The Lost Houses of Derbyshire – Romeley Hall, Clowne
At Romeley, one gets two lost houses for the price of one. The early history of Romeley (or Romiley) in the extreme SW of the parish of Clowne, but often erroneously listed under Barlborough, is obscure to say the least, but the first we hear of a capatial mansion there is in 1455 when one on site was in the possession of Stephen atte Wode, (Wood), a member of the same Eckington family whose name later mutated into Sitwell, as of Renishaw. A descendant, William Wood sold the estate in 1604 to William Routhe of Birley and Waleswood (now Wales) both just over the county line in Yorkshire. They seem to have rebuilt the house in coursed rubble of High Hazels Coal, quarried locally, of which the main surviving doorcase is carved from a single block. Unfortunately, this house was abandoned towards the end of the nineteenth century, having been described as an ‘ancient farm house’ since the mid-18th century, in favour of a new house built contiguously, of which more anon. No illustration of the old house survives, but the L-shaped surviving portion has two storeys over a high basement, suggesting a house of some pretension, the more so for Thomas Bulmer in 1895 recorded a lost first floor long gallery of some sixty feet, a four yard (12 foot) square rannel balk and chimney and a kitchen fireplace boasting a twelve foot wide cambered bressumer, the latter still in situ (or was when Mick Stanley and I visited in 1980). The house under consideration today, however, is its successor, Romeley House, occasionally and confusingly also called Romeley Hall. This was built by Thomas Wright Bridgehouses, in Sheffield (1679-1741), who bought the estate from the heirs of Francis Routh of Brenley, Kent, whose father, Sir John, had left Yorkshire and had been financially hammered for loyalty to the King during the Civil War. This villa, built possibly as a place to which he could retire from the smoke and pollution of Georgian Sheffield, seems to have been erected immediately after his purchase in 1711. The need for a new house being that the Clayton family had a three-lives lease of the old hall and were still in occupation. In 1741 this new house passed to Wright’s nephew, Revd. Thomas Wright, who lived in the rectory at Birley, Yorkshire and did not use Romeley House, which fell into some disrepair by the 1780s. Thus in 1788 he sold house and estate to Daniel Thomas Hill. He was the well-heeled son of a London distiller, living near Aylesbury, Bucks., but had business interests locally, living at Chesterfield, where he died in 1811. Daniel Hill clearly had no desire to live at Romeley either, so he let the new house and estate for life to Dr. Thomas Gisborne (1725-1806), a member of a prominent local dynasty, a noted physician, Fellow of St. John’s Cambridge and President of the Royal College of Physicians in 1791, 1794 and 1796 to 1803. He had also been appointed Physician in Ordinary to George III on the recommendation of Erasmus Darwin, FRS, made when the latter had been approached but was keen to avoid being appointed himself.1 Although a bachelor, Gisborne decided to put the house into good repair and to improve it as a fashionable country seat for himself and to improve the setting to create a modest Elysium around it. The brick building he acquired was nothing if not architecturally quirky. It was of five closely- set bays facing south, with side elevations also of three bays, and boasted two storeys and attics. The main façade was notably arresting, rising from a prominent podium and approached by a full width set of stone steps with end and central balustrades. The ground floor was enclosed by angle pilasters rising above the plat band into plinths (or chimneys), whilst at first floor level the façade rose at a slope in a series of reverse curves separated by steps to attic level where they ended against two further full height pilasters which enclosed the central three bays and all of the attic, forming a sort of giant shaped gable. The attic itself consisted of a single sash flanked by a pair of blind lights. The windows had stone lintels and those on the ground floor moulded brick labels beneath the sills, although the sashes one sees on the only view of it, drawn by Samuel Hieronymus Grimm (1733-1794) in 1774, probably replaced stone mullion-and-transom cross windows. There is a naive sophistication about this extraordinary provincial Baroque façade, and its impression on the viewer of a giant shaped pediment is very reminiscent of a group of south Yorkshire houses, one of them, Hellaby Hall, only some ten miles away at Maltby on the east edge of Rotherham, just north of Junction 32 of the M1. This was built on the same scale, with similarly shaped gable (albeit resting upon volutes) and banding, although its façade, of smooth local stone, is not broken up by odd pilasters as is Romeley’s. Another house, Grimethorpe Hall, just NE of Barnsley, is, like Romeley, in brick with stone dressings, and again of five bays. The pediment was once shaped but got simplified in a Georgian rebuild that led to the installation of sash windows. Both houses seem to lack the odd plasters, but in fact Grimethorpe does have attenuated ones to first floor level, flanking the entrance. Both houses have lain derelict and at risk for decades, although the former has been rescued and is now a thriving hotel. Hellaby was built in 1692 by West India merchant Ralph Fretwell (a remote descendant of the Freschevilles of Staveley), whilst Grimethorpe dates to a similar period – at least between 1670 and 1713 , being the adult lifetime of its builder Robert Se(a)ton. This trio probably owe their inspiration to Robert Trollope of York an architect who revelled in the provincial Baroque and who died in 1686 having designed a very similar but
Lost Houses of Repton Park
Sir Vauncey Harpur-Crewe of Calke, 10th Bt. was a true eccentric; unpredictable, obsessive and solitary. One of his pastimes was the catching of specimens various types of fauna and having them stuffed, mounted and parked in the great saloon at Calke Abbey. Smaller creatures, including butterflies he dried and pinned to boards. One summer morning in July 1893, he was spied, with his trusty gamekeeper and companion in all outdoor matters Ag Pegg, on the lawn of a villa on the Calke estate, south of Repton called Repton Park, set romantically amongst trees above a modest but beautiful lake. It was a good place to find the odd Fritillary. Unfortunately, the resident of the house, his cousin, John Edmund (Harpur-) Crewe did not view their intrusion with approval, he felt affronted and thought that common decency would suggest that the pair might have asked his consent, prior to appearing in front of the house in full cry after some hapless specimen of lepidoptery. A heated argument ensued, during which Sir Vauncey pointed out that John was his tenant and had no right to complain. The upshot was that poor John was summarily evicted (moving a short distance away to Bramcote House at Milford, on the Foremark estate), whilst the estate foreman was sent in to pull the house down. In a few years, dense bocage had taken over the site and