It includes the town and the New Bolsover model village, along with Hillstown, Carr Vale, Shuttlewood, Stanfree, Oxcroft, and Whaley.

Bolsover sought city status in the Platinum Jubilee Civic Honours,[2] but the bid was unsuccessful.

[4] Bolsover is mentioned in Domesday Book, named as Belesovre, where it is described as the property of William Peverel (or "Peveril").

In 1657 the leading Royalist William Cavendish, 1st Marquess of Newcastle, published his book La Methode et Invention nouvelle de dresser les Chevaux, written in exile in Antwerp during the Cromwellian Protectorate.

[7] The district of Bolsover is notable for three sites of historical importance: Bolsover Castle, Creswell Crags (home to Britain's only known Palaeolithic cave art)[8] and Creswell Model Village, an example of early twentieth century design from the model village movement.

The Midland Railway (later part of the London, Midland & Scottish Railway), arrived first with their north–south running Doe Lea line from Staveley to Pleasley, opened in September 1890 and thus enabling a through service between Chesterfield and Mansfield to be operated, but services were withdrawn as early as September 1930.

In chronostratigraphy, the British sub-stage (formerly 'stage') of the Carboniferous period, the 'Bolsovian' derives its name from a geological exposure at the River Doe Lea, Bolsover.

It was closed in 2004 after a decline in demand for solid fuel, which had left the company and its many subsidiaries deeply in debt.

The main factory site on Oxcroft Lane employed approximately 500 people at its peak in the late 1990s.

The parish falls within the wider Bolsover District, and other functions are exercised by Derbyshire County Council.

In 2007 Bolsover was chosen as the location to shoot the film Summer starring Robert Carlyle and Rachael Blake.

[18] In an interview in late November, director Kenneth Glenaan and Robert Carlyle agreed that Bolsover was the perfect setting for the film as it "has been left in the past".