Allestree – From Norman Doors to Arts & Crafts
Allestree’s ancient village – the only part of what is now a huge amorphous suburb really worth dawdling round – is remarkably compact, which makes a tour that much less complicated. It is also high enough above the city to the south, to ensure clear, breathable fresh air. Not to be sneezed at, as one might say. The reason for its compactness is that it was always a subordinate settlement. At Domesday Book (1086) it was an outlier of the manorial estate of Markeaton, for instance. Ironically, while the ancient village of Markeaton virtually disappeared in the re-landscaping of William Emes in the 1760s, Allestree ultimately flourished. Given to the Abbey of Darley by one of the Touchet family, then lords of Markeaton, it remained Abbey property until the Dissolution in 1538. Interestingly, during that period the Abbot granted freedom to his villein Elias de Allestrey [sic] ‘and all his brood.’ He is thought to have been a member of a family of free tenants fallen into debt or through some other problem, which resulted in servitude, and his gentry descendants can be traced (some still in the area) to the present day. In 1538 the Mundys of Markeaton re-united the place with Markeaton, and it remained with them until Francis Noel Clarke Mundy sold the estate in 1786 to Bache Thornhill of Stanton-in-Peak, who a decade later began to build the hall. It was not until the inter-war period when the estate was finally broken up, that the village ceased to be a small, compact estate village. From then on housing development filled in the areas closest to the village with standard semis, but after the war, in the 1960s, new building westward to Kedleston Road virtually created a new suburb, served by Park Farm and Woodlands shopping centres. To take in the core of the settlement, park up near the pub, the Red Cow (known locally by a less complimentary name which we cannot be repeated here!), a seventeenth century building a pub by 1753, re-fronted c. 1800, and clunkily extended in the 1930s, complete with stained leaded lights incorporating ‘cigarette packet’ heraldry. Stocks once stood outside, and a mortuary behind, we are told. Inside, a stuffed dog once graced the bar, with a bone ring round its neck. From the pub walk to King’s Croft (take a brief glimpse en route at the steeply gabled pretty stone parsonage, by H I Stevens 1867, just east of the church hall) and then turn right into Robin Croft Road, so as to enjoy the architecture of the old Victorian school and the adjacent school house, the latter really rather nicely done and tactfully extended. As the church was rebuilt in 1866-67 by Derby’s Henry Isaac Stevens, the chances are that his handiwork is on display here too. It is a delight to walk onwards from there past the recreation ground, the gift of the last lord of the manor, Col. Lionel Guy Gisborne CMG and his son Capt. Guy Gisborne MC (had they been reading too much Robin Hood, one wonders?) as a memorial to the casualties of the great War. Given some re-landscaping, this could be a delight. Beyond and on the opposite side of the road, lie a run of exceedingly pretty brick cottages, in groups of four, each with a small coped gable – mid-19th century estate workers’ cottages built for Alderman Sir Thomas William Evans, Bt. MP of the hall (and of Darley Abbey mills). Some have been disfigured by render before designation as a conservation area, but the houses directly opposite the recreation ground, private infills of the early 1930s, were designed somewhat to echo the rhythm of the old cottages. At the place where Cornhill joins, one is faced with a pair of much older cottages and if you look just a little further down the road you can see the early 18th century Hollies Farm, now converted into separate homes. However, it is best to turn right into Cornhill, where you will pass another row of 18th century cottages sporting a substantial chimney-stack, the end part with an arched vehicular entry, marking the whole as the house, forge and yard of the village smithy, although they are today three separate freeholds, the ancient brickwork anaesthetised under a coat of render and the windows replaced by thick uPVC casements. One delight, are the ancient stone walls lining the streets almost everywhere, some original, others reconstructed from stone reclaimed from demolished barns and other estate buildings. Cornhill thereafter turns east again with a raised pathway from which one descends to one of Allestree’s little gems, the group of three delightful buildings: Yew Tree Cottage, 17th century (or earlier) white painted brick and timber with thatched roof, a Victorian school house – almost too pretty to be by Stevens, although of that period – and a substantial late 17th century three storey brick farmhouse, like the cottage, end-on to the road. The downside is that someone sold off part of Yew Tree Cottage’s garden on which development has been allowed. Diagonally opposite, beyond the unlovely Evergreen Hall, is another ancient brick cottage (listed) with what looks like a former Regency shop window lighting the ground floor room. Beyond, a further row, but a bit too primped up to have been listed. At their east end is the village pump, upon reaching which one should turn and look south along St. Edmund’s Close, where the cottages on the right make a fine vernacular show undulating away from you. They, with a row of three opposite and a bit beyond them, with the church and pub beyond, make a really charming sight. On the SE corner the Memorial Hall by that distinguished Arts-and-Crafts architect Percy Currey, rewardingly detailed, and set on an elevated bank. However, resist the temptation to go that way; instead continue along Park Lane, past another two groups of estate cottages, some in early brick and set upon a massive boulder plinth. It
