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 – 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 – Crich Manor House
Crich is really rather a confusing place, not least in respect to its country houses. The descent of the manorial estate since Hubert Fitz Ralph, the Domesday proprietor has been something of a saga, and many of the subsequent lords were non-resident. This phenomenon certainly would have put paid to the original manor house, built, as one might reasonably expect, beside the church. Quite when it was built is not really known. Hubert was a tenant-in-chief of the Crown and was described in several documentary sources as ‘of Crich’ or ‘Lord of Crich’ which would suggest that he was probably seated there. There is, however, some room for doubt as he held 25 manorial estates in Derbyshire alone, of which only eight had recorded sub-tenants holding under him in 1086. Hubert’s father was a Norman called Ralph de Ryes, and a younger branch of the family were the Ryes of Whitwell. As there is a field to the NW of the church at Crich called Hall Croft, it would seem safe to conclude that this is where one of the FitzRalphs built their capital mansion, although it is not mentioned in any document until it had passed via an heiress in 1218 to Ralph de Frecheville. He certainly, therefore, lived at Crich, but his son, Anker, married the heiress of the much richer manor of Staveley and re-located thence. At this juncture, the house at Crich may have been used either as a dower house or by younger members of the family. Eventually, the Frechevilles decided they no longer needed the manorial estate and sold it to Roger Belers of Kirkby Park, Leicestershire (hence Kirkby Bellairs) around 1301. They were a branch of the Norman family of d’Albini, so were much out of the same mould as the FitzRalphs. They were also descendants of the FitzRalphs, as Alice de Wakebridge, Roger’s wife had Juliana, sister of a later Hubert FitzRalph of Crich for a mother. Although his son Sir Roger is also frequently described as ‘of Crich’, his brother Thomas seems to have been the one that lived in the manor house. Despite four wives, Sir Roger left only daughters, between whom the manor was split, but the elder, initially married to Sir Robert Swillington of Swillington, in Yorkshire, had a son, Sir Roger, who managed to re-unite the two halves of the patrimony. One of his two sons may have lived at Crich, but the family by and large remained in Yorkshire. Eventually, both died without have had children, and the estate passed by marriage to Sir John Gray of Ingleby, Lincolnshire from whom it came to Ralph, Lord Cromwell, Henry VI’s Treasurer, who already owned the South Wingfield estate. Thus Crich became for nearly 150 years, part of the extensive holdings of the Cromwells and their heirs the Talbots, Earls of Shrewsbury. It was without doubt from this point (1467) that the original manor house would have disappeared. The patrimony of the Shrewsburys was eventually split three ways amongst his daughters, on the death of the 6th Earl in 1616, Two thirds of the manorial estate were sold off by their descendants, a third in 1660 to a group of seven rich local farmers, and another third in 1710 to William Sudbury. From these, the manor was rapidly split into a number of small freeholds. Nevertheless, under the long sequence of absentee chief lords, there were families who held sub-tenancies of parts of the estate, Anthony Babington of Dethick (the plotter) being one. Just prior to his fall, trial and execution, probably in anticipation of the possibility of the plot to free Mary Stuart failing, he off-loaded some of the family holdings, including an estate at Crich, held under Lord Shrewsbury. So it was, that in 1584, John Clay, grandson of another John, who held a modest but lead-rich estate at Chappell in Crich, purchased this Babington tenancy, by this date a rich one, through the exploitation of its minerals. He twice married well, obtained a grant of arms at the Heralds’ Visitation of 1569 and died in 1632, by which time he had built himself a manor house, thought to be the one visible on the celebrated early 18th century panoramic painting bought by the late Col. Denys Bower of The Grove and now at Chiddingstone Castle in Kent. Here we see a stone built L-plan house of two storeys and attics, the gables being coped with ball finials on the kneelers. The windows are clearly mullioned and the house is set in a garden on the SW and a farmyard on the SE with a range of outbuildings to the north. It much resembles houses like Goss Hall in Ashover, Rowtor in Birchover or Allen Hill at Matlock. John Clay’s monument in Crich church establishes that his two sons William and Theophilus, died before him and his daughter Penelope married Thomas Brailsford of Seanor in Ault Hucknall, not far from Hardwick, who duly inherited what amounted to an extensive estate. One of their eight sons was duly named Theophilus after his uncle and the eldest John after old Clay himself. It seems unlikely that the Brailsfords altered the house and it was taxed on six hearths in 1670 when it appears to have been let to the Wood family, the Brailsfords being still ensconced at Seanor. Towards the end of the 17th century (certainly before 1712) it passed to the Flint family of Crich and they seem to have rebuilt the house fairly extensively. This seems to have taken the form of demolishing the cross wing and extending the hall range by three bays, but in a fashionable classical style, with vertical mullioned and transomed cross windows (later adapted as sashes). A new entrance was included where this new range joined the 16th century or early 17th century work, so that to the left there was this new two storey range, and to the right the old three bays, which included the original attics. Hence
