Country Images Magazine North March 2018 | Page 12

The Lost Houses
of Derbyshire
by Maxwell Craven
Several of these ‘islands’ had substantial country
houses, and indeed most of them have vanished,
some almost without trace. Willesley was probably
the grandest though. Th e place itself was one of those
granted by the Mercian grandee Wulfric Spott to
the Abbey of Burton in his will, but post-Conquest
it was divided between the de Ferrers Earls of Derby
(later the Duchy of Lancaster) and the Abbey.
From Manor House
to Romantic Vision
Th e manorial estate was initially tenanted
under them by the de Willesley family who
built a chapel, before passing it on to the
Ingwardby family and then, also by inheritance,
to the Abneys of Ingleby, who eventually united
the estate. Th ese families had few properties
outside Willesley, so it is likely that there was
an historic manor house, probably on the site
of the house that was demolished in 1953.
Unfortunately, nothing is known of its early
appearance. Th e later house, which formed the
core of the later one, was described by William
Woolley in his History of Derbyshire (1713) as
‘a good seat’, with the Lysons’ brothers (1817)
adding ‘Th e manor house which is in the form
of a letter H, appears to have been built in or
about the time of Charles I’ – that is the period
1625-1649. It was taxed on 16 hearths in 1670
suggesting that it was a substantial building.
Bust of Capt. Frank Abney-Hastings by Antonio
Sochos, in the National Art Collection.
Th e earliest picture is an engraving of 1820,
showing a substantial brick house of two
stories and attics, with an eleven bay façade,
the projecting cross-wings at each end of the
main block being of three bays. Th e gables
were elaborately shaped, rather similar to those
of contemporary Th rumpton Hall, on the
Th e long, rather rambling, west front c., 1904, from a post card, sent in 1917. [MC]
12 | CountryImagesMagazine.co.uk
County’s Nottinghamshire border, and these
may well be original to c. 1630, suggesting its
builder was George Abney or his son James.
However, the late Professor Andor Gomme,
looking at the heavily stone-clad rusticated
façade with its Ionic pilasters enclosing a
swagger pedimented doorcase, was confi dent in
attributing these later features to a fairly drastic
1720s rebuilding by Francis Smith of Warwick,
architect of Sutton Scarsdale, a house which it
closely resembles in these details.
Smith, judging from some later accounts, also
opened out the interior to create a double
height hall and installed a fi ne timber staircase
behind it, whilst at the same time endowing
the gables with slim Baroque urn fi nials. Th e
windows were deepened, sashed and given
stone key-blocks. Th e rhythm of the façade
has much in common with another work by
Smith, Stanford Hall on the Leicestershire-
Northamptonshire border, just off the M1.
Th e rustication probably owes its inspiration
to another Northamptonshire house, Lamport
Hall, where a similar treatment was meted
out to an earlier house by Wren’s follower,
John Webb from 1655. A landscaped park of
Post card of a stone
statue of Diana
restraining one of her
hounds and reaching
for an arrow (probably
to dispatch poor old
Acteon!) Renaissance,
and formerly standing in
the park. [MC]