In Anglo-Saxon times, Pinxton was a small agricultural community, thought to have been recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as "Esnotrewic." It is also thought that it was known as "Snodeswic," given by Wulfric Spott to Burton Abbey.
Pinxton fields.
In Norman times, it was under the control of William Peveril, for whom it was held by Drogo fitz Pons. It is thought that he renamed the manor "Ponceston" and it gradually changed to Penekeston and then to Pinxton.
Coal
Since 1800 BC, coal had been extracted in the area. In 1794 the Cromford Canal encouraged this trade. By the beginning of the next century there were a number of deep coal mines. Trade increased with the growth of the Industrial Revolution. There were also four lime kilns and a china works producing quality ware. Pinxton's prosperity increased further as the terminus of the Mansfield and Pinxton Railway, opened in 1819.
From the profits of his colliery at Pinxton, D'Ewes Coke (1747-1811) of Brookhill Hall, a clergyman colliery master, founded a local school and an educational charity. The collieries and coking ovens have been replaced by an industrial estate, and the old colliery village has all but disappeared.
John King
John King is the inventor of a mining safety device, a detaching hook, which successfully completed trials in 1873 at Pinxton No.1 colliery. The detaching hook prevents a cage raising miners from a shaft from being raised up and over the headstock pulley when raised from a mine shaft. A mining museum in Pinxton honoring John King and commemorating the invention of the detaching hook was closed in 2014 and its contents distributed to other museums and heritage centres.
In Pinxton today, there remains the John King mining wheel which was used in the days when mining was available. Now the John King wheel is a historical model for the public to see. John King is also named after an infant school in Pinxton. The horse gin, or whim from Pinxton Green Colliery has been re-erected at Nottingham Industrial Museum. Pinxton signal box, which once controlled access to Bentinck Colliery has been relocated to Barrow Hill Engine Shed.
World War II
On 12 August 1940, a stick of bombs was dropped on Pinxton. One council house was hit, killing one person.
There was a church at Pinxton by the 13th century. The original dedication was to St John the Evangelist. The surviving medieval part of the building consists principally of the lower part of a rectangular tower and the adjoining remains of the earlier church.
A small chamferedlancet is of Early English type and dates from the 13th century. The tower also contains a two-light Decorated window dating from about 1290–1350. The different types of masonry and architectural detail indicate that the tower was altered more than once. A description of about 1710 noted that it appeared to have been built at different times.
The Derbyshire Historic Environment Record records evidence for an independent benefice at Pinxton by the late 13th century and gives 1299 as the date associated with the first recorded rector. The medieval church was considerably larger than the part that survives.
The original dedication to St John the Evangelist had fallen out of ordinary use by the middle of the 16th century, when the building was generally referred to simply as Pinxton Church.
The medieval church was largely demolished in about 1750. A new church was built at right angles to the surviving medieval structure, incorporating the tower and other elements of the earlier building. The rebuilding is dated to 1750 by Pevsner, while John Shooter’s history of the church gives 1755.
The new church consisted of a nave and chancel, with a west porch and gallery. The surviving medieval tower formed the southern end of the new building, while part of the former medieval church was incorporated into the chancel.
The 18th-century church had arched windows and a plain Venetian-style east window. Medieval stonework was probably reused, and some 18th-century roof timbers remain in the present building.
The rebuilding appears to have been accompanied by a change in dedication from St John the Evangelist to St Helen. The exact date of the change is uncertain, as is the reason for the new dedication. There is no known evidence establishing who initiated it.
The upper part of the medieval tower was rebuilt in 1897, and two buttresses were added to its lower part.
More extensive work followed in 1939. The nave was substantially reconstructed and a north aisle was added. A projecting baptistry was built at the west end, and the ground to the north of the church was lowered to provide a level site for the extension. A new vestry was added in 1970.
The 1939 work accounts for much of the present arrangement of the church while leaving the medieval tower and other earlier elements in place.
Monuments
The church contains several monuments to members of the Coke family of Brookhill, who were prominent landowners in the area.
Three large monuments in the chancel commemorate members of the Coke family and date from approximately 1759, 1801 and 1811. Two have painted coats of arms. The southern chapel, known as the Brookhill aisle, contains an organ and further monuments.
