Findern is a village and civil parish in the District of South Derbyshire, approximately 5–6 miles south of Derby (Grid reference: ). The population of the civil parish was 1,669 at the 2011 Census. The village was mentioned in the Domesday Book, when it was held by Burton Abbey as an outlier of Mickleover. A priory once stood near the church, where the monks were supplied with fresh food from the fishponds on Common Piece Lane. After the dissolution of the abbey the Fynderne family, as the principal land-owners, took ownership of the village and the remaining Chapel of Ease. The Fyndernes lived in a fortified manor house on Castle Hill, though none of the house remains. Sir Geoffrey de Fynderne left the village to join the Crusades, and brought back the Findern Flower, which in the UK only grows in the village, and only in particular areas. The flower has become an emblem of the village and is represented in many guises, including the emblem of Findern Primary School on Heath Lane. All Saints' parish church was rebuilt and consecrated in 1863, on the site of a Saxon chapel of ease, destroyed by fire. Built of sandstone, it stands adjacent to the village green. The church contains a monument to Isabella de Fynderne dated 1444, and also possesses the oldest parish communion plate in the UK. Findern also has a small Methodist chapel, built in 1835, close to the site of the old priory. The village previously also had an early 18th century Unitarian chapel, built just over five miles from Derby. At that time the law decreed that no Dissenting meeting house should be built less than that distance from the town. It was demolished in 1939. Prior to the development of transport, the village was self-supporting and it was here, in 1740, that Jedediah Strutt came as an apprentice wheelwright. He had an obsessive interest in machinery, but when his uncle died and left him a small holding, he took it over and returned to Findern to marry Elizabeth Woollatt who lived at the old hall, where he had previously lodged. Later he went on to set up the mills and their communities at Belper and Milford, which now form an integral part of the Derwent Valley World Heritage Site. The village historically had a strong weaving industry, with the majority of the cottages around the Green