• Bradley - Broad or wide clearing.

With its beautiful bowers of trees and winding lanes, Bradley knows the stillness of the dreaming countryside.

Its wayside church by the open fields,with the great house over the way, is a bright place with chancel and nave under one fine old roof.

It was made new in the 14th century, the east window and those in the nave being of this time. Stone faces adorn their hoods outside. Two 14th century brackets in the chancel have carvings of men with beards and curly hair, and in the south wall of the nave is an ancient stone with crude figures under a tree, perhaps Adam and Eve.

The 13th century font has a round bowl enriched with arcading. Fine carving of the 20th century is in the oak pulpit, and the altar table with eight spandrels in eight patterns.

The Hall opposite was converted out of stables which had been built in advance for another house. It was here that Dr Johnson used to visit Mrs Meynell and her daughters when staying at Ashbourne with his friend Dr Taylor, and here he began his friendship with Miss Hill Boothby. Their friendship was one of the fine things of his life. A gracious woman with many accomplishments, she encouraged Johnson when he needed encouragement most, and his letters show how greatly he valued her friendship. Her death in 1756 robbed him of the precious thing he found here. Long afterwards, when his great Dictionary had made him famous, he looked back with thankfulness to the happy times this small village gave him.

Two other men who made their name in the world have known this place: John Bingham the Nonconformist, who lived here for three years after being ejected from living in Marston-on-Dove in 1662, and Thomas Bancroft, known as the small poet, and long remembered for his epigrams.