Lost houses Derbyshire – Country Images Magazine

Lost Houses

Lost Houses of Derbyshire – Chesshyre’s House, Derby

July 1, 2019 VickyP

The Chesshyre family has been amongst the elite tradesmen of Derby since the beginning of the seventeenth century, when brothers Robert and John Cheshire, sons of a Breadsall farmer, set up in business in the town. John (1613-1689) was Mayor in 1680 and left descendants in the town, as did Robert (1602-1673) who was a […]

Lost Houses

Lost Houses of Derbyshire – Green Hall, Belper

June 4, 2019 VickyP

The story of the Strutt family and that of modern Belper, which they more or less created, are intertwined. They built the mills and the workers’ housing (to a very high standard for the period) and over several generations endowed the town with numerous benisons, leaving the built environment the better for it; today it […]

Lost Houses

Lost Houses of Derbyshire – Oak Hurst, Alderwasley

December 10, 2017 VickyP

As one travels north on the A6 one of the less uplifting sights in an area of stunning beauty is the wire works, covering the valley floor not many hundreds of yards south of the bridge by the former Derwent Inn, now a tea-room. Should you be caught in slow traffic – fairly likely at […]

Lost Houses

Walton Old Hall – Lost Houses of Derbyshire

August 29, 2017 VickyP

Walton-on-Trent always strikes me as a pleasant place, and sufficiently off the beaten track to have survived into the 21st century rather well. It is also known for its clockmakers, too, having been the home, almost right through the 18th century, of the Rea family, Thomas Rea (1719-1782) leaving a number of sons, of whom […]

Lost Houses

Lost Houses of Derbyshire – Thornhill, Kingsway, Derby

July 27, 2017 VickyP

This impressive Regency villa was built on an elevated site in the district of California, Derby, looking south but with an easterly vista across The Rowditch towards the town, but one later spoilt by the erection of two brickworks on the west side of the brook. It is one of three such houses, which Stephen […]

Lost Houses

Lost Houses – Netherseal Hall

June 29, 2017 VickyP

Today we know Seale, in Leicestershire until transferred to Derbyshire in 1897, as two places, Netherseal and Overseal, but this was not always the case, for at the time Domesday Book was compiled in 1086, the chief lord was Henry de Ferrers and under him it was held by a man called Robert. It is […]

Lost Houses

Errwood Hall

January 26, 2017 Alistair Plant

When I was young, especially when visiting relatives in Ireland, ruined country houses were virtually commonplace. Tax, bankruptcy, pessimism and misfortune led many owners post World War Two to abandon their homes and live somewhere cheaper to heat, and generally more convenient. Contents were sold and most often the house pulled down, but many were […]

Lost Houses

Old Bretby Hall

January 5, 2017 Katie Jobling

The name Bretby, although equipped with a Norse suffix meaning ‘place’, suggests that it was, even when the Danelaw was forming in the 10th-11th century, a place known to be (or have been) settled by people of British descent. Yet by 1086 it was attached to Newton (Solney) as an outlier, but by the end […]

Lost Houses

The Knoll, Littleover

November 24, 2016 Alistair Plant

I have tramped the streets of Littleover many times over the last decade, canvassing or delivering leaflets, and have often wondered, when entering Knoll Close from Swanmore Road, on the south western slopes of the village, whether the inhabitants were aware of the reason for their street’s name. The street itself was built in the […]

Lost Houses

Lost Houses – South Wingfield Manor

August 25, 2016 Katie Jobling

Some lost houses leave no trace behind, some fragments, some a wing or two incorporated into something else, and some, like the Manor at South Wingfield, end up as a stupendous ruin. Wingfield Manor is just such a stupendous ruin, and one that never fails to amaze me once I go through the gate from […]