Description: Sir Edward Coke [1552-1634, legal writer and Chief Justice of the Court of Pleas and King's Bench], set in oval as if part of monument, dated 1670.
The Coke family were connected with Pinxton in Derbyshire and owed a colliery there from Tudor times until the 1890s. Experimentation in Pinxton colliery with the production of a smoke free fuel derived from coal led to the invention of "coke", named for the family. Family related to the Cromwells of South Wingfield and the Cavendishes. (Information kindly supplied by Stephen Manley).