it was as if the house had never been. It was like that, too, when Mick Stanley and I went there in 1981, in the process of compiling our two volume epic, The Derbyshire Country House. The land by then had become attached to the policies of Repton Hayes, a few hundred yards across the shallow vale, and the late Miss Theresa Woolley very kindly allowed us a visit. We had seen a small oil of the house when visiting Charles Harpur-Crewe at Calke earlier, hung between two of the windows of the saloon (which he kindly allowed me to photograph) and thought we ought to visit. We approached southwards along a delightful avenue of trees and thence into the woodland that surrounds the site and once surrounded the house. The site was featureless except for a single mullioned stone window at ground level, clearly part of a cellar, but 75 yards before encountering this we had passed a fairly substantial ruin of Keuper sandstone with a fine Jacobean classical arched entrance and more mullioned windows, left like a forlorn sentinel at the approach to the house. The house was Repton Park, formerly Repton Park Lodge, built on that part of the ancient Repton estate that had come to the Harpurs from the Fynderne family. Probably in the early years of the 17th century, about when the Swarkestone Stand was built, the first baronet, Sir Henry, built a hunting lodge here with a small separate stable block, recessed between two stubby wings. We only get confirmation of its existence in the hearth tax return for 1662, which records ‘Sir John Harpur Bart., his lodge…’ All we get from William Woolley in 1713, ‘Sir John Harpur has a very pretty park here’ – no mention of a lodge. Neither do we know exactly what the building looked like, but a lithograph of it after it was rebuilt in the Regency period shows that the stable block was castellated, and this suggests that the main house was also treated in this way. Indeed, Professor Mark Girouard has suggested that it may have been designed (if not built), like the Swarkestone Stand, by the architect of Bolsover Castle, John Smythson. Smythson was a master of the chivalric revival style, which emphasised details like battlements and towers. Thus the original house, probably a very modest 48 by 24 feet and two storeys high, may have resembled old Wingerworth, Highlow or Holme Hall, Bakewell and as a result, in its bosky setting must have look very romantic, as a lodge, like Wothorpe in Lincolnshire. Dr, Bigsby, the mid-19th century historian of Repton averred that the lodge was erected ‘…upon the foundations of an ancient structure that formed the manorial residence of the Finderne family…beneath the later fabric are extensive subterranean remains of the former edifice.’ In 1252 the manorial estate of Repton (excluding the Priory’s demesnes) had been split four ways, but most of it was either given to the Priory or came to the Crown, from which the Fyndernes of Findern bought it. They sold most of their estates to Sir Richard Harpur of Swarkestone in the 1550s and hence its descent to the Calke branch of the family. On a plan drawn by Samuel Wyatt (cousin of the architect, and a local surveyor) in 1762 the house appears as a rectangle with a narrower wing to the SW, probably a later addition to house the offices. The lake, bordered to the west by Hartshorne Road, was only of a modest size in 1762, but by 1800 had been considerably enlarged, probably as part of a deliberate exercise in landscaping, probably at the hands of the incomparable William Emes, who was working at Calke in the 1770s. The earliest view of the house, a lithograph from the lake taken in the later 1840s, is confirmed by a dreadfully faded Calotype photograph, possibly taken before 1851 by Canon Abney and W. H. Fox-Talbot on one of their tours by carriage from Markeaton Hall, the latter’s in-laws’ house. This shows a two and a half storey house with three bays facing north embellished with an outlandishly Gothic porch, complete with four crocketed pinnacles, and a five bay west front with towers at the angles. They are impossibly romantic towers too, not really octagonal, more square with chamfered angles, and the two that flanked the entrance opened into loggias at the foot. These towers were crenellated and the upper storey of the house defined by a sill band and a string course above, whilst the parapets were also embellished with crenelles The windows, however, where
Lost Houses – South Wingfield Manor
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 the road. Its sheer size brings you up short for a moment, for here is a ruined house that once was as big as Haddon, but taller, as tall as Hardwick, but more spread out. Had it survived to the present intact, it would be a wonder of Europe and a serious rival to houses such as Penshurst. The grandest houses in the 15th century, when most of what you see at Wingfield Manor was built, were constructed around two courtyards, as at Haddon and once upon a time at Codnor Castle. Yet it took from the 12th to the 16th century to complete Haddon as you see it today, whereas the importance of Wingfield is that it was conceived as a whole and built – more or less – for one man within just over two decades. Thus it is an architectural unity, one man’s vision. The other architectural landmark at Wingfield is the seventy four foot High Tower. This, of five storeys, is only the second manifestation in Derbyshire of what one might call “high rise living”, a habit that was to take hold both here and in Nottinghamshire in a big way in the century following, reaching its apogee in houses like Hardwick, Worksop Manor and Bolsover Castle. The predecessor of the High Tower at Wingfield is Prior Overton’s Tower at Repton Hall – now part of the Headmaster’s House at Repton School. It would not be unreasonable to assume that this splendid residence was built for someone of great consequence, and it was: Ralph, 3rd Lord Cromwell, Lord Treasurer of England. The Cromwells were a family of no particular wealth, who had held only dear old West Hallam after the Norman Conquest. Ralph’s enrichment came partly through winning a long legal case in 1439 by which he obtained, as joint-heir, Wingfield and its estate, and partly through what we might term the fruits of office. Sleaze was not then considered de trop! Ralph was clearly an enthusiast for tall buildings, for he built another famous one – which also survives – at Tattershall Castle, in Lincolnshire, but this time, like Prior Overton’s, in brick. In 1441 building work began under John Entrepas, Lord Cromwell having first cleared the site of the ancient house of his predecessors, the de Heriz family and thought to have been built a century and a half before by Roger de Paveley on the site of what might have been an adulterine (i.e., unofficial) 12th century castle dating from the war between Stephen and Matilda. Heriz had also laid out hunting parkland around his house, certainly one to the north which a descendant gave to the Abbey of Darley and rented back, the charter concerning which gives us a clear insight into its extent. Indeed, that document set against the present topography, helped save South Wingfield from an opportunist