St.
Mary & All Saints Church of Chesterfield is the largest church in
Derbyshire. There is a long history of this site being used for a house of
worship. In AD642 it is believed that St. Aidan inspired a small chapel behind
the walls of a Roman Fort here.
The Normans replaced it with a small parish church in 1093. The current building was dedicated in 1234 although it was not completed until 1360. It was after that that they decided to add the spire.
The church and spire stands 228 feet from ground to weathervane. The spire leans 9 feet 5 inches from true center but doesn’t just lean, it twists as well.
The spire consists of 150 tons of wood and 30 tons of lead shingles. When it was built it seems that too much green timber was used and the spire wasn’t properly cross-braced structurally. The bottom timbers decayed with time.
Add 600 years of weathering and according to one expert, bell ringing, and you have a Crooked Spire.
Fire on Dec. 22, 1961 almost reached the Spire and caused £ 30,000 of damage to the rest of the church.
Bramall Hall is an ancient manor originally names after the wife of the first owner. John de Davenport married Alice de Bromale. For most years it remained in the Davenport family but early in the 20th Century it was sold to the Neville Family.
The de Bromale family actually seems to have ended with Alice. The manor continued to carry her name going through several spelling variations – Brammall Hall, Bramhall Hall and finally back to Bramall Hall. The town that grew up around the manor became known as Bramhall – a shorting of the manor’s name.
The
rear of Bramall Hall. At one time it actually was a quadrangle but one side was
removed to allow more sunlight.
The manor has its own large chapel.
Are we connected in any way with Bramall Hall? Did our family descend from Alice de Bromale? Or is it just that there is a similarity because of the way surnames were selected that means our names are similar?