Country Images Magazine North April 2018 | Page 20

The Lost Houses
of Derbyshire
by Maxwell Craven
Postcard view of Spondon House when a
prep school, c. 1904 [MC]
a conservatory, very like that of Spondon Hall,
along the south front. Th e new staircase was lit
by an octagonal, conical top-light with a shallow
roof topped by a jaunty ball fi nial, sitting a little
awkwardly on a fl at section of roof where the two
additional ranges met, at the east end of the main
range.
Th e fi rst Lowe of Locko, was John (1704-1771),
eldest of the four sons of Vincent Lowe of Denby
by Th eodosia, a daughter of John Marriott
of Alscot, Gloucestershire. John married his
mother’s niece, Sydney Marriott, herself the sole
heiress of the family’s Gloucestershire estate, but
they had no issue. His next brother, Vincent,
had pre-deceased him unmarried, whilst the
next, Stead Lowe, migrated to America, leaving
a son, Stead. Th e youngest brother, Richard
(1716-1785) therefore succeeded John at Locko
in 1771. Most genealogies sanitise the family
history at this point, having him die unmarried
but, late in life, he did marry, his bride being his
long-standing maîtresse en titre, Ellen Leyton,
previously mother by him of three daughters.
On Richard’s death, however, the estate reverted,
Spondon House, north front & Victorian wing, c. 1935. [the late Mrs. Tom Fraser]
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