CARSINGTON, a parish in the hundred of WIRKSWORTH, county of DERBY, 2½ miles (W. by S.) from Wirksworth, containing 270 inhabitants. The living is a discharged rectory, in the archdeaconry of Derby, and diocese of Lichfield and Coventry, rated in the-king's books at £5. 1. 10., and in the patronage of the Dean of Lincoln. The church, dedicated to St. Margaret, is a small ancient building, without a steeple, and scarcely distinguishable from the cliffs that overhang it. The village is situated in a valley surrounded by hills, in which there are quarries of limestone and lead mines.

The Peak Forest railway passes through the parish. A school for twenty poor children of this parish and the adjoining township of Hopton was founded by Mrs. Temperance Gill; in 1726; it has an endowment of £60 per annum, arising from land. John Oldfield, an eminent nonconformist divine, was ejected from the benefice of this parish, in 1662; his son, Dr. Joshua Oldfield, of some literary celebrity, was born here, in 1656. Mr. Ellis Farneworth, an able translator from the Italian, was presented to the rectory in 1762. Carsington is in the honour of Tutbury, duchy of Lancaster, and within the jurisdiction of a court of pleas held at Tutbury every third Tuesday, for the recovery of debts under 40s.

HOPTON, a township in that part of the parish of WIRKSWORTH which is in the hundred of WIRKSWORTH county of DERBY, 1 mile (W. by S.) from Wirksworth, containing 116 inhabitants, many of whom are employed in working the lead mines here. Hopton was the property and residence of the zealous parliamentarian officer, Sir John Gell, who, when Charles I. had raised the royal standard at Nottingham, proceeded to Derby, assembled a strong body of troops for the parliament, and performed a conspicuous part throughout the war. Almshouses consisting of two rooms each, for four poor persons, were erected, in 1710, by Sir Philip Gell, Bart., and endowed by him with a rent-charge of £22. 6., which is paid to the inmates by weekly instalments of two shillings each. Military weapons and some other relics of antiquity have been discovered here.