Snitterton Hall is a late medieval manor house in
Snitterton in
South Darley
South Darley is a civil parish in the Derbyshire Dales. It is a largely rural parish and covers the villages of Darley Bridge, Wensley and the hamlets of Oker and Snitterton. South Darley lies west of Matlock and east of Winster. The Riv ...
parish, near
Matlock,
Derbyshire
Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...
, England, and within the
Peak District
The Peak District is an upland area in England at the southern end of the Pennines. Mostly in Derbyshire, it extends into Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Staffordshire, West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire. It includes the Dark Peak, where moorla ...
National Park. It is a
Grade I listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
.
History
Anciently an independent manor within the parish of
Darley near Matlock, Snitterton Hall was held by a family of the same name whose emblem was a
snipe
A snipe is any of about 26 wading bird species in three genera in the family Scolopacidae. They are characterized by a very long, slender bill, eyes placed high on the head, and cryptic/ camouflaging plumage. The ''Gallinago'' snipes have a ...
(snite). It came to John Sacheverel of Morley upon his marriage to the de Snitterton heiress in the 14th century and a descendant was slain at the
Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. The estate was sold in 1596 by Henry Sacheverel, passing through the Shore and Smith families in the next 30 years before the house and half the original lands were acquired in 1631 by John Milward (then younger son of John Milward of Broadlowash) who became
High Sheriff of Derbyshire
High may refer to:
Science and technology
* Height
* High (atmospheric), a high-pressure area
* High (computability), a quality of a Turing degree, in computability theory
* High (tectonics), in geology an area where relative tectonic uplift to ...
in 1635 and who served as a colonel in the army of
Charles I Charles I may refer to:
Kings and emperors
* Charlemagne (742–814), numbered Charles I in the lists of Holy Roman Emperors and French kings
* Charles I of Anjou (1226–1285), also king of Albania, Jerusalem, Naples and Sicily
* Charles I of ...
during the
English Civil War
The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...
.
In 1681 the house and its land passed to Felicia Milward and her husband Charles Adderley, a Warwickshire gentleman, who sold it in the succeeding decade to tax collector Henry Fearne of neighbouring
Bonsall from whom it passed to his daughter and her husband Edmund Turnor of
Stoke Rochford Hall, Lincolnshire. During the 19th century the Hall was let out as a farm by the Sybray family before selling the estate in 1910 to the Thornhills of nearby Stanton Hall. They began alterations to the Hall's north elevation which were left unfinished, and then sold on in 1936 to FE Bagshawe of Ford, Chapel en le Frith, who let it for 21 years and, on failing to sell once again in 1957, finally took up occupation of the house.
On Bagshawe's death in 1985 the Hall and its immediate
demesne was bought by writer
Adrian Woodhouse who began restoration of the house and its gardens after documentary research. In 1996 the house was bought by a Sheffield property developer, Paul Caplan, who undertook further work on the house and gardens until selling the property in 2008.
[Kilner, Will]
"Breathing life back into Snitterton Hall"
''Matlock Mercury'', 14 October 2004
An enclosed underground swimming pool, planned and beginning construction in 2009–10, was completed in July 2012. At the time of pool construction the stone walls surrounding the property were reworked. These were close to destruction and were repaired; final work was estimated to be completed in November 2012.
[Glorious Gardens at Snitterton Hall](_blank)
Derbyshire Life and Countryside. 13 July 2017. Pat Ashworth
Architecture
The present house represents a refronting and extension of the earlier manor house. The recessed centre with a
castellated
A battlement in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (i.e., a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at interva ...
parapet
A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). ...
is flanked by single-bayed
gabled
A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...
cross wings. The windows are
mullioned
A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively. It is also often used as a division between double doors. When dividing adjacent window units its primary purpose is a rigid supp ...
and
transomed and the off centre entrance porch has
Ionic columns beneath a unique frieze of four plants copied from woodcut illustrations in ''The Great Herball''. Within the walled garden stands a single two-storey pyramid-roofed garden
pavilion
In architecture, ''pavilion'' has several meanings:
* It may be a subsidiary building that is either positioned separately or as an attachment to a main building. Often it is associated with pleasure. In palaces and traditional mansions of Asia ...
originally taller with castellation and one of a pair which flanked the surviving arched and castellated entrance gate into the enclosed front garden. To the north and east are gardens, and orchards which descend in terraces; a seating alcove within the north-west corner of the walls is aligned with a raised viewing platform further east.
To the north of the Hall are the remains of an angled fishing pond and fishing house which may be linked to
Isaak Walton
Izaak Walton (baptised 21 September 1593 – 15 December 1683) was an English writer. Best known as the author of ''The Compleat Angler'', he also wrote a number of short biographies including one of his friend John Donne. They have been colle ...
who was a Milward cousin and fellow Royalist. This, with a moated enclosure towards the north-east, either the site of an even earlier manor house or another landscape feature created by John Milward, has been designated as a
Scheduled Monument
In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change.
The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage and d ...
.
See also
*
Grade I listed buildings in Derbyshire
There are over 9000 Grade I listed buildings in England. This page is a list of these buildings in the county of Derbyshire, sub-divided by district.
Amber Valley
Bolsover
Chesterfield
City of Derby
...
*
Listed buildings in South Darley
South Darley is a civil parish in the Derbyshire Dales district of Derbyshire, England. The parish contains nine Listed building#England and Wales, listed buildings that are recorded in the National Heritage List for England. Of these, one is ...
References
{{reflist
Further reading
"Parishes: Dalbury – Derby" ''Magna Britannia'' Vol 5 Darley, Derbyshire (1817) pp. 94–129, from British History Online
* "Snitterton Hall, The Home of Mr Adrian Woodhouse", ''Country Life'' Gardens number, June 1992
*
Mowl, Timothy;
Earnshaw, Brian; ''Architecture Without Kings'', p. 220-1.
External links
"Snitterton" Peakdistrictonline.co.uk
Grade I listed buildings in Derbyshire
Country houses in Derbyshire
Derbyshire Dales