BIGGIN is a hamlet formed into an ecclesiastical parish in 1849, and comprising the Nether Quarter of Hartington parish, 2½ miles from Parsley Hay station, on the London and North Western Failway, 9 north from Ashborne and 2 south-east from Hartington, in the Western division of the county, hundred of Appletree, union, petty sessional division and county court district of Ashborne, rural deanery of Buxton, archdeaconry of Derby and diocese of Southwell. Biggin is near the Cromford and High Peak mineral railway. The church of St. Thomas is a modern edifice in an Early Gothic style, built by subscription in 1848, on a site given by the Duke of Devonshire, and consists of chancel, nave of five bays, south porch and an embattled tower at the west end containing one bell; there are 350 sittings; 220 of which are free. The register dates from the year 1848.

The living is a vicarge, gross yearly value £164, net £158, with 1 acre of glebe and residence, in the gift of the Duke of Devonshire K.G. and held since 1886 by the Rev. John Foulger, of St. Aidans. Here is a Primitive Methodist chapel and there is another at Heathcote. Fairs for cattle are held on the Tuesday before the second Wednesday in September and on October 3rd, unless it fall on a Sunday, in which case it is held on the 4th. The Duke of Devonshire K.G. is lord of the manor. The principal landowners are the Duke of Rutland K.G., the Duke of Devonshire and John Sleigh esq. of Highgate. The soil is clayey; subsoil, limestone. The land is chiefly used for grazing purposes. The area of Hartington Nether Quarter is 3,898 acres; rateable value, £3,749; the population in 1891 was 325.

Heathcote, one mile north west, and Newhaven, 1½ miles east, are hamlets.

Parish Clerk, William Palfreyman
Sexton, John Wagstagg [sic]

Letters through Ashborne, via Hartington, which is the nearest money order & telegraph office, arrive about 11 a.m. Letter-Box cleared at 1.30 p.m.

National (mixed) School, erected for 60 children; average attendance, 50; David Thewlis, master; Miss Emma M. Thewlis, assistant mistress
[Kelly's Directory of Derbyshire, 1895]