building an estate of 80 odd houses within it at a recent planning appeal. The little park to the east (now mainly built over) and the huge great park to the south, extending to the Ripley Ambergate Road, were either laid out by the de Heriz family or by Ralph Cromwell. The house itself is built of local stone – Ashover Grit from Crich and Ashover Moor for the best ashlar work the masons, could produce, and Wingfield Flags, a type of Coal Measures sandstone, for the coarser work and the roofing. The High Tower was to house guests and was also put in place as an elevated hunting platform from which the ladies could watch the menfolk at the chase. In winter, this was the only viable way to obtain fresh meat. A second tower, now mainly demolished, was provided at the NE angle to aid people watching the hunt in the northern park. The house was not finished when Cromwell died in 1455, and it passed by sale to John Talbot, 2nd Earl of Shrewsbury, already a major Derbyshire landowner. He managed to occupy it by 1458, so that the entire magnificent structure was completed within 17 years, which was quite an achievement. There are even surviving records of him hunting the parks, and it may well be that he acquired the house and estate specifically for this purpose. It is well known, and hardly bears repeating here, that the estate later passed to George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, the unwilling gaoler of Mary, Queen of Scots – a man who was in the invidious position of being beholden to a jealous Queen: Elizabeth I (and her efficient intelligence network) and a jealous wife: the larger-than-life matriarch, Bess of Hardwick. The Scots queen’s apartments are said to be those one encounters immediately beyond the High Tower. Gilbert Talbot, 7th Earl, the heir, died without a son, so the huge Derbyshire estates including South Wingfield, were split three ways between the daughters and their husbands. Thus one of them, the Earl of Arundel (later Duke of Norfolk) got the house and 1000 acres of park. During the Civil War the house was taken for the King in December 1643 by the ‘Loyall’ Duke of Newcastle, and held by a garrison under Col. Dalby – who undertook a great deal of raiding from there – until well into the year following when, after several fruitless attempts to dislodge them, Sir John Gell, the county Parliamentary commander, managed to borrow some seriously superior ordnance, breach the walls and re-take the house. After the war, the Duke of Norfolk sold the house – which, apart from bombardment damage had been partly dismantled on the orders of Parliament in 1646 – to his steward, the Cumbrian Immanuel Halton FRS.
Lost House – Derwent Hall
Architect Joseph Aloysius Hansom undertook the work of creating an Elysium amongst the dark hills above Derwent. Next time you turn on the tap, you might spare a thought for poor old Derwent Hall. This interesting and distinguished house disappeared slowly beneath the waters of Derwent Reservoir between summer 1943 and 1945, when the last vestiges of its half-demolished shell finally disappeared beneath the waters. The culprits were the combined water authorities of Derby, Nottingham, Leicester and Sheffield, eager to ensure uninterrupted clean water for their burgeoning populations, and the entire operation was nationalised in 1947. So what was lost? Essentially a typical upland Derbyshire stone built 16th or 17th century gabled country house much enlarged and equipped with all the latest comforts in the late 19th century, but none the less interesting for all that. Although Derwent was part of the extensive upland parish of Hathersage, the unforgiving terrain was not inductive to the accumulation of a landed estate and the site from late medieval time was a farm held by the Barber family. The father of Henry Balguy (pronounced ‘bawgee’), a younger son of the Balguys of Aston-in-Peak, bought some land at Derwent and later acquired more at Rowlee and Henry (1648-1685) combined the two to create a modest estate, acquiring Derwent Hall, then a moderate sized farm house taxed in 1670 on four hearths, in 1672. His son – another Henry – rebuilt the house some two decades later (it bore an entirely convincing date-stone of 1692), leaving an attractive small H-plan manor house of two storeys with gabled attics, built of coarse local Kinderscout grit with ashlar detailing: coped gables, four, six and eight light mullion-and-transomed windows with string courses over, and quoins at the angles, all under a stone slate roof. The central entrance had a round arched top with the date-stone and an armorial set above it, the string course dipping down above for emphasis. The east elevation was five bays, the two closest to the main front being full height and the three towards the north being lower with attics, representing service accommodation. In the early 19th century a pair of ten light matching windows were installed here. There was also a lower wing to the west and a stable block beyond, at right angles to the house, the whole ensemble being set on the lower slopes of the hill behind with parterres and terraces running down to the Derwent. A third Henry Balguy (1700-1770), having acquired by marriage extensive coal mining interests in the Alfreton area, sold up in 1767 and moved there, selling to the Bennet family, a numerous and well-off farming family in the Dark Peak. The purchaser’s son, John Bennet, acquired tapestries rescued from the fire that destroyed Lord Shrewsbury’s epic prodigy house, Worksop Manor and had them altered to fit Derwent’s parlour and dining room. In 1831, however, the estate was sold to John Read (1777-1862) initially as a summer retreat. He re-ordered the gardens as recorded in the lithograph by W L Walton. He sold it on in 1846 to the Newdigates of West Hallam Hall and Arbury (Warwickshire) who tenanted it as a farm. They too sold it on, in 1876, and this time the purchaser was Henry, 15th Duke of Norfolk, who vested it, as a coming-of-age present, to his younger son, Lord Edmund Bernard FitzAlan-Howard. Although the Howards were normally seated at Arundel, it must not be forgotten that they also owned Glossop Hall and the vast, if rather barren, hills that surrounded it; indeed the lad’s politician great uncle Edward, who lived there, was in 1869 created 1st Lord Howard of Glossop. Lord Edmund, as a FitzAlan-Howard, was a strong Catholic, and also a talented and energetic fellow. He immediately set about transforming the very modest old house into a considerable seat, employing the then doyen of Roman Catholic architects, Joseph Aloysius Hansom (of cab fame) to undertake the work of creating an Elysium amongst the dark hills above Derwent. The work began in 1878 and was completed in 1882. Although the original south front was kept, the remainder of the house was almost completely rebuilt, although with considerable tact. The two cross wings were extended back into the hillside, the main range was doubled in depth, and new service wing was added to the west and the stable range was re-ordered to create a courtyard around it. The East front was enlivened with two ground floor square bays and a large projecting bay containing a