ALFRETON, a market-town and parish in the hundred of SCARSDALE, county of DERBY, 14 miles (N.N.E.) from Derby, and 140 (N.N.W.) from London, containing, with Alfreton-Outseats, 4689 inhabitants. This place, in King Ethelred's charter to Burton abbey, is called Alfredingtune, and is supposed to have derived its name from some Anglo-Saxon proprietor. It stands on the brow of a hill, and consists of two streets, intersecting each other at right angles in the marketplace: the houses are irregularly built, some of them exhibiting specimens of ancient architecture. The only branches of manufacture are those of stockings and brown pottery ware. The Erewash canal passes through the parish. The market is on Friday: fairs are held on July 30th and November 22nd; the latter is also a statute fair. Constables and other officers are appointed at the court leet of the lord of the manor. The living is a discharged rectory, in the archdeaconry of Derby, and diocese of Lichfield and Coventry, rated in the king's books at £17. 8. 9., endowed with £200 private benefaction, and £200 royal bounty, and in the patronage of Mr. and Mrs. Morewood. The church, dedicated to St. Martin, appears to have been constructed at, different periods, part of it prior to the reign of Henry II. There is a place of worship for Wesleyan Methodists. A free school was founded by Mrs. Eliza Turner, in 1740, and endowed with forty acres of land at Swanwick, a hamlet in this parish, for the instruction of twelve boys and eight girls of Swanwick and Greenhilllane, in reading, writing, and arithmetic; there are now forty children in the school; the house and farm are occupied by the schoolmaster.