As we wandered round sunny Makeney, we wondered how Pevsner could ever have forgotten to include the place, for although historically a miniscule hamlet within the huge parish of Duffield, it gained in importance in the 19th century through its proximity to the various expanding Strutt family enterprises at Milford and gained two important houses as a result, although there never was either church or chapel. Furthermore, there is an historic inn, the Holly Bush, probably of 17th century origin with an historic turnpike trust way-marker set against its wall. How could he possibly have missed it, we wondered, especially as the hamlet is clearly visible from the A6 going north.
No matter, however, we were on hand to make our own assessment. The village is situated on the east side of the Derwent on the unclassified (but remarkably busy) former turnpike road from Duffield church, along Duffield Bank to Milford, which originally ran past the pub and down the other side, but which acquired a new section cutting off this loop, now Holly Bush Lane, pitched around 1870. Holly Bush Lane also has a steep lane leading off from its apex called Dark Lane.
We decided to park well clear of the Holly Bush, the narrow road outside which tends to clog up with parked Chelsea tractors, instead leaving the state chariot parked on the road near Red Lane, which winds up from a point just south of the village to Holbrook. This enabled us to see a very smart Regency cottage orné by the junction called Makeney Lodge, still with its original cast iron sliding jalousies at the windows, an adjunct to refined living famously made in Derby at Weatherhead, Glover & Co.’s Britannia foundry, Duke Street. The interior is very fine, and is illustrated in Bobby Innes-Smith’s 1972 Derbyshire Life book on local houses, from which we may infer that the cranked-out stair balustrade was also sourced from the Duke Street foundry.
This should occasion no surprise, as the house in its current form was built around 1825 for Anthony Strutt (1791-1875), and probably designed by his uncle, William Strutt FRS, a keen amateur architect. It also incorporates a datestone bearing the legend HP/1784 which are apparently the initials of Henry Peat, who is believed to have rebuilt an earlier farm house there, dating from c. 1730. This may be true, for a Henry Peat married Elizabeth Beardall at Duffield in 1730, and a son may have effected a rebuild. Either way, there is no visual evidence in the existing fabric that the house you see today is anything but a new build. Why it escaped being added to the statutory list defied us; perhaps in 1981 when the County was re-listed they failed to drive along on that side of the Derwent!
By 1846, Strutt had moved up Dark Lane to another new house, confusingly named the Old Hall, and sold the Lodge to Maj. Alfred Holmes (1816-1895) son of Charles, of the famous Derby coach building company. His heirs sold it to Judge Henry Raikes, chairman of Derbyshire quarter Sessions, and his family sold it to the Heyworths in 1954, connections by marriage of our own family. It has changed hands again since, most recently in 2015.
Strutt was a restless fellow, however and he acquired yet a third large house in the hamlet. This we never saw as we wandered along past Hollybush Lane, because it failed to survive, its site being taken over by the stable block (now converted as residences and a business) built by George Herbert Strutt, Anthony’s great-nephew, when Makeney House was built. We reached this point by walking along the main road, past an elevated row of eight artisans’ cottages under a continuous roof built by Anthony Strutt for the Milford Mill workers in the 1820s and called Makeney Terrace. These, although a little altered, are listed grade II.
Beyond them is a real gem: the original Makeney Hall, later Old Hall farm. Built by Richard Fletcher around 1814, and later sold to a branch of the Bradshaws of Duffield. The old guides claim that Judge John Bradshaw, a regicide in 1649 was born there, but in fact he was a Cheshire Bradshaw with no connection here. It was later acquired by the Heath family, which in the 18th century produced three brothers who founded a bank in Derby (which went bust in 1779). They turned it into a farm, sold it back to the Bradshaws, from whom it passed to Charles Mould who built the house Anthony Strutt acquired, and remained a farm until the mid-twentieth century, when it was divided into four tenements under the name Makeney Yard (deservedly listed grade II). It is a stone gabled building of considerable charm, but the frontage of which is rather marred by the parked cars of the four occupying families.
It was immediately north of that where the converted stables are positioned. The house (called the Hall) was built in 1813 on his marriage, possibly by adapting a wing of the old hall, by local iron founder Charles Mould on land bought from the Bradshaws. However, in 1856, a sale was agreed between Mould and Anthony Strutt of both house and estate, most of which lay on the water meadows to the west of the road. In a letter of 10th March 1869, Strutt wrote to a friend,
“I found it [Mould’s house] a strange mixture of some modern additions and ornaments made when the young Charles Mould got married, very absurd indeed, [but the] main stone work of old building very good.”
