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Lost Houses

The Lost Houses of Derbyshire : Coney Green House – North Wingfield

November 26, 2021 Alistair Plant

The name Brailsford is a common one in Derbyshire (not to mention elsewhere), and received added lustre through the knighthood granted to Shardlow-born Sir Dave Brailsford in 2012 for services to cycling (notably Olympic cycling). As Brailsford is an unique place-name, it is generally accepted that all people of this name descend from the ancient […]

Lost Houses

The Lost Houses of Derbyshire – Foston Hall

November 7, 2021 Alistair Plant

Most readers, on seeing the title of this piece, might instantly be tempted to pen a letter to the editor complaining that Foston Hall is not lost at all, but a prison for convicted women criminals, easily seen from the modern A50. Well, that is true, but we know of two previous houses on the […]

Lost Houses – Aldercar Hall

April 12, 2016 Katie Jobling

It was of brick with quoins and other dressings of coal measures sandstone, undoubtedly from a local quarry (or re-used from Codnor Castle, at this date, rapidly in decline). Aldercar, a portion of the parish of Heanor and in the Middle Ages being one of four parks attached to the Zouche family’s Codnor Castle estate, takes […]

Lost Houses – Castlefields

January 25, 2016 BrianSpencer

With heavy machinery at work and much building going up in the tract of land between the Railway Station and Traffic Street in Derby, the site of the most ambitious country house close to Derby will be developed for the second time since its demolition nearly 180 years ago. The area is now called Castleward […]

Lost Houses – Oldcotes

October 31, 2015 BrianSpencer

On the vast, exuberant and lavishly decorated monument in Derby Cathedral to Bess of Hardwick is an inscription, lauding the late Derbyshire grande dame, which includes the lines: ‘This most illustrious Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury, built the houses of Chatsworth, Hardwick and Oldcotes, highly distinguished by their magnificence.’ In fact, this is only some of […]

Lost Houses – Barbrook Edensor

May 29, 2015 Alistair Plant

It is unfortunate that the first really substantial house that Sir Joseph Paxton built was knocked down in the early 1960s, for today, I suspect, it would be greatly valued as an early example of the architectural talents of this highly talented man. It was built for himself, was grade II listed, but, when it […]

Lost Houses – Abbot’s Hill House

April 30, 2015 Alistair Plant

It is very difficult to imagine, when looking at Derby’s Babington Lane with its endless tail-backs of ’buses, that less than a century ago it was virtually rus in urbe: the countryside in town par excellence. Indeed, the last owner of Abbot’s Hill House, that stood for just on two centuries between Babington and Green […]

Lost Houses – Sutton Scarsdale

April 1, 2015 Alistair Plant

The Arkwright family always did things in a big way. After all, was not Richard Arkwright junior – the cotton entrepreneur Sir Richard’s only son – called the “Richest Commoner in England”? Young Richard had six sons and four had estates bestowed upon them, on which to put down roots, the exceptions being Richard, the […]

Lost Houses – Potlock House

February 26, 2015 Alistair Plant

Potlock – the name derives from Old English ‘potte’ (depression) and ‘lacu’ (stream) has had a long history. The site is crossed E-W by one of Derbyshire’s two Neolithic cursus monuments, huge communal enterprises of unknown utility, which are today only visible as crop marks and, in the case of this one, as a geophysics […]

Lost Houses – Wheston Hall

October 30, 2014 Alistair Plant

I realise that knowledgeable readers will read this heading and exclaim that Wheston Hall is not a lost house at all and still stands. Yet the rather mauled remnant which survived the collapse of much of the fabric in a gale in 1952 is largely a new house which made ingenious use of some surviving parts […]