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Hathersage comes into our literature. It is said to have the grave of Little John, and it has a lovely treasure house.
For a long time it knew the Eyres, and some of their old homes are near. Highlow Hall and Offerton Hall stand high across the valley, and beyond the church and towards the moors are Moorseats and North Lees Hall.
A 16th century house in a lovely setting is North Lees Hall, mantled in trees. From here the Eyres fled when James II ran away, and nearby are ruins of their tiny chapel.
Charlotte Bronte knew Hathersage and brought it everlasting fame in Jane Eyre, giving her heroine a name which breathed association with this place and using the glorious country round about for her moorland scenery.
North Lees Hall is in the story, Moorseats is the Moor House where the Rivers sisters lived. The house has been much altered, but the little window through which Jane peeped is here, now inside the hall.
The cross-roads three miles off are said to be the Whitcross where Jane left the coach to find her way to Morton, which is Hathersage. She stayed at the vicarage, high up on a hill, helping Ellen Nussey to get the house ready for her brother and his bride. In the vicarage are now kept Charlotte's writing desk (inlaid with pearl) one of her shawls, and slippers worn by her and her sister Anne.
Close to the vicarage is the handsome church, coming mainly from the 14th and 15th centuries. Lighted by splendid windows, its battlemented walls have pinnacles and gargoyles, among which are quaint faces, a tiger's head, and a muzzled bear. The fine 15th century tower has a lofty spire as old as itself,and an arch with beautiful capitals. The nave arcades with fine capitals, the priest's doorway, the graceful canopied sedilia, and a lovely piscina are also of the 14th century. Of the 12th century all that is left is the base of a pillar in the north aisle. In the porch is a broken coffin-stone 600 years old.
Incorporated in the modern vestry are windows, stones, and slates from Derwent church, now beneath the waters of the Ladybower Reservoir. The arms of the Eyres are over the porch, and their fine array of brass portraits is indoors - all in armour. The 15th century font has their arms too, and a beautiful little sanctus bell asks for a prayer for Robert and Joan, whose brass portraits have been for over 500 years on an altar tomb under an elaborate canopy in the chancel. Robert has his sword and dagger, his wife has a fur-trimmed gown,and their 14 children are all in a row.
On the wall above this tomb kneel their eldest surviving son Robert with his wife, four boys kneeling behind, two little kneeling figures on the other side of the chancel may be missing daughters. The brass portraits of Joan's son Ralph and his wife are against the chancel wall, and brass figures of a knight and his lady of two generations later, kneel at desks on which there are books - they are Sir Arthur Eyre and his wife.
The churchyard is lovely with trees and has splendid views; it has also four feet of the old cross, and a grave that everyone comes to see. It is by an old yew, and we read that here lies buried Little John, the friend and lieutenant of Robin Hood.
Little John is said to have disguised himself as a servant in the house of the Sheriff of Nottingham and to have carried off the silver plate. According to legend, he came back here with a broken heart after laying Robin Hood to rest at Kirklees. It was he who gave the dying Robin his bow and arrow, and sent him from the world with the praise of his last feeble shot ringing in his ears. The wise will be content with the story, content to hear how his little cap and his bent bow used to hang in this church, and how there was found in his grave a thigh-bone 32 inches long, of a man of tremendous stature.
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