Lost Houses of Derbyshire – Devonshire House, Derby
A great friend who is the senior caseworker for the Georgian Group, was asked by the City Council to comment on an application to convert the upper floors of 35, Cornmarket into flats. Our own Conservation Area Advisory committee, which until recently I chaired, had already questioned the applicant’s desire to remove the surviving staircase of a building which is the surviving portion of one of Derby’s greatest lost houses, Devonshire House, 34-36 Corn Market. This was where 18th century Dukes of Devonshire would reside when in Derby to preside over the three annual Race Balls and various civic business – bearing in mind that the Dukes were hereditary patrons of the Borough until 1974. In his report, in The Georgian, the house was described as ‘said to have been’ the town house of the Dukes of Devonshire. However, there is no doubt about the identification, for although little seems to have come to light at Chatsworth in the archive, other pieces of evidence confirm the identification of a building that was outwardly intact until 1969, when much of it was heedlessly destroyed in favour of an ugly brutalist Littlewood’s store (now Primark). The origin of the house goes back to the time following the death of Bess of Hardwick, whose last (fourth) husband, George, Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, was the builder of a grand house on the north side of the Market Place, which passed to his elder stepson Charles Cavendish, whose son William later rose to become 1st Duke of Newcastle. This house, Newcastle House was demolished to build Derby’s Assembly Rooms and its tale was recounted in Images for July 2014. The Dukes of Devonshire descend from Charles Cavendish’s younger brother, William, Lord Cavendish of Hardwick and later 1st Earl of Devonshire. A catalogue in Derby Museum asserts that the family town house was built in Corn Market in 1750 and although the catalogue was compiled in the late 19th century, the information was drawn from ‘jottings’ of John Ward FSA which include material dating back to the early 19th century. Tantalisingly, John Speed’s famous map of Derby, in showing the houses on the east side of Corn Market – then a bustling area funnelled out southwards towards St. Peter’s Bridge where grains were bought and sold from raised basins, set up on posts, called stoops – adds a number 25 just behind the position where we know the 1755 house stood. If you look up No. 25 in the key at the bottom, it says ‘Town House’. Could it be that Lord Cavendish even then had an important residence there? The house built in 1755 was in fact a re-fronting job, as early plans reveal three burgage plots on the site and later plans reveal a thoroughly irregular plan suggesting that the work was largely a re-fronting of more than one existing building. The resulting brick façade was very impressive, however, and very Palladian. There were three floors plus attics, and the building was nine bays wide. The ground floor was originally rusticated: that is faced in stone with prominent grooving between the blocks, a typically Palladian conceit, and traces of this appeared during demolition in 1969, as the later shop-fronts were being ripped away. The central three bays broke forward slightly under a pediment itself flanked by a stone coped parapet with recessed panels over the bays and originally without doubt embellished with urns. The bracket cornice below was deeply moulded and the windows on the first and second floors had bracketed entablatures over whereas on the central three bays, the middle windows had segmental pediments those flanking triangular ones. The attic windows were embellished with stone rusticated lintels, wavy along the bottom edge. Originally, the maps and plans inform us that there was a central carriage arch leading to a rather constricted courtyard behind, flanked by two non-matching rear extensions. No record seems to exist of the interior of the house, although there is a passing mention of fine plasterwork, earlier panelling and a fine oak staircase. At Chatsworth a bill survives dated 1777 from William Whitehurst, brother and works manager to John Whitehurst FRS, for a timepiece and case, which an attached voucher identifies as one installed in the kitchens at the Derby house. Probably it was a typical round dial oak cased long case clock, which are very rare as non-striking/chiming timepieces. A very similar one still stands in the almoner’s office at Chatsworth. There were also extensive gardens to the east, stretching to the Morledge and the Markeaton Brook as it swung NE through what is now Osnabruck Square. A stable block and carriage house were attached to close the rear courtyard off. The builder of this impressive occasional residence was William Cavendish, 3rd Duke of Devonshire who died in 1755. The identity of his architect for the house remains a mystery, for although James Paine was working at Chatsworth for the 4th Duke (from 1756), the façade in The Corn Market shows few of his usual conceits and if the 1750 date is correct, it is too early. William Kent had been employed by the same Duke to completely rebuild the fire-wrecked Devonshire House in Piccadilly, but apart from being severe and equally Palladian, there the resemblance ends. Personally, I suspect the house was built and the façade designed by the young James Denstone (five years later the architect of Markeaton Hall) perhaps working under his former master, Solomon Browne, but until some hitherto un-discovered payment vouchers appear in the Chatsworth archive, speculation will prevail. The curly lower edge of the attic story lintels, however, reappear on Leaper & Newton’s Bank (not the Thomas Leaper bar) in Iron Gate and once on the fenestration of the Babington Arms, Babington Lane, demolished in the 1920s. By about 1814, the area in front of the house had become too noisome and insalubrious for the 6th (Bachelor) Duke and, pulling rank as Lord Lieutenant of the County, he thenceforth requisitioned the 1811
