. The reference to John the forester suggests woodland management or forest-related duties, while the wider list points to customary holdings, crofts, tofts and agricultural land rather than a large religious community.
The estate probably included arable land, meadow, pasture, woodland, mills, tenant houses, and a manorial farm. The Domesday church indicates an early religious site, but in the later medieval period Temple Normanton was a chapelry dependent on Chesterfield rather than a fully independent parish. For that reason, any claim that the Templars held a separate advowson at Temple Normanton should be treated cautiously unless supported by a specific episcopal or charter record.
After the suppression of the Templars in the early 14th century, their English lands were intended to pass to the Knights Hospitaller. Temple Normanton followed this wider pattern, but the transfer was not immediate or straightforward. The manor was given to the Hospitallers in 1323, yet in the Hospitaller survey of 1338, “Normanton in le Vale” was still listed among former Templar properties not recovered by the Hospital. It was then occupied by the Lord de Roos and valued at 15 marks a year.
Normanton later became associated with the Hospitaller administration centred on Yeaveley Preceptory. After the Dissolution of the Order of St John under Henry VIII, the manor passed into secular hands; in 1563 it was granted to the Shrewsbury family. Detailed later manorial court rolls survive for 1447–1518, preserving valuable evidence for the post-Templar and Hospitaller landscape, including tenants, roads and local administration.
Today, little visible medieval fabric survives above ground, but the village name preserves the memory of the Templar estate. Temple Normanton should therefore be understood as a small but important rural manor: originally royal land, later held by the Templars, then transferred—though not without delay and dispute—to the Hospitallers of St John.
The Church at Temple Normanton
Temple Normanton also had a medieval chapel or church site, later dedicated to St James the Apostle. Although Domesday Book records a church at Normanton in 1086, the later medieval church at Temple Normanton was not an independent parish church, but a chapelry of Chesterfield. This means it served the local settlement while remaining ecclesiastically dependent on the mother church of St Mary and All Saints, Chesterfield.
The chapel may have stood on or near the same site as the present church. An earlier building was traditionally associated with the Templar period and was said to have included a simple Norman window, possibly surviving from a 12th-century structure. However, the medieval fabric itself did not survive intact. The old chapel was rebuilt in 1623, later replaced by a new stone church in 1882–1883, and then replaced again in 1922 after mining subsidence affected the Victorian building.
TWYFORD - St Andrews Church
The Knights Hospitaller at Twyford, Derbyshire
Twyford, on the River Trent in South Derbyshire, formed part of the wider medieval parish of Barrow-upon-Trent, which also included Stenson, Arleston and Sinfin. Its riverside position made it an important crossing point, and this setting may help explain the Hospitallers’ interest in the area.
The church of St Andrew, Twyford was historically a chapelry of Barrow-upon-Trent, rather than a fully independent medieval parish church. The advowson and ecclesiastical rights therefore followed Barrow, whose church had been granted to the Knights Hospitaller by Robert de Bakepuze during the reign of Henry II. Through this gift, the Hospitallers acquired important rights in the parish, including the church of Barrow and its associated chapels, lands, rents and tithes.
At Twyford itself, the Order appears to have held more than just ecclesiastical rights. A medieval reference to Henry “of the camera in Twyford” provides important evidence for a Hospitaller presence in the village. A camera was a smaller Hospitaller estate, usually administered on behalf of the Order by a bailiff. It is therefore likely that Henry was the bailiff of the Twyford camera, responsible for managing the Order’s local lands, rents and agricultural interests.
The Hospitaller estate in this area was connected with the wider Barrow camera, which formed part of the Order’s Derbyshire possessions associated with Yeaveley Preceptory. Twyford’s estate may have included arable land, meadow, rents from tenants, and a chief house or administrative residence. Local research suggests that this chief homestead may have stood at or near the site now occupied by Old Hall Cottage.
There is also a local tradition that the Hospitallers gave bread, and possibly beer, to travellers or pilgrims arriving near Twyford by the River Trent. Although this has not been firmly proven from surviving medieval records, it fits well with Twyford’s role as a river-crossing settlement and with the charitable duties associated with the Order. A window or opening in a building near the church has sometimes been linked with this tradition.
St Andrew’s Church
The church of St Andrew remains one of the most visible medieval survivals in Twyford. Although no church is recorded here in Domesday Book, the building contains early fabric, including a fine Norman chancel arch with zigzag decoration. The church later developed through the 13th and 14th centuries, with later rebuilding and alteration.
Its Hospitaller connection comes through its dependence on Barrow-upon-Trent. As Twyford was a chapel of Barrow, its ecclesiastical rights were tied to the Hospitallers’ ownership of Barrow church. The Maltese cross motifs visible in the church’s stonework have helped preserve the memory of this association.
Modern locations
The main sites connected with the Hospitallers at Twyford today are:
St Andrew’s Church, Twyford
The medieval chapel associated with Barrow-upon-Trent and therefore with the Hospitallers’ ecclesiastical estate.
