Country Images Magazine Derby Edition Derby 2017 | Page 19

D e r b y s h i re - Lost Houses the Classicising treatment meted out to the south front at Longford by Derby’s Joseph Pickford in 1762-63. Indeed, it is not impossible that Pickford undertook the job, although a rainwater head dated 1723 may suggest earlier work too, possibly to the interior. Also, the park was landscaped to a very high standard, with a fi ne avenue running NW with another to the SE, interspersed with rides, which look from the maps as if they were mainly landscaped out in favour of boundary planting before 1793, probably the work of Humphrey Repton. Th e family seem to have laid out considerable sums almost every generation in improving the house. In 1806 drawings for a rebuilding survive signed by John Westmacott, son of the eminent sculptor. He seems to have died shortly aft erwards and the alterations, probably with some modifi cations were carried out into the 1820s, perhaps to his basic design by Samuel Brown of Derby, then active at Calke. A very early photograph by Richard Keene – from a little before 1860 judging from its catalogue number – and an engraving by Henry Moore, of Derby from the 1820s gives us some idea of what was done. Th ere had been a conscious eff ort to return a fl avour of its Tudor origin to the house: tall paired chimney stacks in decorated moulded brick decorated the new cranked parapet, the sash windows were replaced by mullioned and transomed ones, with the end bays done as oriels on the fi rst fl oor and the centre had a canted two storey bay with a crow-stepped gable above. Th is now overlooked an impressive series of terraces with classical garden structures descending to the river, acting eff ectively as a lake. with fl owers, leaves, sky and trellis work, so that diners could feel that they were looking out from a bower. Again in the 1870s, the house was further rebuilt, more to add some visual unity than anything else. A surviving Georgian chimney on the NW end of the garden front was rebuilt to match the others and the conservatory was replaced by a two storey extension, although the name of the architect who oversaw it is not known – possibly Robert Grace of Burton. Th e last changes were wrought by High Society country house architect Sir Reginald Blomfi eld in 1901-1904. He removed the fussy archaising parapet, returning to a balustrade, and rebuilt the entrance with a grand baroque entrance porch with an armorial in the arched pediment, altered the existing oriel window over it and provided an oeuil-de-boeuf set in a trophy under a Dutch gable above. Th e fl anking turrets lost their rather Disney-esque knights and were replaced by ogee- form cupolas. No expense was spared either, with carving (including a new, Wren-style hall) by W. Aumonier, plasterwork by George Jackson and re-decoration by Gregory & Co. Fresh work on the terraces and gardens was done for Francis Inigo Th omas (1866-1950), a pal of Blomfi eld’s, by William Barron & Son of Borrowash in 1900- 1902. Yet all this was soon to go. Th e Gresleys, one of the fi rst batch of families to receive a baronetcy from James I in 1611, were hit by repeated death duties and declining agricultural rents; the estate Alfreton Rd, Derby DE21 4AF 01332 363422 www.mauriceparker.co.uk [email protected] KITCHENS | BEDROOMS | B AT H RO O M S | TILES Th e narrower entrance front was treated similarly, the door fl anked by octagonal colonettes topped by carved knights carrying metal pennons in a reference to the family’s descent from Nigel de Staff ord a companion of the Conqueror. To the right of this was built an orangery (possibly a rebuild of an 18th century classical one) of 5 bays. Inside, the hall was given a ribbed ceiling, bronze colza oil lamps, a gothic doorcase and a Jacobethan style stone chimneypiece. Yet much of the interior remained classical, including the dining room, which seems to have been rebuilt to suit the conventions of the 1760s, with a recessed buff et at one end. Sometime prior to 1794, when Erasmus Darwin’s friend Anna Seward described it, this room was spectacularly decorated in trompe-l’oeuil by the Nottingham- born artist Paul Sandby (1731-1809), with a distant scene of picnickers al fresco before a romantic castle in a lake with hills beyond, in the buff et behind a tromp-l’oeuil paling, the surrounding part of the room being painted The Mackintosh collection offers the best in sleek and contemporary designer kitchens, with all the choice and design fl exibility you need. CountryImagesMagazine.co.uk | 19