Brailsford

Brailsford is a small red-brick village in Derbyshire on the A52 midway between Derby and Ashbourne. The village has a pub, a post office, a petrol station and a school. There are many fine houses in the district including two 20th-century country houses: Brailsford Hall built in 1905 in Jacobean style, and Culland Hall.

History

Brailsford was mentioned in the Domesday Book as being in the tenancy of Elfin (possibly an Anglo-Norman rendering of the Saxon Aelfwine) who also held the nearby manors of Bupton, Osmaston and Thurvaston from the tenant-in-chief, Henry de Ferrers.

The Domesday survey of 1086 records the following for Brailsford:

Land of Henry de Ferrers M. In Brailsford Earl Waltheof had 2 carucates of land taxable. Land for 2 ploughs. Now in lordship 2 ploughs. 24 villagers and 3 smallholders have 5 ploughs. A priest and ½ church; 1 mill, 10s 8d; meadow 11 acres; Woodland pasture 1 league long and 1 league wide. Value before 1066, 60s; now 40s. Elfin holds it. Elfin, through his son, Nicholas de Brailsford, is the ancestor of the Brailsford family, who are still numerous in the county and elsewhere today.

From Pigot and Co's Commercial Directory for Derbyshire, 1835:

"BRAILSFORD is rather a considerable village, in the parish of its name, and hundred of Appletree; situate on the main road between Derby and Ashbourne, equidistant from each place. Coaches to different parts of the kingdom are continually passing through here, and the support of the village is chiefly derived from that circumstance—there being no manufactures, nor any extensive trade existing here. The places of worship are the parish church, and a chapel for Wesleyan methodists; the former, which is situate, about half a mile from the village, is dedicated to All Saints, and the living is a rectory, in the patronage of Earl Ferrers."