Old Hall Cottage, Stenson Lane / Twyford Road, DE73 7GA
Thought to stand on or near the site of the chief homestead of the Hospitaller estate or camera in Twyford. The present building is later in date, but the site may preserve the location of the Order’s medieval administrative house.
Wall and outbuilding south of Twyford Church
A listed structure incorporating older stonework, with a doorway and window cut through the wall. This may be the feature associated locally with the tradition of bread being handed out to travellers.
Legacy
Twyford was not a major preceptory, but it appears to have been an important local estate within the Hospitallers’ South Derbyshire holdings. Through their possession of Barrow church and the associated camera, the Order had both ecclesiastical and landed interests in the area. The reference to Henry “of the camera in Twyford” is especially significant, as it suggests that the village was not merely a dependent chapel, but may have housed one of the Order’s local estate officers.
Today, St Andrew’s Church, Old Hall Cottage and the nearby riverside landscape preserve the clearest traces of Twyford’s Hospitaller past.
STAVELY - (Stanley) - St John the Baptist Church
The Knights Hospitallers and St John the Baptist Church, Staveley
St John the Baptist Church at Staveley, Derbyshire, has medieval origins reaching back to at least the Domesday period, when a church and priest were already recorded there. The manor was then held by Hascoit, or Ascoit, Musard, whose family became important early patrons of the church.
The Hospitaller link at Staveley appears to have begun in the later 12th century, when a descendant of Ascoit Musard granted a moiety — or half-share — of the church to the Knights Hospitallers. This did not make Staveley a preceptory, nor does it suggest that the Order built the whole church. Rather, the Hospitallers held a valuable ecclesiastical interest in the parish: a share in its income, rights, and possibly its patronage.
In medieval terms, such a gift was important. A half-share of a parish church could bring revenue from tithes, offerings, and rectorial dues. These incomes helped support the wider work of the Order, most likely through its regional administration in Derbyshire, particularly the Hospitaller house at Yeaveley / Stydd. Staveley should therefore be understood as part of the Order’s wider network of income-producing church rights and estates, rather than as an independent Hospitaller commandery.
The church itself developed over several centuries. The earliest surviving fabric includes the south doorway, dating from around 1200, and a 13th-century tower. The south aisle and chapel were added in the 14th century, with further alterations in the 15th century. Later, the church became closely associated with the Frecheville family, whose medieval monuments still form an important part of the building’s historic character.
There is currently no clear evidence that the Hospitallers held a manor, preceptory, or large estate at Staveley itself. Their recorded connection seems to have centred on the church and its income. However, as with many Hospitaller holdings, the documentary record may once have included associated rents, tithes, glebe rights, or small parcels of land attached to the church’s moiety.
Today, St John the Baptist remains one of Staveley’s most important medieval survivals. Its Hospitaller connection is not obvious in the architecture, but it is significant in the history of the church’s ownership and patronage. Through the grant of part of the church by the Musard family, Staveley became one of the Derbyshire places whose ecclesiastical income helped sustain the medieval Order of St John.
BARROW (Camera) - Church of St Bartholomew
The Knights Hospitaller and the Camera of Barrow, Derbyshire
The camera of Barrow was a small but valuable estate of the Knights Hospitaller in the parish of Barrow upon Trent, Derbyshire. It was not necessarily a fully staffed preceptory in its earliest form, but an outlying estate or administrative holding attached to the Order’s wider Derbyshire interests, later associated with Yeaveley Preceptory.
The Hospitallers’ connection with Barrow began in the reign of Henry II, between 1154 and 1189, when Robert de Bakepuze gave the church and lands at Barrow to the Order. His son, John de Bakepuze, later confirmed the grant and added further lands. The donation placed Barrow among the Order’s important local sources of income, with the parish church becoming the most valuable part of the estate. Heritage Gateway records Robert de Bakepuze as the donor and notes the later confirmation by his son John.
By the later Middle Ages, the Barrow estate was recorded as a camera. A surviving extent describes the holding as including one messuage, with its garden and orchard, a dovecote, 80 acres of land, 6 acres of meadow, assize rents, one grain mill, the appropriated church of Barrow, a payment from the church of Swarkestone, hay tithes, and profit from stock. The total value was given as 54 marks and 2 shillings, with the church alone valued at £30, showing that ecclesiastical income was the dominant source of revenue.
The Order also held the church of Barrow, now St Wilfrid’s Church, in its own use. This means that the Hospitallers received the rectorial income, especially tithes, while the day-to-day spiritual care of the parish would have been provided by a vicar or chaplain. South Derbyshire’s conservation material notes that the church had passed from the king’s estate to the Hospitallers’ estate by the 13th century, around the time the north arcade of the nave was built.
The surviving evidence suggests that the camera was likely administered rather than permanently occupied by a large community of brethren. In 1338, Barrow was recorded as being under a bailiff, and Victoria County History-derived records suggest it is doubtful whether regular brethren of the Order were ever resident there in the manner of a larger preceptory.
