Flower Festival St Leonards Church, Monyash Saturday 24th May to Wednesday 28th May 10.00am to 4.00pm Refreshments available

Three wells will be blessed at 2pm on Saturday 24th May and will remain on display all week

Marc Little and his family have taken over Lathkill Coaches. Marc is taking bookings for private coach hire, day trips and holidays. 01629 813792 for more details.

This year's flower festival will be held in the church from 24-28 May, 10.00 to 4.00 each day. We look forward to welcoming you there to see our displays. Refreshments will be available.

St Leonards Church, Monyash

Sunday December 16th 2007, 6pm

ALL WELCOME

Please come and join us for drinks and nibbles to celebrate the completion of the restoration and redecoration of St Leonards Church

6pm - 7pm Saturday 17th November in the Church

A chance to see what has been achieved, with your support, over the last 10 years, and meet old friends and new villagers

Mulled wine and mince pies will be served from 7.15pm. Admission free, donations welcome, all proceeds to the Church. Enjoy Christmas readings and music from local artists, mixed in with some of your favourite carols.

On Sunday October 7th the Bishop of Repton, Bishop Humphrey, led a service to celebrate the refurbishment of the interior of the church. The service was well attended and everybody was able to enjoy the new bright interior and soft furnishings that have been provided

Congratulations to the Monyash Primary School Water Polo Team who emerged victorious in the first ever Bakewell Primary Schools Water Polo Competition held recently

The winning team comprised Alice Yarwood, Michi Burrow, Sara Little, Evie Bellamy, Joe Little, Gorge Swindell and Thomas Kellett and was coached by Marc Little

Pictures and information about the 2007 May Bank Holiday Wells Dressings are now available on this site. If you would like to have high quality pictures please contact Bob Johnston.

Wells Dressings

2006 has been another milestone in the long history of Monyash Church. It witnessed the completion of over ten years of repairs to the fabric and structure of the building and its internal fittings and appearance. The programme started in 1996 after much pre-planning when, with the assistance of English Heritage and local funding, the tower was repointed and ominous cracks, caused in part by the corroding ends of the iron bell frame in the upper tower, made good. Urgent repointing and other repairs to the south porch, south transept and west walls were the next stage of the programme. In 2004 the remainder of the exterior stonework was repointed. In the meantime and with assistance from a team of volunteers, the three bells, two of them dating from the early twentieth century and the third from the eighteenth century, were restored to proper ringing condition and extensive repairs carried out to the ringing mechanism. New bell ropes were provided and the stair treads up to the bell and clock chambers made safe.

With the exterior of the building now in good order, attention moved to the interior. The whole of the electrical wiring and light fittings were renewed and, following a complete internal washing down of the walls and roof timbers, all of the rendered and plastered wall and ceiling surfaces lime washed. This phase was funded in part by a generous grant from the Derbyshire Churches and Chapels Preservation Trust. The final step was the replacement of the soft furnishings with new carpet runs complemented by a host of new individually embroidered kneelers. The opportunity was also taken to remove the pipe organ, a compact chamber instrument on wheels, from its position near to the north entrance to its former location between the vestry and pulpit, thus affording an uninterrupted view of the interior of the building upon entry to it from the north door. All of the pews and wood panelling have been carefully oiled and polished. The result has been to transform the interior appearance of the Church. Its achievement has been very much a collective, local effort.

A service of rededication to commemorate what has been accomplished is planned for later this year.

But time stands still for no one, not even our venerable church. Next on the list is the cleaning, repair and re-hanging of the Royal Arms. Dated 1742, the large wooden hanging bearing the Arms was taken down while the interior cleaning and redecoration took place. Future plans also include installing a loudspeaker system, replacement of the central heating boiler and, in the medium term, extensive repairs to the north aisle roof.

Our aim throughout has been to make this much-loved and ancient building as welcoming as possible to visitors, a Christian home in which to conduct our regular Sunday and other services and a place to meet and celebrate important events for the wider village community. In this spirit the church is kept open during the daytime throughout the year.

