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tempus275

St Michael vs St Lawrence replied on: 12/11/2006 10:58:07 PM The Church is provibly known to have been St Lawrence prior to the victorian rebuild so any information calling it St Michaels after that point must be inaccurate by default. As the Corfields lived in Heanor and refer to St Lawrence as having an ancient festival every year on St Lawrence week it is fairly likly that any possible name change must have been in excess of 50 years previous (so pre 1820's) in order to be outside any direct "living" memory of the name change by local people. A change of a dedication of a patron saint is quite rare and would only happen for a very specific reasons, for example a miracle attributed to a certain saint or the transferance of relics from another site to the church. Heanor until the last century was quite literally a poor farmer's church (or more accuratly a poor stockinger, farmer and the occasional knight, church) so a link with St Lawrence is unlikly. The next possiblity for a name change would be the reformation.. which is more of a posibility. St Micheal is not actually a saint, he's an angel... in an attempt to show the seperation from the Catholic church it is conciveable that they renamed the church at that stage. However this is fairly unlikly as St Lawrence is almost as popular a saint in the Catholic church as St Micheal. The church being name after a person is unlikly, the church is virtually always known by its location or saint. For example if you asked most people in Heanor "Where is the Prior memorial church" I don't think any of them would know, wereas if you asked "where is Marlpool all saints" most would be able to point you in the right direction but would have no idea who Rev. Prior was.

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