The oldest known burial-place of the Derbyshire Foljambes was in the chancel of the church of Tideswell. To be buried in such a place is a sure proof of the importance of the family in that district, for such a privilege would not have been granted by the Dean and Chapter of Lichfield, as rectors, except to those of considerable distinction. This privilege must have been granted at an early date, long before the present beautiful fourteenth century chancel was erected. The family settled in this parish soon after the Conquest, and John Foljambe, who died in 1249, aged seventy-one, desired to be buried in the chancel of the church at Tideswell with his forefathers. This burial-place was used by the senior branch of the Foljambes until the time of its extinction in the male line by the death of Roger Foljambe in 1448. In the early part of the fourteenth century there were three Foljambe brasses with effigies extant in this chancel, but they have long since disappeared. They respectively commemorated (1) Sir Thomas Foljambe, who died in 1283, aged seventy-six, and Margaret, his wife, daughter of William de Gernon; (2) Sir Thomas Foljambe, who died in 1298, aged sixty-eight, and Catherine, his wife, daughter of William Eyre; and (3) Sir Thomas Foljambe, who died in 1323, aged sixty-seven, and Alice, his wife, daughter and heiress of Gerard de Furnival.
Thomas Foljambe, son of Sir Thomas Foljambe III., married twice. By Aveline, his first wife, he had a son, John, from whom the elder branch at Tideswell were descended. By Alice, daughter and heiress of Darley, of Darley, he had a son Godfrey, the founder of the Bakewell chantry. This John Foljambe, who married Joan, daughter of Anker Frechville, died on August 4th, 1358, and was buried at Tideswell. John, like his half-brother Godfrey, was a chantry founder on a munificent scale. He assigned two hundred acres in Tideswell, Wormhill and Litton for the support of two chaplains, who were to say divine service at the altar of Our Lady in the church of Tideswell. In conjunction with this chantry a flourishing gild of brothers and sisters was established. The chantry was refounded on an extensive scale in the reign of Richard II.[33]
On the north side of the chancel, a floor-slab, bearing the matrix of the despoiled brass of the effigy of a man in armour with an inscription above his head, and another round the edge of the slab, long remained. One of the younger branch of the Foljambes, about 1675, desirous that the memory of this benefactor should not be forgotten, placed a small brass tablet across the breast of the former figure, which bore, in addition to a shield of the arms of Foljambe, the following inscription:—
“Tumulus Johanis filii Domini
Thomæ Foljambe qui obiit quarto
die Augusti Ano Domini millesimo
Trecentessimo quinquegesimo octavo
Qui multa bona fecit circa
fabricationem hujus ecclesiæ.”
In 1875, the late Earl of Liverpool caused this brass effigy of his ancestor to be restored. The inscription round the margin is simply a more classical rendering of that given above, with the addition of the date of its restoration. The old inscription has been transferred to another stone at the head of the brass. The fine east window of this chancel is due to the Earl’s munificence.