“The devil one night as he chanced to sail In a wintry wind by the abbey of Dale Suddenly stopped and looked with surprise That a structure so fair in that valley should rise. When last he was there it was lonely and still And the hermitage scooped in the side of a hill With its wretched old inmate his beads a-telling Were all he found of life, dweller, or dwelling. The hermit was seen in the rock no more; The nettle and dock had sprung up at the door; And each window the fern and the harts’ tongue hung o’er, Within ’twas dampness and nakedness all; The Virgin, as fair and holy a block As ever yet stood in the niche of a rock, Had fallen to the earth, and was broke in the fall. The holy cell’s ceiling, in idle hour When haymakers sought it to ’scape from the shower Was scored by their forks in a thousand scars-- Wheels and crackers, ovals and stars. But by the brook in the valley below St Mary of Dale! what a lordly show! The abbey’s proud arches and windows bright Glittered and gleamed in the full moonlight.” But that later corruption set in among these Augustine monks is evident, for Howitt continues that the monks “Forsook missal and mass To chant o’er a bottle or shrive a lass; No matins bell called them up in the morn, But the yell of the hounds and the sound of the horn; No penance the monk in his cell could stay But a broken leg or a rainy day.” They were then expelled from Deepdale and Præmonstratensian monks soon filled their place. John Staunton, last abbot, with 16 monks surrendered the abbey in 1539. A full account of the history of this monastic house was written by one of the monks, and through these manuscripts more particulars can be learned of this abbey than of any other in Derby. NEWSTEAD (_Augustine Canons_) 1170, Founded by Henry II.--1540, Dissolved. Annual revenue, £167, 16s. 11d.--Demesne granted to Sir John Byron, Lieut. of Sherwood Forest, by Henry VIII.--1818, Sold to Colonel Wildman, who enlarges and restores the abbey.--Again restored.