Country Images Magazine North January 2018 | Page 24

The Lost Houses
of Derbyshire
by Maxwell Craven
Th e house as it was between
c.1970 and 1988: the main
block only, photographed
when awaiting conversion to
a chimerical ‘leisure centre’
[Derbyshire County Council]
(1866-1916), whose stay there ended in 1907,
when Joseph Paget’s brother-in-law and heir,
Staff ordshire lawyer Hubert C Hodgson, took it
on, although even before Sir Arthur had moved
out a report on mining subsidence had been
prepared, the culprit being the newly opened
(1895) Shirebrook Colliery. Other alleged
disadvantages were cited as drunkenness and
lawlessness among the miners, an outbreak of
cholera and general pollution.
In 1913 the freehold was sold by the trustees of
the Pagets and was bought by their company,
William Hollins Ltd. as a home for director A R
Hollins, who lived there until 1926 when it was
again sold with 200 acres remaining for £4,300
most going to one H F Reddish who presumably
lived there, although the house disappears from
the directories from this period, and it may be
that the colliery subsidence had made the house
24 | CountryImagesMagazine.co.uk
uninhabitable. From Reddish it passed to B M
Wright who is said to have removed the lead from
the roof (or some of them) in the war. Being,
as ever, charitable, I would imagine this was his
contribution to the war eff ort.
In 1955 the empty house was sold to Richard
Scales and Andrew Myers for £3,500 who not
only took down the service wing and the tower,
but made a good profi t, despite infl ation in
re-selling it in 1972 for £10,000. Th e part-
demolition was achieved on the grounds of
subsidence, and the building was never statutorily
listed, so there was little to protect it, or
encourage the owners to seek compensation from
the Coal Board.
Only fi ve years later, local people were interested
to learn that there was a proposal to use the
remaining part of the house (the grandest, it has
to be said) as a leisure centre, but the proposers
of the scheme, the purchasers (for £19,000) in
1977 seemed to have a hidden agenda, for they
were Cast Developments, a quarrying fi rm, eyeing
up the potential of the site! However, years of
applications to the Bolsover District Council
were to no avail, and the remaining wing of the
house decayed quietly.
In 1988 it unceremoniously came down and in
1992 the site was fi nally sold for eventual re-
development, one of the last true country houses
in the County to suff er this fate.
Readers keen to know the saga in more detail
should resort to Grant Pearcy’s commendably
detailed website www.stuff ynwood.com – it
helped me with the details, acting as a corrective
to a couple of errors in the account of the house
in 3rd edition of Th e Derbyshire Country House
(Ashbourne 2001) Vol. II 311-312.