Duffield Hall is a 17th-century country house situated in the

Amber Valley Amber Valley is a local government district and borough in the east of Derbyshire, England, taking its name from the River Amber. It covers a semi-rural zone with four main towns whose economy was based on coal mining and remains to some exte ...

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 ...

and the former headquarters of the

Derbyshire Building Society Derbyshire Building Society (previously trading as The Derbyshire) was a UK building society based in Duffield, Derbyshire in the East Midlands of England. It was the 9th largest building society in the United Kingdom based on total assets of � ...

. It is a

Grade II* 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 Ir ...

. The manor of Duffield was granted by King Charles I to the Newton family who built a new mansion house there in the 1620s. The Newtons sold the house to Henry Coape,

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 1703. His granddaughter and heiress brought the estate to her husband Henry Porter. In the early 19th century he left the property to his kinsman Thomas Porter Bonell whose daughter married Sir Charles H Colville. After Colville's death, the house was sold to John Bell Crompton of Milford (High Sheriff in 1847) a Banker of Irongate, Derby. He died in 1860 and the estate was acquired by

Rowland Smith Rowland Smith (6 December 1826 – 24 February 1901) was an English Conservative politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1868 to 1874. Life and career Smith was the son of Samuel George Smith, of Goldings, Hertfordshire and his wife Eug ...

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

for

South Derbyshire South Derbyshire is a local government district in Derbyshire, England. The population of the local authority at the 2011 Census was 94,611. It contains a third of the National Forest, and the council offices are in Swadlincote. The district ...

1868-74 and High Sheriff 1877. Smith extensively restored and improved the house creating the present mansion of three storeys and five gabled bays. From 1908 until 1970 the house and estate were occupied by St Ronan's School. By 1928 it was a girls school only and in the 1960s there were 120 boarders and day-students enrolled. The school closed in 1970 and in 1977 the property was acquired by the Derbyshire Building Society for whom it was restored and extended by architects George Grey and Partners. The adjoining estate was sold for the St Ronans Road residential development. In 2013 planning permission was granted for a change of use to a single dwelling house, (B1 Office to C3 Residential) demolition of later additions and a new build of Bungalows and Courtyard Houses. Amber Valley Planning Application
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References

''Magna Britannia. Vol 5 Derbyshire'' (1817) p127. Gentry families of Derbyshire from British History Online

English Heritage, Images of England. Photograph and detailed architectural description ''Magna Britannia. Vol 5 Derbyshire'' (1817). Manor of Duffield from British History Online
{{coord, 52.9833, -1.4871, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Grade II* listed buildings in Derbyshire

See also

References