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An 8th century Saxon cross gives distinction to this remote village on a hill overlooking the narrow valley of Havenhill Dale Brook. The cross, depicting a scene from the Crucifixion, is one of the finest in Derbyshire. It stands in the churchyard of All Saints, whose square Norman tower, which dates from 1140, stands on a Saxon base.
All Saints contains many monuments to the local Buckston family. One commemorates Thomas Buckston, described as one of the oldest officers in H.M. Service, when he died in 1811.
The south door of the church tower, with its moulded columns and wedge-shaped arch stones, is one of the best Norman doorways to survive in any part of the county.
Near the churchyard stands Bradbourne Hall, a greystone Elizabethan mansion, which was built on the site of a grange used by the monks of Dunstable Priory who once farmed the lime-stone hills of the district.
During the Middle Ages, the lords of the manor were the Bradbourne family. Their seat, Lea Hall, still exists one mile to the south-west of the village, though these days the property is a farmhouse. It was Thomas Buckston who fought at Culloden in 1746, and was 87 when he died a few years after Trafalgar.
The hamlet of Ballidon, with its partly Norman chapel in a field, lies to the north, as do ancient burial mounds on Minninglow Hill-which rises more than 1,000 feet above sea-level.
Note the old corn- mill still working which stands beside Havenhill Dale Brook.
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