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Historic Buildings of Derbyshire
England
Image right - Holme Hall, Bakewell
Image by Alan Heardman, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wiki
The object of this project is to provide information about historic buildings in the county of Derbyshire, with links to sub-projects for specific buildings as appropriate. GENi profiles of people associated with those establishments can be linked to this project and/or to individual projects where they have been set up.
See Historic Buildings of Britain and Ireland - Main Page
If you have information about any of the Buildings mentioned below please share it here. If you have ancestors linked to any of the places please add them to the project.
Historic houses in alphabetical order
IIncluding Castles, Abbeys, Priories, Manor Houses, Mansions, Stately Homes, Country houses, Estate houses, Courts, Halls, Parks and other listed buildings of historic interest.
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Names with Bold links are to Geni profiles or projects. Other links take you to external biographical web pages. Please copy and paste the bullet used - ● - instead of * when adding items to the list.
A
● Allestree Hall - 19th-century former country house situated in Allestree Park, Allestree, Derby. It is a Grade II● listed building but has been unoccupied for many years, and has been placed on the Heritage at Risk Register. The Mundy family owned the Manor of Allestree from 1516 until Francis Noel Clarke Mundy sold it to Thomas Evans in 1781. It was later the home of William Evans and of his son Sir Thomas William Evans, 1st Baronet. On his death in 1892 the latter bequeathed the estate to his brother in law William Gisborne.
● Alsop Hall Alsop Hall (now Alsop-en-le-Dale Hall) was sold by the creditors of the original Alsop family in the late 1600s, after well over 500 years of continuous occupation. It passed through various hands (including Isaac Borrow of Derby, the Gells of Hopton, the Poles of Nottingham, the Beresfords and Brownsons, and others). During this period it was primarily a farm house rather than a principle seat. In the 1880s Sir Henry Allsopp bought the Estate and tried to revive the title Lord Alsop of Alsop. He failed to demonstrate his descent from the original Alsop family. His principal seat was at Hindlip and eventually had to be content with the title Baron Hindlip of Hindlip and of Alsop-en-le-Dale when his peerage was conferred. I understand but have no confirmation of this, that he used it as a shooting lodge. He died in 1887. There is some information to be found in back copies of the Parwich & District Local History Society newsletter (see their website http://parwichhistory.com/ ). The Allsopp’s of Hindlip subsequently sold Alsop-en-le-Dale Hall and there seems to have been a rapid turn over of occupants of the house: Craven & Stanley in “The Derbyshire Country House” list Thomas Critchlow (a local farming family), John Hall, J N Heald and Edward Mark Philips who made alterations to the house in the early 1930s and died in 1936.
● Ashbourne Hall The history of the hall starts with the Cockayne family who are first recorded in Ashbourne in 1150 – they were a branch of a family that lived at Hemingham Castle near Alresford in Essex from the reign of William the Conqueror having come over from Normandy with the De Veres at the time of the conquest. They may have built the Hall or taken over an existing structure when they were put in charge of the Manor of Ashbourne which they held for the next 500 years through the reigns of 22 monarchs. The Boothby family took over the estate in 1671. They made alterations and additions, many on the instructions of Sir Brooke Boothby, 4th Bt., in the 1780s. In 1846, on the death of Sir William Boothby, 9th baronet, the hall was put up for auction in London. Although bidding finished at £27,950 (£1,232,595 today) this was not enough to persuade the owners to sell. The House was bought by a solicitor from Ashbourne, John Fox, who within two months had sold the estate off in 46 separate lots. After being briefly owned by a Roman Catholic priest from Ashbourne, the Hall itself was bought by Captain Holland who sold it in 1858. The hall was used as a hotel around 1900. Parts of the hall were demolished, little remains today.
● Ashford in the Water Hall Henry II built a “Hall” here, surrounded by a moat, which he occupied on occasion. In the year 1199, the manor (which included the neighbouring villages of Longstone and Sheldon) was granted by King John to Griffin, son of Wenunwyn - a Welsh prince. It later reverted to the Crown, and was bestowed by Edward II on the Earl of Kent, ultimately falling into the hands of the Cavendishes, who still own it as part of their estate as Dukes of Devonshire. In 1408 it passed into the hands of the NEVILLEs, the great and powerful family which played a decisive part in the Wars of the Roses. In 1257, Griffin founded a chantry (an endowment for the saying of masses for his soul), and a “Chantry House” was built as an adjunct of the Church, where it still stands, better known as 'Chantry Cottage'. In 1550, the manor was sold to Sir William CAVENDISH and was held by his successors, the Earls and Dukes of Devonshire, for the next three centuries. The two large lime trees in the Hall Orchard were planted by Lady George CAVENDISH to celebrate the wedding of the Prince of Wales, March 10, 1863. Many members of the CAVENDISH family have lived in Ashford, notably at Churchdale Hall, and several of them are commemorated in the church where an old hatchment is preserved, dated 1724, showing the Cavendish arms. William CAVENDISH, who married U.S.A. President John F. KENNEDY's sister Kathleen Agnes KENNEDY, was born and raised in Churchdale Hall.
