Turnditch is a hillside village that lies on the A517 Belper to Ashbourne road on its steep climb out of the Ecclesbourne valley.
Before it was turnpiked in 1764 this road, the A517, which crosses the Ecclesbourne at the foot of the hill below the Cross Keys pub, was a track through the Duffield Firth, a former Royal hunting forest which consisted of dense woodland in places interspersed with stretches of sweeping open countryside where most of the farms now sit.
Turnditch has a church and a school that face each other, a shop called the Turnditch and Windley Stores and a Post Office. There is also a village hall, which acts as the social centre for both villages.
The long, low aisless Turnditch Church of All Saints was built in the 13th century as a chapel of ease to Duffield and to serve forest officials and the few other inhabitants in that part of the forest. It has been enlarged over the years, most notably by Giles and Brookhouse of Derby, in 1882-84 when they gave it a new chancel. The date 1630, cut into a massive stone lintel above a door on the south side presumably commemorates an earlier extension.
The first pupils entered Turnditch National school in 1846, which has been much altered over the last 150 years, enhanched in appearence by the school clock, paid for by public subscription and built over the school porch by John Smith of Derby, probably around 1905. The pupils from the nearby rural village of Windley also attend the school.
The are 2 pubs in Turnditch, the Cross Keys and the Tiger. Both are at least 150 years old.
The Turnditch and Windley Show is a big summer event in the Parish and is quite an occasion for the 2 villages whose combined population is just over 400. The show has grown enormously in size since the Turnditch and Windley W.I started it in a modest way, years ago,
See also
Belper
Ashbourne
Hulland Ward