Derbyshire Antiques & Collectibles – Railway Locomotive Name Plates
Last year we had a whole bunch of railwayana through Bamfords, mainly authentic relics of the great age of travel, but amongst them the nameplate of a locomotive built by the Southern Railway just after the Second World War and known to enthusiasts (in my time at least) as a ‘spam can’. These were large mixed traffic semi-streamlined engines, partly called after places in the West Country (where they were intended to serve) and partly after matters connected with the Battle of Britain and destined for service in Kent. The particular item was Battle of Britain Winston Churchill – the very locomotive which had pulled the late prime minister’s funeral train to Bladon, Oxfordshire, where he was buried. I am old enough to recall seeing it (despite poor reception in mountainous North Wales) on a black-and-white TV that January day in 1965. Such was the fame of this relatively short-lived machine that I knew that what we had was a full sized replica, and it duly sold for a couple of hundred pounds (non-replica) money, as it were. There are plenty of these around, although a new replica can cost you quite a bit more. Look out for one of the initial locomotive of the ‘Lord Nelson’ class (SR again) and you’ll have to shell out £790 for a solid brass copy in full size. But it got me thinking. If you can pay nearly £800 for a replica of a nameplate of a famous – say an ‘iconic’ – locomotive, what might the cost of an original be? Locomotives have borne names ever since Rocket and its rivals vied for supremacy at the Rainhill trials in 1829, so there are nominally a lot around. Yet 19th century survivals are fantastically rare most, sadly, were scrapped with the time-expired bearers of the name. Nearly everything now available for sale comes from the last generation of steam locomotives (I leave aside nameplates from diesel and electric locomotives: they are less sought after, usually of less good quality materials and commoner, despite still making relatively good money). Most engines with names were express passenger ones of various sizes. The handsomest were those on the locomotives of the old Great Western, cast in brass on heavy plates, often curved to fit over a wheel splasher. Modest Cobham Hall fetched £5,800 in 2010. Other companies used steel ones, usually smaller, although the Southern Railway did brass ones until the war. Rarity is often an indicator of price, so one works out the number of a particular class of engines built and multiplies the total by two (there being a name plate on either side of the engine). Thus Derbyshire-born Sir Nigel Gresley designed the not particularly memorable ‘Hunt’ & ‘Shire’ class of 4-4-0 locomotives in the 1920s. The LNER built forty two of them, meaning there must have been 84 nameplates, mainly counties but also names of particular Hunts. I recall sitting with my father around 1961 when we learnt from his newspaper that British Railways were scrapping these engines and, by applying to BR one could acquire a nameplate of one’s choice for about £75 – scrap value plus cartage. As one of these machines had been called The Craven, I urged Papa to put in an offer for it, but when they told him the price (which in retrospect he could well have afforded) he demurred. Yet it would have made a splendid investment today, 57 years later, for one sold not so long ago for £15,100! Another reason for them being scarcer than they are is that many were presented by BR to the institutions after which the engine had taken its name. Thus many ‘Battle of Britain’ class engines had their squadron number nameplates with their accompanying badges, enamelled onto a large attached oval, were presented to the relevant squadron HQs. Football clubs whose names had adorned LNER B17 class engines were presented with the relevant plates, and to all sort of stately homes received plates from Great Western Railway ‘Castle’, ‘Hall’, ‘Manor’ and ‘Grange’ class locomotives.. But to acquire these wonderful items, one requires fantastically deep pockets. Top price to date was a sister engine of world speed record breaking Mallard, called Golden Fleece. One plate alone went for £60,000 in December 2014, whilst another from its sister engine Golden Eagle fetched £31,000 two years ago. Mind you, less romantic names suffer price-wise: Another Mallard sister, prosaically named after a director of the company, Sir Murrough Wilson, only made a paltry £19,600! The nameplates from the equivalent top-link locomotives on the rival LMS also make similar money, although neither are much to look at compared with one from a ‘spam can’ or a GWR engine: ‘Princess Coronation’ class Pacific City of Liverpool made £36,900 (place loyalty, no doubt!) whereas Queen Elizabeth from a similar engine, but from its days as a streamliner, made £51,500. More affordable are brass nameplates of the Southern’s likeable but modest ‘King Arthur’ class engines, retailing at around £8,000 at present, although the obscure Malorian Sir Durnore made £8,600 not long ago, so heaven knows what King Arthur himself might command! In other words, it is fame and popularity which makes the big money. Take the sister engines of Flying Scotsman. Most were named after racehorses which had won classics in the forty years or so before the engines were named. This in itself resulted in some oddities, like Dandy Dinmont (survivor of a serious collision before the war), Call Boy and Galopin (geddit?). Thus, Minoru has recently sold for a very modest £7,000, but one of the more famous members of the class could add a nought easily – or very nearly. Industrial locos also often carried names. They were usually simple little engines and accordingly had simple names, like Jane, Mersey, Powerful, Diamond or Colliery No. 1. These plates can actually be affordable, and start at something in the order of £250 rising to £1,250 for better known ones. The added pleasure
