Country Images Magazine North Edition September 2017 | Page 18

D e r b y s h i re -
Lost Houses
thought previously to have held a lot more land
in Derbyshire prior to a rebellion in which he
was notionally involved in 1073, including some
signifi cant chunks of Derby itself.
At Walton, his successors showed the same sort
of generosity that Hugh had shown to Goscelin
de Touchet, granting the manorial estate at
Walton to Robert, son of their seneschal, Sir
Roger de Montalt. He granted the manor to
Walter de Staunton (Harold), but one hears no
more of this family in the context of Walton.
Robert de Montalt died childless, and the
property reverted to Queen Isabella on his
widow’s death. She, however, re-granted it to
John Delves of Delves Hall, Cheshire – ancestor
of the cuckolded husband and chief suspect
in the notorious 1941 ‘Happy Valley’ Kenyan
murder case, Sir Jock Delves-Broughton. From
John Delves’ heirs it was fi nally sold in 1349 to
Robert, 2 nd Lord Ferrers of Chartley.
Ferrers was the son of the disgraced 6 th Earl of
Derby. Chartley was the one substantial estate
they had salvaged from the Earl’s attainder
in 1265. His junior descendants, seated at
Tamworth Castle, built the Old Hall at Walton
in the 16 th century. Before that time, all the
manor’s lords had held great estates elsewhere,
so if there was a capital mansion there (and a
moated site near the church very much suggests
there was) it would have been sub-tenanted or
occupied by a bailiff .
Today, it is very diffi cult to know what this
house – Walton Old Hall – must have been like.
By the era of photography, it had been reduced
to a one-gabled brick remnant, with more of
its accompanying stable block surviving, long
18 | CountryImagesMagazine.co.uk