A monument to Robert and Sarah Lillyman, dating from about 1780, is signed “AB Fecit”. It has a segmental pediment with a coat of arms, carved cherubs and scrolled sides. Other monuments in the aisle date from the later 19th century.
Architecture
The church is built mainly of coursed squared sandstone with ashlar dressings. The chancel has a red plain-tile roof, while the other roofs are principally lead.
The medieval tower has two stages. Its lower part contains the surviving medieval masonry and openings, while the upper stage was rebuilt in 1897. The 13th-century lancet survives in the west elevation of the organ bay, and the tower contains a Decorated two-light window.
The main body of the church dates from the 18th century. The nave has three bays and the chancel two. The north aisle, north vestry and rebuilt west front belong to the 20th-century alterations.
Inside, the north aisle is separated from the nave by a three-bay arcade of semi-circular arches. A wide segmental arch separates the nave from the chancel, while a pointed arch leads into the southern chapel or organ bay.
The Brookhill aisle contains the organ and several monuments. The church also has an octagonal font with painted panels, early 20th-century memorial plaques and stained glass dating from the mid-19th and early 20th centuries.
Some of the roof timbers from the 18th-century rebuilding survive.
St Helen’s Church was first listed on 8 July 1966 and is designated Grade II on the National Heritage List for England. The listing identifies the principal historic elements as the 13th-century tower and chapel, the 1750 nave and chancel, and the north aisle and vestry added in 1939.
Ecclesiastical history
Pinxton was one of the ancient parishes of Derbyshire. The parish records are held by Derbyshire Record Office under the reference D740. The collection covers 1561–1993 and includes registers of baptisms, banns, marriages, burials and services, as well as churchwardens’ account books, electoral rolls and glebe terriers. The records provide a continuous documentary record of the parish from the Elizabethan period onwards and include material relating to the administration of the church and parish.
St Helen’s is currently within the Diocese of Derby, in the Archdeaconry of East Derbyshire and Hardwick Deanery. Pinxton is listed as a parish within the deanery rather than as part of a larger parish. The parish is currently served by a priest-in-charge.
Churchyard
The churchyard contains the Pinxton war memorial, erected after the First World War. The memorial commemorates local men who died during the First World War and has subsequently been supplemented to commemorate later conflicts. It is separately listed at Grade II.
The churchyard is also recorded in the Derbyshire Historic Environment Record in connection with the historic parish church.
Current use
St Helen’s remains an active parish church and is used for regular public worship and other parish activities.
As of 2026, the parish is served by the Reverend Imogen Black as Priest-in-Charge. The church continues to have a role in the local community as well as its religious function.
Transport
The M1 reached junction 28 on Monday 3 July 1967, just after noon. It was to have opened at 10am, making the M1 136 miles.
The Pinxton to Barlborough section, to the north, was built by John Laing Construction Ltd, and opened on Wednesday 25 October 1967; it had cost £12.5m, and was two months late. Construction had started in August 1965, and there had been mining subsidence.
The A38 section from Alfreton to the M1 opened as the A615 on 27 August 1969. It was built by Robert McGregor & Sons, and was built as a concrete road. It was Derbyshire's largest road project, and took 29 acres of land in Pinxton. Construction started in October 1967, and opened four months early. It crossed the former A613 at Alfreton.
Trainspotting
"Pinxton Level Crossing" is a major tourist attraction for trainspotters who come from all over the country to take photographs of some of the unique locomotives that pass over the crossing.
Education
There are four schools in Pinxton; John King Infant Academy situated on Church St W, Longwood Infant Academy on Wharf Rd, Kirkstead Junior Academy on Kirkstead Rd, and Pinxton Nursery School on Kirkstead Rd.
Pinxton Wharf
Pinxton Wharf pond.
Pinxton Wharf is a site that consists of a stretch of Pinxton Canal and a fishing pond located on the southern edge of Pinxton. Pinxton Canal was a branch of the Cromford Canal.
↑Cox, John Charles (1875). Notes on the Churches of Derbyshire. Vol.I. pp.303–307.
↑Kerry, C. (1897). "Gleanings from the Assize Rolls for Derbyshire Preserved in the Record Office, London". Derbyshire Archaeological Journal. 19: 119–121.
↑Pevsner, Nikolaus (1979). The Buildings of England: Derbyshire (2nded.). p.299.