vast new drawing room with a canted end, beyond which was built a simple gothic domestic chapel, slightly higher than the house itself. Attic dormers were also added, and the interior acquired new oak panelling to match the old, along with a completely new and very fine oak staircase. The interior also gained an overmantel dated 1634 from old Norton Hall (replaced in 1796 and now in Sheffield). The gardens were completely re-arranged and the estate increased to 1,274 acres. The result was a house of some style and ambition, fitted with all modern conveniences, including home-produced gas and, after a decade or so, electric light installed by George Crompton of Stanton Hall, Stanton-by-Dale, a pioneer in this field. In 1921, Lord Edmund was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland – the last person to hold that office and the first Catholic to do so since 1686 – and was ennobled as Viscount FitzAlan of Derwent in consequence. By the time he laid down office in 1922, as a result of the declaration of the Irish Free State, he had decided, with advancing years to live at Cumberland Lodge at Windsor, and the family just went to Derwent for part of the summer and the shooting season. Then, in 1920 the various local authorities determined to build a further series of reservoirs to alleviate an impending water shortage, and it soon became clear that the days of Derwent Hall were numbered. In 1920 the Norton Old
Lost House – Parkfields Cedars, Derby
When architects design their own houses, there is always something of interest. Richard Leaper was Derby’s Regency period amateur architect who, according to historian Stephen Glover ‘…has had great taste and much experience in building family mansions…’ Leaper was a municipal grandee, a banker and tannery proprietor, but despite these responsibilities, was indeed a fairly prolific architect, a gentleman of leisure with time on his hands and a wide circle of kinsmen and acquaintances. Leaper’s father had served as Mayor of Derby in 1776-1777 and in 1753 had married Sarah Ward, sister of Archer Ward, a banker colleague of his father. Richard, born in 1759, was educated at Derby School, joined the Corporation 1790, being elected Mayor in 1794-95 and was made an alderman shortly thereafter. He served as Mayor again in 1807, 1815 and 1824, by which time he was also a partner in the bank. His earliest commission was probably the Particular Baptist Chapel in Agard Street (for Ward) built in 1796 with a good Classical facade. Unfortunately, it fell victim to the coming of the Great Northern Railway in 1876. On this page over the last two years we have looked at four of the houses he designed for friends in the Derby area, but of equal interest is the house he himself lived in, for when architects design their own houses, there is always something of interest. At first he lived at 59, Friar Gate, Derby, a house of 1770 upon which he seems to have left no discernible architectural impression, but at some time before 1819 he had decided to leave his modest Georgian house in Friar Gate and move to Kedleston Road ‘about one mile outside Derby’ where he built himself a villa, later called Parkfields Cedars. It was possibly so called from the outset indeed, but house names tend not to be listed in very early directories. The six acres of land in which it stood was part of the Park Field, one of the common fields of the Borough and which was sold off at about this time. On various parts of it were built Parkfields House (now situated off Park Grove), Highfields (off Highfields Road) and Parkfields Villa (Duffield Road, cruelly demolished in the 1990s). Two large cedar trees framing the SW front determined the choice of name. Leaper’s authorship of its design is implicit from its date and the fact that he resided there during the final two decades of his life, but no supporting documents seem to survive. Stylistically though, it had his paw prints all over it. The house was a relatively plain two storey brick and stucco villa of three bays by five, the three on the garden front, being centered by a full height curved bow. There is a typically Leaper cornice and low parapet hiding the low hipped roof. The return, SE, front appeared to have five bays with Doric pilasters framing the central trio, but actually at the right hand end there was an extra bay with mezzanine windows, marking the position of the staircase. The NW side had the entrance, very like Leaper’s nearby villa called The Leylands in that the portico was columned in antis, but Doric rather than Ionic as at The Leylands. This part was also irregular, in a typically Leaperish way in that there were two bays to the left of the portico, but only one to the right and that was a blind bay with only recessed panels, and antae (plain pilasters) at the angles. The analogous house is the extant Limes, Mickleover, which has just this arrangement, with a bowed garden front and an irregular side entrance with a portico and is thus also attributable to Leaper. Inside, the dining room lay to one’s left and the drawing room, looking out over the lawns and cedars, to one’s right. Further along the hall and the breakfast room and study/library were entered on the right with the stairs opposite. This was timber, carved with fruit and flowers and almost Jacobethan in its un-Classical exuberance. It bifurcated on a mezzanine lit by an eight light Gothick window almost exactly like that on the stairs at Leaper’s Barrow Hall, Barrow-on-Trent (see Country Images for April 2014). One of the rooms sported a Corinthian chimneypiece of local crinoidal marble, whilst another was pseudo-15th century with stone hood, very similar to an equally quirky one Leaper installed in The Pastures, Littleover (now the Boys’ Grammar School). There was also a large service wing to the NE. On Leaper’s death in 1838, the house was sold to Alderman John Sandars, a man who had, shortly afterwards, the distinction of being Mayor of Derby. When the new Guildhall burnt down very spectacularly on the night of Trafalgar Day 1841, he had left office for a year. This conflagration might have meant the loss of all the City’s records which were then stored in the building, but for the fact that the good Alderman, a former book dealer and antiquarian turned vintner, had used his Mayorial clout to take many home with him to read, thus ensuring their survival. Sandars died aged 86 in 1867, when the property was sold by his family to the Wilmot-Sitwells of Stainsby House (see Country Images January 2015) as their Derby town house. Later, in the 1850s, it became the roost of some of their maiden aunts, notably Eliza Wilmot-Sitwell, after the tenancy of whom the place was let to solicitor John Moody, founder of Messrs. Moody & Woolley, then and until recently of St. Mary’s Gate. Towards the end of the 19th century it was again sold, this time to the formidable Mrs. E. M. Pike, proprietor of the Derby Telegraph. She was something of an enthusiast for buying property, having also bought 36-38 Corn Market (formerly the Tiger); on her death in December 1905 her trustees decided to dispose of Parkfields Cedars. Thus it was in 1905 that Derby Council bought it with five and a