● Aston Hall, Aston-on-Trent is an 18th-century country house, now converted to residential apartments, at Aston-on-Trent, Derbyshire. It is a Grade II● listed building. At the time of the Norman conquest, Aston-on-Trent was part of the Manor of Weston which was granted by the Crown to the Earl of Chester and by him to the Abbey of St Werburgh at Chester. Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the Manor was granted to Sir William Paget. In 1612 Weston passed to Anthony Roper by marriage and in 1633 he purchased the house and estate at Aston. In 1648 he sold the estate to Robert Holden of Shardlow. His descendant, also Robert Holden, was a successful lawyer who replaced the old house with a new red brick three storey five bayed mansion. The house was greatly extended by the addition of a substantial north wing and other improvements by Edward Anthony Holden who was High Sheriff of Derbyshire in 1838. The whole edifice was rendered and painted. The estate was sold by the Holdens in 1898 to William Dicken Winterbottom. In 1924 it was broken up and the house was sold to Nottingham County Council and became a hospital. More recently it has been restored, renovated and converted into residential apartments.
B
● Bank Hall, Chapel-en-le-Frith once the home of Squire Frith, a Georgian country gentleman and huntsman who is said to have pursued a poor fox for 40 miles during a chase in 1788;
● Barlborough Hall was built in 1584 by Sir Francis Rodes. Robert Smythson is reported as being the architect. Smythson also built Gawthorpe Hall and Heath Hall
● Barlow Woodseats Hall Manorial tenure began with Ascoit Musard in 1086 and ownership passed through members of several families including the Earl of Shrewsbury from 1593. The present hall dates from the 17th century but there has been a house here from at least 1269 when it was called Barlew Woodsets meaning ‘a house in the wood belonging to Barley’. The deeds dated June 1368 and later dates refer to Barley Wodesetes. It is also believed to be once occupied by one of Derbyshire’s best-known daughters Bess of Hardwick who married the owner of the Hall; he subsequently died in 1544. This was the first of her four husbands even though she was only 14. The main house was built by local yeoman Arthur Mower, and it is believed this was around the time he married in 1620. Arthur Mower was appointed Agent to George Barley, Lord of the Manor in Barlow in 1563, then on George's death in 1568 to his son Peter Barley. Mower died in 1652 but several generations of his family occupied the house in subsequent years. The manor of Barlow was held, with Staveley, by the Musards; it was afterwards in the ancient family of Abitot, a branch of which, on settling here, is supposed to have taken their name from the place. The family of Barlow, or Barley, possessed it for several generations. James Barley, Esq., sold it in 1593, to George Earl of Shrewsbury; the Earl of Newcastle purchased it of the Shrewsbury family in the reign of James I or Charles I. Having passed by descent to the Duke of Portland, it was in 1813 exchanged with the Duke of Rutland for the manor of Whitwell. In 1843 the house passed to the Thorold family by the marriage of Charlotte Mower. This family can be traced back 900 years to the Sheriff of Lincoln who lived during the reign of Edward the Confessor. Until 2006 the house had been owned for many years by the Milward family, owners of Milward's Needles. With the death of Rosemary Milward (née Smedley-Aston), a well-respected local medieval historian and wife of Chesterfield surgeon F. John Milward, the house was put on the open market and sold in 2006.
● Bradbourne Hall is a privately owned 17th-century country house at Bradbourne, near Ashbourne, Derbyshire. It is a Grade II● listed building. The church of All Saints at Bradbourne was in the ownership of the Dunstable Priory from 1278 until it was forfeited to the Crown in the 16th century at the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries.[2] The former glebe lands of some 260 acres (1.1 km2) and the advowson of All Saints were purchased by George Buxton in 1609.[2] He replaced the old vicarage with the present house for his own occupation. Built in limestone, the three storey entrance front has four irregular bays, three gables and irregular mullioned windows.,[1] and was the home of the Buxton/ Buckston family for 200 years. George Buckston (d 1810) changed the spelling of the family surname.[2] His son Rev George Buckston was vicar of Bradbourne 1803-1826[4] and his son Rev German Buckston succeeded in that position which he held until 1861.[5] The latter married Ellen Ward daughter of the vicar of Sutton on the Hill. When he succeeded his father in law in 1834 the family moved to Sutton. The Bradbourne house was then let out; tenants included Col David Wilkie and until 1910 archaeologist Albert Hartshorne FSA.[6] The house was sold Hodson in the 1920s when it was altered and extended.