Following a visit by Mike Smith and photographer Karen Frenkel, an eight page spread featuring the village appeared in the June edition of Derbyshire Life. Illustrated with 23 colour pictures, the article describes the village and its history. The piece reports on the impact of the IRD scheme in helping support the development of the play area, the village hall and the extension to the school, and the more recent Village Plan resulting in the upgraded play area. Also featured are the pub, smithy café, and the church. Mention is made of the White Peak Walk and the wonderful Monyash Christmas. Mike Smith calls Monyash “a welcoming oasis for the many ramblers and cyclists who cross the exposed, almost waterless plateau” of the White Peak.

Church Restoration

The interior of Monyash Church has undergone a remarkable transformation. Gone are the stained and dirty wall surfaces and the atmosphere of gloom. For the first time in living memory the vision of those, led by the celebrated architect Butterfield, who masterminded and executed the late-Victorian restoration, is to be seen and admired.

Andrew & Nick Bradbury who have carried out the works are to be congratulated for what has been achieved. What is very striking is that the simplicity of the medieval church is preserved and enhanced by the limewashed surfaces

The new Play Area is now completed.

The Dowager Duchess of Devonshire has agreed to come to Monyash and cut the official bunting. Whilst the children of Monyash School have agreed to come and make the first official testing of the playground

The opening will take place at 1.45pm on Friday July 14th in the playground behind the Bulls Head pub.

This Monyash web site is receiving around 60-70 visitors every day from all over the world. Each visitor looks at on average 3 pages. The most popular pages are the accommodation, pub and cafe pages, but all of them are being looked at. The site is mainly used by people in the UK, but in June 2006 we were also visited by people in the USA, Netherlands, New Zealand, Seychelles, Japan, Australia, Poland, France, China and Malaysia!

If you have any ideas or suggestions to help us develop the site, or things you would like to put on it or see on it, do let us know.

Flower Festival

Wells Dressings

Interior Church works - Progress

With the exception of one or two very small items the electrical wiring has now been completed. With new interior lights the Church is far brighter in appearance than it was. The next stage of cleaning down and decoration of the walls will begin in June and will take about 3 months to complete.

A New Playground for Monyash

Funding has been obtained for this project and work is due to start at the end of February 2006

The new playground will provide equipment for children of all ages and abilities, from toddlers to teenagers, with equipment adapted for children with special needs. The park itself will be easily accessible for people with pushchairs and wheelchairs, although we are retaining as many of the lovely trees and shrubs as possible and putting in comfortable seating

Work was delayed by the snow and rain earlier in the year but hopefully will progress quickly now the weather has improved

A grand opening is being planned and the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire and the children of Monyash School have agreed to attend. Please look out for posters with details of this event, we would be pleased to see everyone there

FLOWER FESTIVAL

"Bygone Monyash"

27th May - 1st June 2006

St Leonard's Church, Monyash

10am - 5pm

Light refreshments will be served throughout the festival

Proposals to improve the Playing Field at the rear of the School progress

Led by the Parish Council a small action group has been formed to take forward proposals to improve and upgrade the Playing Field facility to the rear of the School

This amenity has long been identified as something the Village wished to see enhanced and improved for the benefit of the whole community, including the School

Although still very much in the early planning and development stages the action group have begun some exploratory work involving site surveys and inspection and have also begun to formulate a business plan to assist with the development of potential funding and grant applications which will be made to a range of potential sponsors and supporters

Do you have an email address?

Would you like a simple and memorable Monyash email address? You can have your.name@monyash.net (or .org, .biz or .com) and all emails will be automatically routed to your existing email address. The proceedings from the small annual fee go toward the running of the church

For more information email shirley@monyash.net

Carols on the Green

Christmas Eve 6.30pm

All welcome. Come along and celebrate Christmas with all your favourite carols

Monyash Christmas

Friday 16th December 7.30pm in St Leonards Church

An evening of festive words and music. Free admission (a collection will be made). Refreshments available. All welcome

Monyash Archaeology Survey

A preliminary meeting for this project will be held on Sunday 4th December at 3pm in Monyash Village Hall

If you are interested in finding out how you can be involved with this survey come along to the meeting or contact Lynn Burrow on 01629 814300 if you have any queries

English Nature has been working with English Heritage to make this ruin safe to visit. Works were completed at the end of May. A new bridge has been built over the River Lathkill to provide access to this interesting house, which is built over a huge shaft.

