Country Images Magazine Derby Edition September 2017 | Page 17

D e r b y s h i re -
Lost Houses
T HE LOST HOUSE S OF DER BYSHIRE
by Maxwell Craven
WALTON OLD HALL
W
Walton on Trent
alton-on-Trent always strikes me as a pleasant place,
and suffi ciently off the beaten track to have survived
into the 21 st century rather well. It is also known for
its clockmakers, too, having been the home, almost right through
the 18 th century, of the Rea family, Thomas Rea (1719-1782)
leaving a number of sons, of whom Sampson (died 1817) – also
of Burton-upon-Trent - and John both signed clocks there. In
fact, it was almost a minor centre of clockmaking, such men
going back to William Hosse in 1678 (possibly a predecessor or
Thomas Rea) and on to Joseph Baldwin, in the 18 th century, John
Brearley as we move into the 19 th and Samuel and William Smith,
Rea’s successors. Indeed, one wonders why Walton attracted
clockmakers for that 150 year period in such profusion in what
was then a small agricultural settlement.
Walton also boasts a nice pub, a very fi ne church
and a hall set four-square on a grassy knoll not far
out of the nucleus: the traditional elements of the
English village, in fact.
Yet there were once two halls: a Walton
Old Hall as well as the present Hall, and
disentangling them is quite challenging. One
really has to go back to the Domesday Book of
1086 to get a handle on things. When William
the Conqueror’s fi rst dispositions were made
to reward his followers, he himself retained
Walton. But by the time his commissioners were
compiling Domesday two decades later, it had
been granted to Hugh, Earl of Chester, who
then also held Markeaton, Mackworth, Allestree
and part of Kniveton, which he settled on his
follower, Goscelin de Touchet. Indeed, Hugh is
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