He goes on to say that he had begun work to ‘make the house habitable’ but by 1869, had lost heart and offered the place to let. The rebuilding works, which were begun in 1858, were probably overseen by the Derby-born architect of Buckingham Palace, Edward Blore (1787-1879), who had recently built Kingston Hall (Notts.) for Strutt’s nephew, Edward, recently elevated to the peerage as 1st Lord Belper. Up to that time, the estate reached to the Derwent whilst the coach road went up the hill to the hall’s east; the guide stone, still set in the wall of the pub and dated 1739 is a reminder of this.
In the event, Mould’s former house evinced no interest from potential lessors, and on Strutt’s death in 1875, it passed to another nephew, George Henry Strutt (1826-1895) a grandson of William Strutt’s younger brother George Benson. He decided to retain ownership of the so-called Hall, but demolished and replaced it, from 1876-78, with a much more ambitious house on the other side of the present road, facing south and west across the Derwent. This is Makeney House, almost certainly designed by the ageing Blore.
We wandered down the drive to look at it (in its current guise as a four-star hotel and wedding venue) and realized that it had been greatly added to, although in similar Jacobethan style. This came about when George Henry Strutt died in 1895 and his son, (George) Herbert decided to enlarge it, adding a west facing wing, new offices and a copper ogee domed tower (now green with verdigris) with belvedere, very distinctive, and virtually identical to that of Smalley Hall. Thus, we deduced that the architect was the Strutts’ favourite, Col. Maurice Hunter of Belper who, as Hunter & Woodhouse built much of late Victorian and Edwardian Belper. Herbert Strutt bought the 1614 old hall in 1893 too, and built the surviving stable block and coach house on the site of Mould’s house.
Makeney House itself lay empty after Herbert Strutt died in 1928, until bought by the County Council as a home for home for people with severe mental disability, in which role it served until 1988. Sold off, it re-opened in 1992 as a three star hotel, and was later sold to Folio Hotels who up-graded it to four star in 2006. The County Council have erected a blue plaque to Herbert Strutt on a gate pier. We enjoyed a walk in the grounds, admired a new stone-built lodge with sprocketed slate roof half way along the drive (presumably of 1990) and proceeded a little way toward Milford.
We were unable to work out either from old or new maps where the boundary lay, so visited a delightful south-facing row of late 18th century brick cottages on the west side of the road and a rather good stone built former forge opposite (well, it was called Forge Cottage!) although where the workshop was situated was quite unclear. It is, however, listed, unlike Makeney House and Lodgem, and deservedly so.
From thence we re-traced our steps along the old coach road, following its original course by branching left off the present road and up the hill beside a truly cyclopean stone wall on our left, to Dark Lane. A few yards up this and one can admire the restless Anthony Strutt’s second house, which he named Makeney Old Hall.
It is very plain, neat, mid-Victorian with a few later additions; its extensive stabling beyond is now replaced by modern housing. When I first knew it, the house was the home of the late Ken Gregory (1934-2010) and his wife; he was the fifth generation of a St. James’s Street, Derby, drapery firm founded in 1827. He and I were members of the same convivial society, several members of which enjoyed classic cars; Ken’s somewhat eclectic vice was Austin Twelves.
Dark Lane beyond the Old Hall fizzles out into a track to a farm, so we retraced our steps down to the grade II listed Holly Bush. When I first came to Derbyshire in the 1970s it was famous as one of the last bastions of real ale and, sure enough, we enjoyed the seemingly unspoilt interior and a modest snack, washed down by truly excellent ale.
Should you go there and find yourself beguiled by claims that it was a haunt of Dick Turpin, ignore it, for the notorious highwayman’s sphere of influence was centered in Essex and the home counties, and only in his last two years did he transfer his activities to Lincolnshire and Yorkshire’s East Riding before being hung at York in 1739 for stealing horses.
We have the Yorkshire romanticist Harrison Ainsworth to thank for any subsequent embroidering of his squalid life. And, of course, the road past the Holly Bush was only turnpiked to enable coach traffic in 1739, the year in which Turpin met his come-uppance. Indeed, it may be that the coming of passing coach traffic led to the foundation of the inn itself in what is clearly an older building.
Replete, we walked down the hill southward, passing in an elevated position, Sunny Bank, a remarkably tall Arts-and-Crafts house with a miniature version of the Makeney House copper dome artfully nestled in its roofline; clearly the work of architect Col. Hunter, no doubt for friend of the Strutts. At the bottom of Hollybush Lane, we noted the site of a former public pump set in a wall, and opposite, a well, long out of commission.
We turned left and returned to the car, astounded that Pevsner should have missed a village containing a 17th century inn, a Regency villa, a prominent arts-and-crafts retreat and a fairly large country house! We ourselves wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
