Castle Gresley is a village situated in rural countryside on the A444 in South Derbyshire, just west of Swadlincote. Its history begins with the Gresley family. A parcel of land was handed down to two sons, one parcel of land contained the church and so became Church Gresley, the other contained a wooden castle that was built on a well- known local landmark, Castle Knob. The castle was built between 1086-1090. Nothing remains of it today, but this plot of land became known as Castle Gresley.

Every village has its ghosts and Castle Gresley is no exception. When fog or mist hangs in the air a lady dressed in white might be seen in a wooded area known as the Nursery. There is a reservoir in the Nursery supplied by a spring, and many years ago a lady was drowned there - hence the name White Lady Springs. The reservoir was owned by the brewery and supplied the brewery with water; later it became a fertilizer factory , then a pickle factory , a mill, a tape factory and then Toons Carpets, and this is where a second apparition appears as an old lady who visits the upper rooms.

Since early in the 19th century, the village has relied heavily on its coal, but in the 1940s and 1950s it suffered from subsidence. Houses were propped up, cracks appeared in the roads, while the spoil heap at the Gresley Colliery poured poisonous gases into the atmosphere. The other colliery in the village was Cadley Hill. Both these collieries have now closed, Gresley in 1967 and Cadley Hill in 1988. The subsidence and the spoil heaps have now gone and in their place is pleasant countryside.

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The village information above is taken from the The Derbyshire Village Book, written by members of Derbyshire Federation of Women's Institutes and published by Countryside Books. Click on the link below to view Countryside's range of other local titles.