Visitors can peer down the shaft to see water rushing along in the sough below. For more information, contact English Nature on 01629 816640

The keep fit classes in Monyash Village Hall on Thursday evenings have had to come to an end due to a lack of numbers. Thank you to all those people who have supported these classes over the past couple of years. Hopefully they will resume in the future - watch this space

Perhaps you may have noticed that Church floodlights have been on since the beginning of December to try and brighten up these dark winter months. Most of you know that we look each year for donations to support the running costs of these lights as it is a major expense for the church to bear. Please offer your support as the whole village benefits from the church being lit up.

To donate any amount, however small or large, please contact myself or Chris Woodhouse, the church treasurer

The village plan highlighted the need for action on the conservation area in Monyash Church grounds. This area was originallly set up almost 20 years ago with the intention of providing a nature study area for the school children of Monyash. Over the years the maintenance of the area has become increasingly onerous, especially as the school developed different priorities because of the National Curriculum.

It has been proposed that the conservation area is converted into a Community Woodland. By working with the existing plants rather than fighting against them the area could soon change into a woodland that could be used for nature study by the school but which require much less ongoing maintenance.

With the help of the Peak National Parks Forestry team the school children will plant trees and flowers and may spend a small amount of time each year maintaining the area. If you would like to be involved with the project, perhaps with tree planting or helping the children keep the path clear or strimming once or twice a year please contact Lynn Burrow or Trish Forrester

Exterior repairs to the Church are continuing. Andrew & Nick Bradbury are making steady progress in repointing the stonework and ensuring that our precious building is rendered wind and weather tight

As always anyone willing to help out with the Flower Rota, cleaning the church or, when the weather improves, maintaining the churchyard, should contact Jane Andrews or myself

Website Statistics

The month of May saw the Monyash website receive its most visitors ever, with 702 unique visits recorded, and over 2,500 individual pages requested.

The most daily visits occured on the 23rd May, which was the Friday before the Spring Bank Holiday!

The most requested page on the website is the accommodation listings, receiving 395 visits, with the Pub and Smithy Cafe also in the top 10 requested pages.

While the majority of visitors are from the UK, the website is also accessed from many countries around the world. The US is the most popular after the UK, but May also saw visitors from Poland, Russia, the Netherlands, Sweden, Canada, Denmark, Japan, Norway, Australia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Italy, Mongolia, Seychelles and Taiwan!

As the website approaches its first birthday, it is important to ensure that its popularity continues to increase. If you have any suggestions, news items, or corrections to anything on the website, please let us know!

Background

How Far Have We Got?

What’s Next?

More Information?

New Year was enthusiastically celebrated in the village as usual. Austin Powers and friends led the party in the Bulls Head. If you have any pictures we can add to the collection do send them in!

Pictures now available!

Another excellent evening of entertainment from local people - good music, amusing anecdotes, Christmas readings and, to top it all, mulled wine and mince pies.

The format was as usual, with Smithy's Brew hosting the event and contributions from the many talented musicians in Monyash.

Picture now available!

Jim Birchenough was a good friend, drinking companion and godfather to my son Christopher. When reflecting on death over the occasional glass of beer, sometimes consumed along with Bob Heywood, now retired landlord of the Bull i’ th’ Thorn, Jim remarked that all a person was worth was a couple of inches in the deaths column of the Buxton Advertiser. Jim did not get that but I am not sure he would be pleased to know he was having his couple of inches in cyber space instead.

I first knew him shortly after the break-up of his marriage when he left Lathkill House and moved a few doors down to Rose Cottage (one of several in Monyash). He had been a local chemist in Bakewell and was now working as a shift chemist at Enthoven in Darley Dale. He retired over seven years ago and settled down to developing his house and enjoying some time with his drinking companions, often on a Sunday lunchtime. He enjoyed his garden and conservatory and found time to grow more plants. He experimented with fuchsias but after a while realised he was allergic to them and came out in a rash every time he touched them. He often talked of his family and had photographs dotted around the house. His retirement allowed him to take extended holidays to visit them in Australia. His great rock during this time was Vera, his friend and companion, and during his later life they moved in together and spent their holidays visiting their respective relations down under. It was a wrench for him to sell his home in Monyash but it made sense as he spent most of his time with Vera in Buxton. Sadly Jim contracted Alzheimers disease and his mental health and then his physical health deteriorated over several years. It was a fall and a resulting blood clot that put him in hospital. He died on September 29th 2002 just one day before his 73rd birthday.

Picture now available!