Derbyshires Lost Houses – Meynell’s House, Derby
Francis Meynell (1698-1768) was a member of what was, in the early eighteenth century, a younger branch of the great Derbyshire house of Meynell, recorded in the county as of knightly status from c. 1100. His father had an estate at Anslow in Staffordshire and property elsewhere in that county, but also set up as an apothecary in Derby, building himself, in the first years of Queen Anne a very fine town house immediately adjacent to the surviving house built by his friend Alderman William Franceys. The building, which was destroyed in 1935 to make way for a branch of Martin’s Bank, was without doubt by the same hand as its larger and rather grander next door neighbour, Alderman Franceys’s house of 1694. Although the architect is not known, both houses have very similar detailing, especially in respect to the first floor window surrounds. Indeed the upper storey surrounds are eared and contain rose paterae, a feature still to be found on the former Lloyd’s bank on the corner of Market Place and in Sadler Gate as well as the former George Inn (now Fould’s) a few doors up in Iron Gate, of 1691. Unlike Franceys’s House, Meynell’s three storey brick façade was articulated by a giant Corinthian order enclosing all five bays of windows, with an entrance to the shop part of the premises between bays one and two, and a carriage arch giving access to the family’s entrance and the yard behind, between bays three and four. A large scar in the tiles on the street front of the roof in a photograph of 1855 suggests that when built and until the mid-19th century, there was a row of dormer windows there lighting an attic Inside, the first floor contained two spacious rooms with fielded oak panelling, and entered through eight-panelled doors in muscular eared architraves. The staircase was a fine one, also in oak with two turned balusters per tread. Even the garden was of above average description, boasting a ‘pilastered summerhouse’, presumably a brick edifice built en-suite with the house.. At the time of the ’Forty-five, when Meynell and his family, faced with the imminent arrival of the Jacobite claimant in the shape of Bonnie Prince Charlie, forbore to join the Whig corporation in their flight to Nottingham, they found themselves host to Alexander Forbes, 4th Lord Pitsligo and his entourage. The words ‘Charming Kitty Bailey/Wm. Napier’ were found scratched by a diamond on the pane of a window. But any romantic tale of Jacobite romance it vitiated by the date below – 1747 – and by the absence of any Napiers from the roll of officers in the Highland army! Nevertheless, bearing in mind that ‘Bailey’ may be as mis-spelling of ‘Bayly’ a connection with Francis cousin’s and sometime Derby MP Thomas Bayly might reasonable be postulated. Francis Meynell, had been born at Anslow Park, was baptised at Rolleston, for Anslow is not a separate parish. He had been educated at Derby School and on his father’s death in 1727 inherited his modest landed estate in Anslow, making the Derby residence a true town house, as well as being the place of business, the shop portion being serviced on the ground floor. In their day, apothecaries were the nearest most people got to having a GP, and they were in consequence, the repository of much confidential information concerning their clients. Indeed, this fact is often used to explain why Henry Franceys, the apothecary next door (son of Alderman William), was allowed into the County Assemblies when in fact, not being a member of the gentry (unlike Meynell), he should have been restricted to the separate Borough Assemblies. More likely, Franceys got in because he had married a Harpur of Twyford Hall, and by chance more than intent, Francis Meynell had also married a Harpur, but in his case she was Jane, daughter of John Harpur of Littleover Old Hall, senior cousins to the Twyford branch. The next step up from being an apothecary in those days was to train as a surgeon, and in due time Francis Meynell’s son John (1726-1802) was duly articled in 1740 to a local surgeon and in 1747 – the year that next door neighbour Henry Franceys died, enabling Francis Meynell to take over most of his clientèle – he qualified and worked at first from the house alongside his father. In 1778 he was practising in London, despite having inherited the apothecary’s business in 1768, and married a cousin there, from whom his son Godfrey was eventually to inherit a large portion of the ancient Meynell Langley estate, which had gone out of the family in the fifteenth century. Thus with John in London, the business was run after 1768 by his brother Francis (1738-1825) from Rotten Row – as the area was then called, prior to the demolition of the houses opposite Meynell House in 1870-77. At some stage, this Francis retired, and there is no record of his two sons having succeeded him. The date was, in all probability 1796, for that is the date claimed as that of the initiation of their business by Thomas and James Storer, who took the building on and opened the shop part as a grocery. The section on the right of the ground floor they let off to Benjamin Smith, a hosier who was there for many years. In 1890, the Storer family sold the business to Giles Austin a west-countryman, who traded under his own name. He rebuilt the house, improving the shop façade, adding iron bratishing to the facia and installing a parapet centered by a pediment which read TEAS COFFEES/1796/AUSTIN & Co/GROCERIES which clearly indicates that he considered himself merely a continuator of the concern. In 1910, he moved out of the house itself, building a pleasant detached villa in a couple of acres of Village Street, Normanton-by-Derby called Homelands (later replaced by a large grammar school of the same name, now itself no more) and