Lost Houses – Snelston Hall
Snelston was the most ambitious Gothic house in Derbyshire, renowned for its splendour, but also one of the more short-lived Derbyshire seats. The history of Snelston prior to 1813, when the builder of this prodigy house came on the scene, is excessively convoluted. In essence, there had been three separate manorial estates at the time of Domesday Book, all tenanted by the Montgomery family, usually associated with Cubley, nearby. Another portion was owned by the Abbey of Burton. At some stage the Montgomerys divided their holding into two unequal parts, called Upper Hall and Lower Hall, these later descending to the Brownes and the Dethicks. The two portions later by sale soldiered on under two upstart houses, the Doxeys and the Bowyers. In 1777, the Upper Hall and its estate was sold to Derby banker Thomas Evans (founder a few years later of Darley Abbey mills) whilst the Bowyers let Lower Hall, letting, with the result that in 1780 it was destroyed by fire. In 1821 a dispute broke out between the heirs of the Bowyers and the two daughters of Edmund Evans, installed in the Upper Hall by Thomas. In 1813, Sarah Evans, married John Harrison, a match that changed everything. In 1822 Harrison bought out his sister-in-law and then set about taking control of the Lower Hall estate, gaining full possession in 1826. John Harrison was a remarkable man. Born in 1782, he was the son of the first marriage of another John Harrison (1736-1808) who appears to have been the man who established the family fortune. His father had been a yeoman in the village of Normanton-by-Derby but who by his death on 3rd January 1808 had become a successful attorney, having set up in business in 1778, taking Samuel Richardson Radford into partnership in 1804. Where young John was educated is not clear, but he was called to the bar from the Inner Temple around 1804. In 1808 he was in Derby, taking over his father’s legal practice in St. Mary’s Gate and in 1822 entered into partnership with Benjamin Frear, retiring in 1825. Notably, two weeks before his own marriage, Harrison’s sister, Juliana, had married John Stanton, whose uncle, James, in turn had already married her elder sister Ann, twelve years before There is no doubt that Harrison was exceedingly wealthy, however, and soon he wanted a country seat. He had by 1817 acquired a modest estate at Littleover, and proceeded to draw up plans for a house there. To this end he employed Lewis Nockalls Cottingham (1787-1847) a London based architect who had set up on his own three years before. In all nine Greek revival designs were made, all for his Littleover Villa, the finished version being built as Littleover Grange, although re-instatement after a serious fire 25 years ago has changed it considerably. Yet he seems not to have been satisfied with his Regency suburban villa, and in 1822, Cottingham drew his first design for Upper Hall, Snelston, which was, once again, Greek revival. Harrison retired from practice in 1825 (he had clearly made a killing somewhere along the line) and having gained possession of the entire estate the following year, Cottingham was put to work yet again, producing a restrained effort in castellated Gothic, but essentially a Classical design dressed up with ‘old world’ detailing. This was quickly followed by a third, more thoroughgoing Gothic design, but a visit to Alton Towers, not far away across the Dove seems to have inspired Harrison to try and emulate the fast-rising Romantic skyline of Lord Shrewsbury’s House. Cottingham, whose strength lay in his understanding of Gothic in any case, did not fail him. The next design, which was indeed built, was a bravura display of high Gothic. The main (east) entrance front was given nine bays separated by buttresses running up to the parapet and ending in crocketed pinnacles, with paired lancet windows either side divided by transoms under hood moulds with foliate stops. The asymmetrical projecting portico was gabled, two storeys, with an arch beneath a battlemented oriel window. The south front was dominated by a wide full height canted bay in similar mode whilst behind arose a dominant baronial great hall, the west gable end window of which being impressively ecclesiastical, packed with heraldic stained glass and flanked by slim octagonal turrets, a high slate roof embellished with small cupolas and a forest of decorative chimney stacks beyond. The house’s main facade continued in similar mode ending in an octagonal three storey tower on the SW angle, and indeed, from the lake in the 350 acre park (also Cottingham’s work, inspired by Humphrey Repton) the silhouette was distinctly Alton Tower like and certainly impressive. Nor did he stint himself on the interiors, which were lavishly ornate yet at the same time unexpectedly delicate, especially in the arcading in the great hall and the filigree Gothic of the staircase. Cottingham designed everything himself, including much of the furniture, the designs for which are now in the collections at the V & A, donated by the late Col. Stanton. Much of this and other ornate timberwork was fabricated nearby at the hands of a much overlooked talent, Adam Bede of Norbury a craftsman of more than ordinary talent and whose name was the inspiration for a central character of George Eliot’s, who knew Bede from her childhood at Norbury, where her grandfather had been estate foreman and is believed to have had Bede as an apprentice. The entire project took about a decade, 1827-1837, but Cottingham continued to design estate cottages, model farm buildings and the stable block (on the site of the burnt out Lower Hall). The entire combination of house, contents, gardens, village and estate were essentially the creation of Harrison and his architect. Had the house survived, it would now be an ensemble of major national importance. Harrison was appointed to both the Staffordshire and Derbyshire bench and in 1833 served as High Sheriff of Derbyshire. He obtained a
Lost Houses – Exeter House, Derby
In the early 17th century, the West bank of the Derwent was becoming very sought after for gardens and suddenly Full Street and Cockpit Hill became fashionable places to live. Exeter House, No. 1, Full Street, was the house occupied for three days and two nights by Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1745. Derby has had an unfortunate habit of demolishing buildings connected to famous figures from the past, buildings which today could be a tourist draw. As recently as 1971 the childhood home in Wilmot Street of philosopher Herbert Spencer was demolished, preceded by only four years by that of his birthplace; Erasmus Darwin’s house was lost to a planning scheme in 1933 and Joseph Wright’s birthplace went in 1909, whilst the house he lived in until four years before his death succumbed as early as 1800. Yet the rot really started with the demolition of Exeter House, No. 1, Full Street, early in 1855, for this was the house occupied for three days and two nights by Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1745, and in which he held the Council of War at which the fateful decision to turn back to Scotland was arrived at. Even then there were voices raised in protest. Not that it saved Exeter House, but at least the panelling from the so-called Council Chamber in the house was rescued and preserved by a sympathiser whose executors advertised it for sale in April 1872: ‘Old historic oak for sale. The whole of the oak panelling, cornicing, fittings of three window places, two fluted pilasters, two solid oak doors &c., &c., which were removed from THE OAK COUNCIL ROOM (on the pulling down of Exeter House in Derby, formerly the residence of the Earls of Exeter) in which Prince Charles Edward Stuart held his council of War previous to his retreat from Derby in 1745. The whole of the oak is of the finest grain and polish and a plan of the room having been kept (the dimensions being 20 feet square, height 10ft. 6in) it can easily be adapted and refixed. Apply Mr., Powell, 1 Full Street, 24 April l872.’ In March 1873 with buyers still hovering around, Michael Thomas Bass heard about it and stepped in himself and saved them for the Borough. In 1879 he presented the panelling to the newly-founded Museum and where they were given an allegedly ‘purpose-built’ room in which it has resided ever since. The room then spent 116 years as a meetings room, which meant that the public never got to see the fine oak panelling with its fluted Tuscan pilasters and pretty chimney piece. When I took over as Keeper of Antiquities, I lobbied consistently that we should turn it into a gallery celebrating Derby’s part in the ’Forty Five and hold meetings elsewhere. It was only after a change of Director that this got taken seriously and was finally agreed in 1995. We got a wax figure looking like Prince Charles Edward made, re-furnished the room, and the panelling (which we discovered had been seriously ‘bodged’ to fit it in the room, which was nowhere near 20 x 20ft) and disguised the Early English lancet windows with re-placement 12 pane sashes. We put out everything connected with the event, dimmed the lights, provided a moon and had a recording made of the man himself reading out loud from a letter reporting progress to his father James VII & III. Indeed, it was the last large project I was able to complete before being made redundant from the Museum in 1998. Exeter House though, had a longer history entirely. In the early 17th century, the West bank of the Derwent was becoming very sought after for gardens and suddenly Full Street and Cockpit Hill became fashionable places to live. Thus it was that on the outside of the curve Full Street used to make towards the Market Place, the Bagnold family erected c. 1635/1640 a two storey brick house with two straight gables over five bays of windows, probably at that stage, mullioned ones, although possibly also with a transom too. The gardens stretched down to the river bank, whilst the front door was virtually on the street. The son of the household, John Bagnold, rose from high municipal office (he had been town clerk) to be elected one of the two MPs for Derby in the 1680s, the first under the new 1682 Charter granted by Charles II. He resolved to enlarge the house, adding an impressive parallel range nearer the river, of two storeys with attic dormers in a hipped and sprocketed roof, embellished by tall panelled chimney stacks, linking the old house to his new creation by a short block. This new house was nine bays wide and was in the latest architectural manner. Although we have no account of the interior then, the surviving ceiling from contemporary Newcastle House (see Country Images July 2014) suggests lavish plasterwork and frescoes, along with fielded panelling and so forth. Bagnold died in 1698 aged 55, yet the daughter and ultimately co-heiress of this grandson of a yeoman farmer from Marston-on-Dove married one of the first of the ‘super-rich’, as we call them today: copper and lead entrepreneur Thomas Chambers (1660-1726) a London Merchant whose coat-of-arms has three copper cakes upon the shield and a miner in a mine for a crest, carved on his lavish marble tomb in Derby Cathedral by no less a sculptor than Louis-Francois Roubiliac. He even commissioned Robert Bakewell to surround the structure with a fine iron railing. Thomas Chambers’s father had been a Derby lead trader and he added to the grounds, acquiring a tract of land on the opposite side of the river to the house from the Sitwells as his pleasure grounds. He also built the delightful brick pavilion, boat house or summer house on the Derwent’s edge visible in the old East Prospect of the town. He too left an heiress and she made a glittering marriage in
Lost Houses – Castlefields
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 – the name of the voting district, of course – but derives from Castlefields, the ancient name of the area and of the later house. That in itself derives from the shadowy castle at Derby, of which no trace remains, nor has since the Civil War, when a bank and ditch were reported, roughly where Albion Street is now. Castles, even totally vanished ones, usually leave a documentary trace, if only because if the Crown did not build them, one of the great magnates will have done so and not without Royal approval either. Yet no documents survive concerning a castle at Derby, although place name evidence is early enough to be convincing as proof that one did exist. In many of these undocumented cases, the missing fortification turns out to have been a prehistoric (often Iron Age) fort, but this is exceedingly unlikely at Derby, the topography being all against it. The discovery of a previously undocumented motte and bailey castle at Repton by Professor Martin Biddle in the Headmaster’s garden in 1989 (at first thought to have been a Viking dock!) gave the key. It was established as part of a chain of fortifications set up by Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester around 1141, during the anarchy of King Stephen’s reign. He hoped to use the chaos to secure a separate Northern sovereign principality for himself, and these unauthorized or adulterine castles to defend his southern border, roughly along the Trent Valley, were the result. That at Castle Gresley is another example, and it rapidly became clear that the one at Derby fitted the distribution pattern perfectly. After the war, when Henry II managed to establish order again, they were mainly destroyed, Derby and Repton amongst them. Only the toponym lingered on, in the SE corner of the town. The Castle Fields lay south of Cockpit Hill (possibly the site of the castle’s motte), west of the Derwent and east of Osmaston Road, there being no London Road as we know it then. Before the early 18th century, one went to London following the Roman/Prehistoric route along Osmaston Road to Swarkestone Bridge and thence to Leicester. London Road was only formalised in the age of the turnpike. In order to raise funds, the Corporation, the rather paltry income of which derived from stall rents at fairs and tolls, from time to time sold some of the generous quantities of land it controlled around the edge of the town, the original common fields, of which Castle Fields was one. Others included Parkfield, Whitecross Field, Newlands and so on. At the end of the first decade