CASTLETON’S PARISH LIBRARY

The FARRAN COLLECTION was catalogued in 1977 by Joan Friedmann (University of Sheffield Postgraduate School of Librarianship and Information Science). The catalogue has recently been digitised and is available HERE.

By way of background, the following text is borrowed directly from guides to The Parish Church of St. Edmund,  Castleton, Derbyshire.

The Reverend Frederick Farran was in the habit of lending his books to villagers. In the library he bequeathed to the village in 1811, some of the volumes are inscribed “bought for the use of my parishioners”. In this he was carrying on the tradition of his predecessor Edward Bagshawe, who noted in his diary that friends and villagers borrowed some of his books. Farran’s sister and her husband added to the library after his death.

The village was thus provided, early in the 19^th century, with a lending library, of good quality, containing probably some eleven or twelve hundred volumes. The borrowers’ book for the mid-19^th century provides a general picture of the use to which the library was put by the village…. During the year 1852 there were 152 borrowings from the library; in 1862 73 books were taken out; but in 1872 only 4 books were borrowed. It seems that the library was falling into disuse by the end of the 19^th century. Nevertheless it had served a useful purpose at a time when Castleton, before the opening of the Chinley and Sheffield railway, was very isolated.

The library consists of 18^th century and some 17^th century works. Two Bibles published in 1609 (the Geneva Bible popularly known as the “Breeches Bible” and the 1716 Vinegar Bible) are on display in the church. While the majority of Reverend Farran’s books are religious works, the collection also includes literary works, biographies, travel books and studies of chemistry and medicine.