The likely physical focus of the Hospitaller buildings has long been associated with Arleston, within the parish of Barrow upon Trent. Arleston House Farmhouse is thought to incorporate medieval remains connected with the Hospitaller house. Historic England describes the building as containing 14th-century, 17th-century and 18th-century fabric, with a sandstone ground floor of medieval character and buttresses, and notes that it is believed to include remains of the Preceptory of Yeaveley and Barrow, established by the Hospitallers in the 13th century.
Older descriptions also refer to a substantial stone-built basement or hall-like structure, approximately 75 feet by 21 feet, supported by buttresses and considered to be of 14th-century workmanship. This may represent part of the medieval camera house, though later historians have debated how much of the present building can securely be linked to the Hospitallers. The safest conclusion is that Arleston House is the traditional and most likely location of the Hospitaller camera buildings, but the precise survival of medieval fabric should be treated with caution.
After the Middle Ages, the Barrow holding remained part of the Hospitallers’ estate until the suppression of the Order’s English properties. South Derbyshire’s conservation statement records that the Hospitallers’ property at Barrow was confiscated in 1543, after which it passed through several hands and was later sold to Edward Beaumont around 1550.
Today, the Hospitallers’ presence at Barrow can still be traced in three main ways: through St Wilfrid’s Church, which preserves the ecclesiastical focus of their estate; through the landscape of Barrow and Arleston, where their lands, meadow, rents and mill once generated income; and through Arleston House Farmhouse, the traditional site of the camera buildings. Together, these remains show Barrow as a small but profitable Hospitaller estate, rooted in a 12th-century gift by the Bakepuze family and sustained by land, tenants, tithes and parish income for more than three centuries.
SWARKSTONE - St James Church
The Knights Hospitallers and Swarkestone Church
The medieval link between the Knights Hospitallers and St James’ Church, Swarkestone, appears to have been connected with the Order’s nearby estate at Barrow-upon-Trent. Barrow was a Hospitaller camera, or small administrative estate, and its accounts included income from several ecclesiastical sources in the surrounding area.
Swarkestone was not a Hospitaller preceptory, but its church seems to have formed part of the Order’s wider network of church rights in South Derbyshire. A medieval reference to “the pension of the church of Swarkestone” records a fixed annual payment due from the church to the Hospitallers. In the 1338 account of the Barrow camera, this pension was valued at 10 shillings.
This suggests that the Hospitallers once held, or had a recognised interest in, Swarkestone church. Local historical accounts also indicate that the advowson — the right to present a priest — was at one point transferred from the Hospitallers of Barrow to the de Bec family, who were lords of the manor in the early 13th century. Even after that transfer, the Order appears to have retained a continuing annual payment from the church.
The present St James’ Church stands close to the River Trent and the historic Swarkestone Bridge. Although much of the medieval church was rebuilt in 1876, earlier Norman features were recorded before the rebuilding, including a decorated chancel arch and carved tympanum. The medieval tower and later Harpur Chapel remain as important survivals.
Swarkestone’s Hospitaller connection is therefore mainly documentary rather than architectural. Its importance lies in showing how the Order’s Barrow estate drew income not only from land and rents, but also from church rights and pensions across the surrounding villages.
BRAMPTON
TANSLEY
RIPLEY - WAINGROVES (Waingriff)
The Knights Hospitallers at Waingroves
Waingroves, near Ripley in Derbyshire, was known in the Middle Ages as Waingriff or Waingrif. Its link with the Knights Hospitallers began in the 12th century, when Ralph Fitz-Stephen granted land there to the Order, probably around 1147. The gift was made in perpetual alms and appears to have been intended to provide the Hospitallers with a settled estate in the Ripley area.
Some later accounts suggest that a Hospitaller house or preceptory may have been planned or briefly established at Waingriff. However, the evidence is uncertain. It is more cautious to describe Waingroves as an early Hospitaller manor or estate, rather than a confirmed preceptory. If a house was begun there, it seems to have been short-lived, with the Order’s main Derbyshire administration later centred at Yeaveley / Stydd.
The estate also appears in connection with Darley Abbey, which held important lands and church rights in the wider Ripley and Pentrich area. A recorded agreement between Darley Abbey and the Hospitallers concerned Waingriff, showing that the estate sat within a landscape of overlapping monastic and ecclesiastical interests.
The likely site of the medieval holding is traditionally associated with Waingroves Hall or Waingroves Hall Farm. The present buildings are later, mainly post-medieval, and no confirmed medieval Hospitaller fabric is known to survive above ground. Reports of earlier foundations have been noted locally, but these remain unproven without archaeological evidence.
After the Dissolution, the former Hospitaller lands passed into secular ownership, including the hands of the Zouch family of Codnor Castle. The name Waingroves appears in later post-medieval records, replacing the older form Waingriff.
Today, Waingroves is best understood as one of the Hospitallers’ early Derbyshire estates: a landholding gifted to the Order in the 12th century, possibly intended for a small house, but ultimately remembered as a manor or farm within the wider network of Hospitaller property in the county.
