Derbyshire- Lost Houses
THE LOST HOUSES OF DERBYSHIRE by Maxwell Craven
WALTON OLD HALL Walton on Trent
Walton-on-Trent always strikes me as a pleasant place , and sufficiently 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 fine 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 first 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
CountryImagesMagazine . co . uk | 17