Norbury, Derbyshire

Norbury, Derbyshire

Coordinates: 52°58′41″N 1°49′05″W / 52.978°N 1.818°W / 52.978; -1.818

Norbury is a village in Derbyshire, England. It is located 3 miles (4.8 km) north of Rocester, on the B5033 road and the River Dove (which is the traditional border for Staffordshire). The hamlet has links with George Eliot's family, the Evans. George Eliot's father, Robert Evans, was born in Roston Common and sang in the choir at Norbury church, and most of George Eliot's paternal ancestors are buried there.

The ecclesiastical parish of Norbury includes Norbury, Roston, the parochial chapel and manor of Snelston, the hamlets of Birchwood and Darley Moor, and formerly included the liberty of Stydd, now in Yeaveley.

A Methodist chapel stood where Chapel Farm, by the Queen Adelaide Inn, is now. Dinah Morris (based on George Eliot’s aunt, Elizabeth Evans) preached here. Eliot’s father Robert was a carpenter at Norbury, and became a land agent here- he moved with his employer to Arbury, where Eliot was born to his second wife. Eliot’s own connections with Norbury were slight- “As to my indebtedness to facts of locale- the details which I knew as facts and have made use of for my picture were gathered from such imperfect allusion and narrative as I heard from my father in his occasional talk about old times.” The carpenter’s shop at Norbury was associated with the smell of pinewood and the scent of elderflower; Eliot said to Oscar Browning that the elder tree growing at the door of the workshop was an early recollection closely connected with the poetry of her life.

The graveyard contains the graves of Thias and Lisbeth Bede.