Country Images Magazine Derby Edition December 2017 | Page 21

The Lost Houses
of Derbyshire
by Maxwell Craven
Oak Hurst, east front and service wing after conversion into a retreat house, c. 1925 [M. Craven]
OAK HURST
ALDERWASLEY
As one travels north on the A6 one of the less uplifting sights in an
area of stunning beauty is the wire works, covering the valley fl oor not
many hundreds of yards south of the bridge by the former Derwent
Inn, now a tea-room. Should you be caught in slow traffi c – fairly likely
at any time of the year – and should it also be this time of the year,
when the leaves are coming off the trees apace, you might well catch a
glimpse of a large, clearly ruinous house on the far side of the works,
embowered in trees. This is Oak Hurst, a house of considerable merit,
despite its relentless faux timbering, pointy-roofed corner bartizan and
tricksy, late Victorian fenestration.
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