Kirk Langley village is situated 4 miles north of Derby on the Derby to Ashbourne road. It contains some fine 18th century stone houses, a mid 17th century gabled red brick rectory, some more modern council housing, a post office cum shop, an old village school and a church. The parish which once has 4 pubs, now only has one, the Bluebell at Langley Common.
The Meynell family have held land at Kirk Langley since the reign of Henry the first and the village in fact consists of 2 parts, Kirk Langley with the parish church and Meynell Langley. The former Meynell Arms Hotel, now a private house, is an elegant building dating from the Georgian period. The Poles of Radbourne have also had landed interests in this area for many years.
In the late 1940`s a small and well designed council estate was built at Kirk Langley, close to the A52. It is known as the Cunnery , cunnery being an ancient field name meaning rabbit warren.
The Church of St Michael is early 14th century, built when the early English style was giving way to the Decorated, on the site of a much older one, for which traces of a Saxon wall near the west door provides some evidence. It has a fine Perp tower and contains some interesting heraldic glass and tiles. The screen under the tower is one of oldest timber sreens in Derbyshire. There are monuments to the Meynell and Pole families, including a large marble alter tomb commemorating Henry Pole and his wife, and an eloborate memorial to William Meynell who was killed on the Danube in the 19th century when leading the Turks against the Russians. An early victorian memorial to a Meynell 'who was deprived of his life in a collision of carriages' in Clay Cross tunnel serves as a reminder that early rail travel was almost as hazardous as war.
Leeke Memorial Hall was the village school until 1879 and is now the centre of many village activities, accommodating many of the village's societies by day as well as during the evening. It is named after a much admired rector, the Rev W. M. Leeke. Until 1952, when mains water reached the village, the ancient Maple well served generations of people living near the green, who with yokes and buckets came to fetch their daily water supply. The present school in Moor Lane has about 50 pupils.
