HALTER DEVIL CHAPEL

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29107, 20 January 1960, Page 22

HALTER DEVIL CHAPEL

Origin Of Name

Many place names in Britain’s countryside commemorate legends of man’s oldest enemy—the devil. There are “Devil’s gaps,” “dykes,” “bowls,” “holes,” and “leaps,” all having some story attached, which was once believed, and almost invariably tells of a local defeat of the Prince of Darkness.

Perhaps one of the most curious—and one of the latest for it dates only from the eighteenth century—relates to the small Halter Devil Chapel—better known as Intake Chapel—near Muggington in Derbyshire. Francis Brown, a farmer, insisted on riding to Derby one dark stormy night, although his wife feared that he was too drunk to make the journey in safety. Go he would, he said, if he had to ride the Devil himself, and quite undaunted, went to the stable to get his horse. Almost dazzled by a flash of lightning, to his amazement he found that the animal had horns. This quite unnerved him for he was far too drunk to see that he had tried to put the bridle on one of his cows. He repented of his drunken ways and in 1723 built the little chapel as a sign of his sincerity, quite convinced that he “Being old and evil

“Once on a time haltered the Devil,” for he had these Very words carved on the building to emphasise his belief.