[2] Archeological excavations carried out in 1981 to the south of the present village revealed the site of a Romano-British settlement.

The first documentary evidence of the existence of the village is in the Domesday Book when Donisthorpe, a manor in Derbyshire, was owned by Nigel of Stafford and it was valued at twelve pence.

[7] A castle, most probably consisting of an earth mound and ditch surrounded by a wooden palisade, is documented in a treaty concluded between 1147 and 1153 by the Earls of Chester and Leicester, in which it was agreed for it to be destroyed since it threatened their respective estates.

The parish church of St Michael and All Angels is situated on the northern fringe of the village and dates from 1323.

The church is of sandstone believed to have been quarried at nearby Alton, one of the two abandoned villages in the parish.