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The Square, WORKSOP, S80 4LU

The small but distinctive church in the village of Elmton.

For an alternative view, please see Alan Heardman's Image

Buxton was born in 1707 and although his father was schoolmaster of Elmton, and his grandfather had been the vicar, he could not write; and his knowledge, except of numbers, was extremely limited. How he came to understand the relative proportions of numbers and their progressive denominations, he did not remember. However, this was his interest. He frequently took no notice of objects, and when he did, it was only with reference to their numbers. After hearing a sermon he knew nothing about its content other than that it contained a certain number of words which he had counted during its delivery. He measured the lands of Elmton, consisting of some thousand acres, simply by striding over it. He gave the area not only in acres, roods and perches, but even in square inches. After this, he reduced them into square hairs'-breadths, reckoning forty-eight to each side of the inch. His memory was so great, that in resolving a question he could leave off and resume the operation again at the same point after the lapse of several months. His perpetual application to figures prevented the acquisition of other knowledge. Among the examples of Buxton's arithmetical feats which are given are his calculation of the product of a farthing doubled 139 times. The result, expressed in pounds, extends to thirty-nine figures, and is correct so far as it can be readily verified by the use of logarithms. (source Wikipedia)

The present church which was completed in 1771 stands on the site of an earlier church. The tower was never quite finished as it is said that the contractor suddenly disappeared. The strong foundations were built with the intention of supporting a much bigger tower than what we see today.