● Bradley Hall The original Bradley Hall was sold by Sir Andrew Kniverton who was bankrupted by the English Civil War. The Old Bradley Hall was demolished by Hugo Meynell in the late 18th century, who built the Hall we currently see.[5] What is known as "Bradley Hall" today was originally built to be part of a stable-block for a new Hall which was never built.[7][8] The stable block was later converted to serve as the residence.[7][8] Additions were made to the Hall in both the 19th and 20th centuries; it is currently protected as Grade II Listed.
● Bretby Hall The first Bretby Hall was built in 1630 after Thomas Stanhope bought the manor of Bretby from the family of Stephen de Segrave, to whom it had been granted by Ranulph de Blondeville, 4th Earl of Chester. In 1628, his grandson Philip was made Earl of Chesterfield by King Charles I of England. From then on, Bretby Hall was the ancestral home of the Earls of Chesterfield. The second Earl was responsible for a complete restyling of the gardens so that some compared them favourably with the gardens at Versailles. The fifth Earl demolished the mansion and built the present Hall (c.1812) to a design by Sir Jeffry Wyatville. The sixth Earl, known as the "racing Earl", loved cricket and shooting, so he built a cricket pitch and raised game birds. Following the death of the 7th earl in 1871, the Estate passed to his widowed mother, Anne Elizabeth, Dowager Countess of Chesterfield (1802–1885), whose good friend, Benjamin Disraeli, paid frequent visits to Bretby. On the death of the Countess, her estates devolved upon Lord Porchester, the eldest son of her daughter, Evelyn (died 1875), who had married Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon in 1861. The 5th Earl of Carnarvon, the famous egyptologist for whom Howard Carter discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun, commenced breaking up the Bretby estate during World War I. The Carnarvons never lived at Bretby, preferring their home at Highclere Castle, near Newbury, Berkshire. They did make regular visits, however, particularly for shooting. The main estate was sold to J. D. Wragg, a Swadlincote industrialist. The proceeds helped to fund Carter’s search for the tomb of Tutankhamen in Egypt in the early 1920s. In 1926, the Hall was sold to Derbyshire County Council and was run as an orthopaedic hospital until 1997. It was sold to a private developer who has converted it into luxury apartments and suites.
● Brocksford Hall was built in 1893 for Charles William Jervis Smith and designed by the Chester architectural practice of Douglas and Fordham.[1] From 1942-94 it was used as an independent preparatory boarding school.[1][2] The headmaster of Birkdale School, Mr John Gibson Roberts, moved Birkdale pupils evacuated to Derbyshire during the Second World War into Brocksford Hall after the war. Birkdale continued at Oakbrook under another headmaster.[3] Magfern Estates purchased the hall and 35 acres (140,000 m2) of the estate in 1994. The hall and original outbuildings were converted into private apartments and houses. The later additional outbuildings for the school were demolished.
● Burton Closes is a 19th-century country house, now in use as a residential nursing home, situated at Haddon Road, Bakewell, Derbyshire. It is a Grade II● listed building. The house was newly built in 1848 for John Allcard, a wealthy Quaker banker and stockbroker of Derby. It was originally built as a modest two bedroomed house, to a design by architect Joseph Paxton with interiors by Augustus Pugin and intended as a summer retreat. It was much extended by T D Barry and E W Pugin in 1856 for Allcard's son William, a railway engineer, best known for his 1830 work on the Sankey Viaduct, Warrington, Cheshire, where he was mayor in 1848 and 1851. The Allcard family fortunes were much reduced by a financial downturn in 1866 and in 1871 William Henry Allcard, a barrister, sold the estate. Further improvements and extensions were made in 1888 by J B Mitchell Withers for the purchaser Smith Taylor-Whithead, who was High Sheriff of Derbyshire in 1894.
● Buxton Hall The Old Hall Hotel was originally Buxton Hall and was built in 1550 for the 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, George Talbot. He was married to Bess of Hardwick and the hall was situated right over a natural thermal spring. A hexagonal letterbox can still be seen today, the only one of its kind, and erected in 1867.
