Description: The village church, St Mary's, is quite small, 50 people can easily fill it. Its unusual in that it has a dome rather then a tower or a steeple. The church is first mentioned in records in the reign of Edward I. It was then made into a Rectory, to be held invariably by the Vicar of Ashbourne. This was by way of compensating the latter, as his tithes from Ashbourne had been allocated to the Dean and Chapter of Lincoln. He was instead entitled to the greater tithes from the small parish of Mappleton. Nothing more is heard until 1547, when a survey in the reign of Edward VI showed Mappleton to possess 13 bells - presumably hand-bells - and property worth £ 5 .14. 4d . By the time of the Commonwealth, in 1650, the Parliamentary Commissioners declared that Mapleton Church was 'fit to be disused', but it appears to have been some one hundred years later before that decaying structure was replaced with the present edifice. To date the eighteenth century building with any precision is very difficult in the absence of definite records. Some evidence for the early 1700's comes from a Terrier (a book recording the site, boundaries, etc., of property) of 1887, which says that the new church was built in 1710. This is supported by the date of 1717 on the Communion Table. A date nearer 1750 is suggested by the Nottinghamshire Archives, which say that the church was ruinous in 1718. The communion plate and oak box, the gifts of Thomas Austin are dated 1752. J C Cox in 'Churches of Derbyshire', comes down in favour of the later date. The architect, James Gibbs, who also designed the nave of Derby Cathedral, was a pupil of Sir Christopher Wren. Of the present furnishings, the pulpit came from Ashbourne in 1906. The east window was a memorial installed in the 1920's. The organ was a gift in 1976. In 1974 Mappleton was brought into a United Benefice with Ashbourne, and the title of Rector disappeared.