The Lost Houses
of Derbyshire
by Maxwell Craven
Glossop Hall
Th e south East part of the house
showing the improved conservatory
and John Douglas’s raised roof and
low canted bay to the left , from a
post-card. [M. Craven]
T
he Glossop Hall that was demolished in 1958-59
was an unlovely house of titanic proportions,
once set in a spectacular wooded park. Unlovely
it may have been, but it had an interesting history and
was itself at least the third house on the site, although
it probably included portions of the fabric of at least
one of its predecessors.
Th e manorial estate of Glossop passed at the Dissolution from
the Abbey of Basingwerk to the Talbots, Earls of Shrewsbury
& Waterford, of whom George, the 6th Earl had the dubious
fortune to have married Bess of Hardwick, who spent much
of his fortune building prodigy houses like Worksop Manor
and Hardwick. At this stage we have no knowledge if there
was a manor house at Glossop, especially as all the families
mentioned so far were fi rmly seated elsewhere.
View of the 1820 hall and stables (left ) on an ivory paperknife, c. 1850, which bears the crest of the architect of the new house, M E Hadfi eld, on the reverse.
[Private collection]
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