C
● Carnfield Hall
● Catton Hall
● Chatsworth House
● Coxbench Hall
D
● Derwent House, Matlock
● Dethick Manor
E
● Ednaston Manor
● Elvaston Castle
● Errwood Hall
● Eyam Hall
F
● Fenny Bentley Old Hall
● Flagg Hall
● Foremarke Hal
G
● Great Longstone Hall
H
● Haddon Hall
● Hardwick Hall
● Hartington Hall
● Hassop Hall
● Holme Hall, Bakewell - privately owned 17th-century country house. It is a Grade I listed building. The house was built, on the site of a previous manor house in 1626 for Bernard Wells of Marple Hall. His daughter Mary married Henry Bradshaw, brother of regicide John Bradshaw. Another daughter and coheiress married Robert Eyre and inherited Holme in 1658. The Eyres held the manor until 1802 when the estate was sold under an order of Chancery to Robert Birch, who sold it in 1820 to Thomas John Gisborne, second son of Rev Thomas Gisborne of Yoxall. When Francis Gisborne died in 1881 the estate passed to his brother William Gisborne.
● Hopton Hall
I
J
K
● Kedleston Hall
L
● Locko Park
● Longford Hall
M
● Melbourne Hall
● Mercaston Hall
● Meynell Hall
● Middleton Hall, Stoney Middleton
● Morley Manor
N
O
● Ogston Hall
P
● Parwich Hall
● Pickford's House Derby. - No 41 Friar Gate Derby, is an elegant Georgian town house built by the prominent architect Joseph Pickford in 1770 for his own family. When Pickford died he left the house to the Reverend Joseph Pickford who had the house extended and divided into two properties.. He left the house to his cousin William Pickford in his will in 1844. William promptly mortgaged the house and by 1850 it was sold to William Evans (1788–1856) of Allestree Hall. His son Sir Thomas William Evans, 1st Baronet. sold it in 1879 to Frederick Ward who sold it to W.S.Curgenven who was the first of a number of surgeons to own it. In 1977 it was upgraded from Grade II to Grade I. It was purchased in 1982 by Derby City Council. The council did not pay enough attention to its Grade I status and they removed chimeys, floors and walls without applying for permission.
Q
R
● Radbourne Hall
● Renishaw Hall
● Riber Castle
● Risley Hall
S
● Shipley Hall
● Snitterton Hall
● Somersal Herbert Hall
● Somersall Hall
● Stancliffe Hall
● Stanton Hall, Stanton in Peak
● Stydd Hall
● Sudbury Hall
● Sutton Scarsdale Hall
T
● Tapton House
● Thornbridge Hall
● Tissington Hall
U-V
W
● Walton Hall, Chesterfield
● Walton Hall, Walton-on-Trent
● Whitwell Old Hall
● Wirksworth Hall (demolished)
● Willersley Castle is a late 18th century country mansion situated above the River Derwent at Cromford, Derbyshire which is now a Grade II● listed building. Standing in 60 acres (240,000 m2) of grounds, the Georgian style castellated house is three storeys with a seven bay frontage, the central bay flanked by full height round towers. Originally named "Willersley Hall", it was built on the slopes of Wild Cat Tor, 400 feet (120 m) above sea level, for the occupation of industrialist Sir Richard Arkwright by architect William Thomas, following the purchase of the estate in 1782 from Thomas Hallet Hodges for £8,864 - from {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willersley_Castle Wiki - Willersley Castle]
● Wingfield Manor
X-Y-Z
● Ye Olde Cinder House
References and Sources
Derbyshire Specific
General
- National Trust
- English Heritage
- WIKI List of country houses in the UK
- Britain's Finest
- Britain Express
- Lankdmark Trust
- Historic Houses Association - represents 1,500 houses in the UK
- Hudson's Historic Houses and Gardens - UK - guidebook of over 2,000 houses open to the public
- The DiCamillo Companion to British & Irish Country Houses - database of over 7,000 houses
- Lost Heritage - A Memorial to the Lost Country Houses of England - list of over 1,700 houses
- National Trust for Historic Preservation - online database of historic houses in the United States
- WIKI Historic Houses Association
- Historic Houses Association
- WIKI Treasure Houses of England
- List of country houses in the United Kingdom
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Other Pages for Historic Buildings of English Counties
Historic Buildings of Cumberland - Today's Cumbria includes parts of the historic counties of Westmorland and Lancashire
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