Country Images Magazine North Edition July 2017 | Page 16

D e r b y s h i re -
Lost Houses
elsewhere, it is not certain that there was a
capital mansion at all on the estate before Gilbert
Morewood started building Netherseal Hall in
the 1620s. Th e house he built was orientated
east – west next to St. Peter’s church in a small
park, bounded by Main Street to the west and
Church Lane to the south. It was originally two
storeys high with attics, seven bays wide but only
one range deep and raised on a semi-basement.
Th e main west front was probably dominated by
three gables and there were string courses above
the mullion-and-transom cross windows, but that
over the central entrance dipped down over it,
like that at Derwent Hall (see Country Images
last July).
Th is stone built house was reputed to be panelled
and of symmetrical layout with a fi ne oak staircase
in a well, but it turned out that it was one of those
houses that underwent alteration with almost
every generation of owners who had it.
As with the Seales, the Ridwares, and the
Cottons, Gilbert Morewood died in 1650 leaving
only heiresses, of whom the youngest, Frances,
brought the house and estate to her husband, Sir
Th omas Gresley of neighbouring Drakelow, a
house at which we took a look in May.
Th e couple settled it on their second son,
Th omas, who inherited it in 1699 and set about
making alterations. He swept away the gables
and replaced them with a half-storey attic, above
which was a substantial parapet, giving the
narrow house a strangely tall and gangly look.
Th omas’s grandson, also Th omas, was not only
squire but also rector of the adjoining church.
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