of the 18th century money was required to build a new Guildhall to replace the 15th century one camped out in the middle of the Market Place. Castle Field was therefore sold to Isaac Borrow of Hulland Hall (1673-1745), whose father John had migrated from Gotham, Notts., and was descended from a family living at Thrumpton in the 16th century. The historian William Woolley wrote of ‘…Castlefields, where Mr. Boroughs [sic] builds a very good house (with a curious garden and paddock for deer)’. Woolley’s MS is undated but internal evidence suggests that he wrote the Derby portion in 1713, which fixes the date for a house that one would on architectural grounds describe as ‘Queen Anne’ fairly firmly. Castlefields was a provincial Baroque house in brick of three storeys oriented east – west. The two main fronts were astylar, seven bays wide, the central three recessed on the east side and breaking forward by a brick’s width on the west. The two entrance aedicules have segmental pediments, and the angles are marked by stone quoins. It is difficult to tell whether the fenestration is set in stone surrounds, but if it is, they were clearly fairly skimpy. There were also recessed blind brick panels above the windows on the second floor forming the parapet, which had no cornice only copings, as at Clifton Campville (Staffs., 1708 by William Dickinson) and the Wardwick Tavern, Derby (also 1708). There are no sill or plat bands and no visible string courses. The north & south sides appear to have been of two bays if the painting is to be trusted, but south and north Bucks’ 1728 view suggests a much more credible deeper, double pile house, probably giving five bays on the returns. Both pictures suggest that the south front at least projected by a further bay, recessed from the main facade, like the central section on the east. From Woolley’s description the park was intended for deer, and the curious garden may have been the rather dated looking parterre seen in the picture. There were two slightly detached service wings to the north and south, too with stables beside the former. The whole ensemble was really quite grand. I am coming to the opinion that its similarities to the square, three storey houses without an order of columns or pilasters (astylar) like Wingerworth (1725), Umberslade (1700, Warw.), Newbold Revel (Warw. 1715), Longnor (Staffs. 1726) link it firmly to the oeuvre of Francis Smith of Warwick. He designed all the foregoing (or is firmly linked to them) and whilst building All Saints’, Derby for James Gibbs seems to have acquired seven other Derbyshire commissions from amongst the subscribers to the new church (now the Cathedral). Nor was Smith unknown locally before that, having designed and built Kedleston (1700-1721) and rebuilt Etwall Halls. Indeed, the very year Castlefields was ‘building’, 1713, he was providing a design for a new Guildhall for the Corporation of Derby. As Isaac Borrow was a member of the Corporation then, this may be the link between
Lost Houses – Oldcotes
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 what she was instrumental in building or rebuilding, for it makes no reference to her hunting lodge at Blackwall-in-the-Peak, nor of her impressive town house in Derby Market Place, nor of various other family enterprises in which she was in one way or another involved. Chatsworth, of course, and the two houses she built at Hardwick are well known, but what of Oldcotes, today rendered as Owlcotes? Oldcotes was part of the estate of the very grand family of Savage of Stainsby, and was held under them by the Hardwicks of Hardwick, and thus became the property of Bess of Hardwick on the death of her brother James, whose father also bought out the Savage interest. It was when her son by Sir William Cavendish came of age, that she resolved to build a new house there for him, he being her favourite son. Bess made William Cavendish payments between 1593 and 1597 for the construction of this house, which was going up concurrently with new Hardwick just a couple of miles away. It is thought that the architect for the house was without doubt Robert Smythson, then working on Hardwick and who also designed Wollaton for the Willoughbys and Worksop Manor (another lost house, but in Nottinghamshire) for Bess’s fourth husband, the much put upon George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury. Smythson also designed Bess’s monument in Derby Cathedral, all made and paid for nine years before it was required!. The contract for the stonework at Oldcotes is dated March 1593, and involved six men already working under Smythson at Hardwick. The new house also appears to have included part of its predecessor, as at Hardwick Old Hall, was two rooms deep, had two turrets with a 20 foot high great hall. As no ashlar work was involved, it was clearly to be constructed of coursed rubble, and it was to be finished in eight months – that is, by January 1594. As Bess was still giving further subsidies to William of £100 five years later, we may be sure that, like all builders, they fell behind on the job, and furthermore, that Bess having a reputation for changing her mind in mid-contract (witness the chaotically planned old hall at Hardwick) delays were also thus incurred . Clearly the house was considerably smaller and simpler than Hardwick, but that notwithstanding, the Pierrponts (its owners in 1670 when the assessment was made) still had to pay tax on 48 hearths there, the same total as Haddon, and exceeded in Derbyshire only by Bretby, Chatsworth and Hardwick. A drawing for an unknown house in the RIBA Smythson Collection is generally thought to represent Oldcotes as built, and shows a two storey house on a high plinth, with a three storey two bay centrepiece supported on a three bay loggia and topped with shaped strapwork, with a raised portion behind supporting a group of chimney stacks. The house then – most unusually, even for Smythson – receded back in three stages, as the drawing clearly implies with its return cornices appearing to overlap the following bays, implying recession. Most of Smythson’s houses receded from the edges to the middle and allowed the centre section to advance. An exception is Chastleton, Oxfordshire. There was a cornice over each floor at lintel height and a balustrade on top. A three storey tower was added at each end in the middle of the return elevation (as at Hardwick). Like Hardwick, the windows were all tall, multi-section, mullioned and transomed ones, the largest one of fifteen lights each. It may be, of course, that inside, there were more than two storeys, as at Hardwick and Bolsover, where the changes in level frequently bear little resemblance to the external regularity of the fenestration. We can also be sure that the 20 ft high hall would have run through the house from front to back, as at Hardwick, then a new and innovative feature in great houses, with an elaborate carved stone or timber screen with a gallery upon it. A map of 1609 by William Senior also appears to show the house as two storeys, although the representation is rather formulaic and uninformative, rendering it impossible to be certain whether what we are seeing is the