History
Melbourne has a long and notable history. Its name derives from "mill on the brook". It was recorded in Domesday Book (1086) as a royal manor.A castle was built here and the licence to crenellate (fortify) date backs to 1311. John, Duke of Bourbon, the most important French prisoner taken at the battle of Agincourt (1415), was detained here for 19 years.
Mary, Queen of Scots, was to be imprisoned here but the castle was in too ruinous a condition. By the early 17th it had fallen into decay.
The parish church dates back to the late 11th or early 12th and is exceptional.
The Hall was originally owned by the church and is mainly now 17th and 18th century in construction.
In 1837 a tiny settlement in Australia was named after Lord Melbourne.
Thomas Cook was born here in 1808.
The town contains many respectable Georgian buildings and in the 19th was a centre for framework knitting and boot and shoe manufacture. Market gardening has always been important here and continues to be so to the present day.
Pigot's Commercial Directory (1835) is one of the earliest trade directories for the County of Derbyshire.
