Church Broughton has nothing more beautiful than its fine avenue of limes and the old church to which they lead, a gracious place of lovely stone all splashed with streaks of amber, with something left of Norman days and much of 600 years ago when the old church was madeas one sees it today.
The legacy of the Normans is the font (with an unusual pattern of angles and circles) a half-pillar with a capital near the chancel, and perhaps the round pillars of the nave. Two oval pillars at the west end are of the 14th century, their capitals having extraordinary figures which seem to be grimacing at each other. As old as these pillars is the embattled tower with a stair turret and a low spire, the chancel with three stone seats and a piscina niche, a small priest's doorway, an outside recess with a curious little window in the wall, and the capitals of the arcades.
Worked into the modern reredos is the tracery of screenwork perhaps 600 years old. The clerestory and the oak roof of the nave, with carved spandrels, is largely of 1506. The oak pulpit is of the 18th century; though altered since its day, it was the gift of one of the Woolleys of Sapperton a mile or so away to the west, where the gabled 16th or 17th century manor house still stands with its fine farm buildings at the foot of a shady lane.
William Woolley's manuscript history of Derbyshire, over 250 years old, is in the British Museum. It is believed that he wrote it in the village.
In a 17th century chest with three locks is the old village bassoon, the most curious possession of the church. An interesting possession is the winged figure of St George and the Dragon on a bracket in the chancel, carved in Oberammergau in the early years of this century. A stone in the floor at the west end of the church marks the spot where Francis Fearn used to stand to wind up the old clock in the tower. For 32 years he was the parish clerk, and when at last he knew he was winding himself down, he chose to be buried near this spot.