same as the RIBA drawing or not. Nevertheless, a further map, of 1659, now in the Manvers archive at Nottingham University Library, certainly does show the house as it then was. This image, however, comes as something of a surprise as it shows the house with three storeys. This suggests that the house was raised by a storey (except the centrepiece) some time between 1609 and 1659. As it was sold, with its estate to Robert Pierrepont of Holme Pierrepont and Thoresby, 1st Earl of Kingston, in 1641, one might expect that this was done subsequent to that date, but the fact that the Civil War was then raging, followed by the uneasy calm of the Commonwealth, throughout the time between the Pierrepont’s purchase and the 1659 map, the suggestion might seem hard to countenance. More likely it was done by the future 2nd Earl of Devonshire, who lived there before his father’s death in 1626 and was a fairly extravagant young man, who lived in great state. If this suggestion is tenable, then the architect for the enlarging of the house would almost certainly have been John Smythson, Robert’s son, then building for Devonshire’s cousin, Lord Newcastle at Bolsover. It is a shame we have no better image of the place. It is thought that the gabled house in front of the main façade of Oldcotes on the 1659 map is the rebuilt previous
Lost Houses – Hasland House
Hasland is one of the many outliers of the Manor of Chesterfield, and was long held by the ancient family of Linacre, under whom it was, in the 15th century, tenanted by a cadet branch of the Leakes of Sutton Scarsdale. Thomas Leake of Hasland, for instance, was Bess of Hardwick’s maternal grandfather. After the death in a duel in 1597 of another Thomas Leake, the succession to the estate was thrown into disarray and it was eventually acquired by Col. Roger Molyneux of the Teversal (Notts.) family, later a prominent Parliamentary officer but, ironically, he disposed of it shortly before the Civil war to a Royalist Capt. John Lowe of Owlgreaves (now Algrave) Hall, second son of Anthony Lowe of Alderwasley – if only he’d known!. The estate and house – the still extant old Manor House is written up in The Derbyshire Country House 3rd edition (Ashbourne 2001) Vol. II. pp. 277-8 – continued amongst their descendants until in 1727 the heiress brought it to her husband (and kinsman) Henry Lowe of Park Hall, Denby, whereupon it was sold to the upwardly mobile Lucas family. It seems to have been at this juncture that Hasland House was built in a small park immediately NNW of the village centre, presumably because the old hall was considered inadequate for more up-to-date requirements and was thereupon let as a farm. Thomas Lucas alias Oliver was the son of Bernard (originally from Grindleford) and started out as a Chesterfield butcher being fined for operating without being a burgess in 1689. Nevertheless, thanks to him and his sons, the family swiftly became unconscionably rich. It is not clear who actually built the house. In 1727 Thomas was getting on and had a house elsewhere and it was more likely his second son, Bernard, who built a fine new brick house. It was five bays wide on both main facades, of three storeys with a hipped roof behind a low parapet, the gauged brick lintels having triple stone keyblocks. There were plain pilasters at the angles and the entrance – surely aping the style of Francis Smith of Warwick – set in a stone surround crowned with a segmental pediment. The fact that the roof was irregular, ending with a hip to the west but not to the east, might suggest that a fairly substantial earlier house with gables might have been rebuilt, rather than the house being entirely new. Inside there were three excellent panelled rooms and a timber staircase of very fine joinery with three balusters per tread and carved tread ends. From its style and appearance, the house must have been built within a year or two of Lucas acquiring the estate and it was later described as “a commodious and pleasant mansion”. It could even have been built to a design by the great Francis Smith, who was then building Wingerworth Hall not very far away for the much grander Hunlokes, but no building records appear to have survived. Bernard Lucas (1708-1771) was Mayor of Chesterfield in 1741 and was succeeded by his son – another – Bernard, who died unmarried in 1810, and then by the latter’s younger brother Thomas (1731-1818). Thomas’s son, yet another Bernard, greatly increased his fortune by marrying Esther, sister and heiress of Anthony Lax (later Maynard) of Chesterfield, an opulent attorney with a Yorkshire estate and decided to build a new house again, not so far away. This is the present Hasland Hall, for many years now a school, and Hasland House was let and later sold to Josiah Claughton, a Chesterfield druggist and wholesale chemist with 35 acres. The Claughtons were thereafter in residence for almost the whole of the 19th century for, although Josiah died in 1836, his widow Elizabeth only died in1853 and four unmarried daughters – Jane, Catherine, Ellen and Fanny – lived there until the death of Catherine, the last survivor, in 1895. Nobody, in all this time seems to have sought to alter or rebuild the old house, which appears nevertheless to have had much charm. The only exception seems to have been that during the Claughton regime, the three over four glazing bar sashes were replaced by plate glass ones with Victorian margin glazing bars, which did nothing for the appearance of the house. The house was briefly let to Capt. Herbert Murray having been inherited by Catherine Claughton’s nephew Revd. Maurice Beedham, and then by his son, John, who was based in Canada and sold their house and modest acres in 1904. The purchaser was Chesterfield grandee Bernard Lucas, a descendant of the original Lucas owner in the 18th century, who paid £7,650. His tenant was another member of a notable local family, Eric Drayton Swanwick, second son of Russell Swanwick and grandson of Frederick Swanwick of Whittington Hall, the man who surveyed the North Midland Railway for George Stevenson (later of Tapton Hall) in 1838-1840. Frederick also designed many of the buildings, the stations not done by Francis Thompson, and bridges on the NMR. E. D. Swanwick, however, later moved to the family seat, Whittington Hall, and Hasland House entered its last phase. The house and only 15 acres of grounds were acquired in 1912 by the philanthropic Chesterfield Alderman George Albert Eastwood, who had been Mayor of Chesterfield over three successive years from 1905 to 1907/8. He was exceedingly wealthy and was the manufacturer of railway wagons. He gave the house and grounds for a public park, opened 2nd July 1913 in memory of his father, George Eastwood (1826-1910). The following year, former owner’s son Bernard Chaytor Lucas built a new community hall adjacent to the house, in front of which was positioned a rather fine fountain from the grounds of Ringwood Hall, given courtesy of Charles Markham who had lived at both Ringwood and Hasland Halls. The community hall was six bays long, the windows separated by buttresses, and boasted a broken pediment towards to park, a tall round headed window penetrating
