St Mary’s Church Mappleton was rebuilt in the first half of the 18 century; the architect was James Gibbs.
In 1713 Gibbs became one of the commissioners for building churches in London and when the church of All Saints Derby (now the cathedral) needing rebuilding in 1723 Gibbs was chosen to be the architect.
It seems reasonable to suppose that St Mary’s project began around that date when Gibbs was working in the area and it was completed by 1752 when the communion plate was given to the church by Thomas Austin. It is not known who footed the bill for the design and construction of the church.
The Okeover Arms has an equally long history, a list of landlords in the pub shows Richard Wood as landlord from 1754 – 94 when it was known as the Griffin Inn. Richard Utting was landlord from 1846 – 60 when the name had change to the Okeover arms.
It is a family run pub serving home-made meals at reasonable prices.
