Country Images Magazine May 2015 - North Edition | Page 18

The house itself was typical of the period, being
brick, of two-and-half storeys, with a flat roof
hidden by a parapet set on a modest cornice. It
was five bays wide with the central bay breaking
forward by a brick’s width and the sides were
of four bays. It and an entrance set within a
bolection moulding topped by an entablature
supported on brackets with a central keyblock.
The windows had cambered heads with gauged
brick lintels again centered by keyblocks with
small cornices on them, rather like those on The
Wardwick Tavern of 1708. The south side (of
which no illustration appears to survive) was
presumably similar, with grounds coming to an
apex where Green Lane and Normanton Road
met Babington Lane and Burton Road began.
The dining room was panelled with oak which
was said to have been rescued from Babington
Hall. As the latter co-existed with Degge’s house
for almost a century, and bearing in mind that
Georgian dining rooms were invariably panelled
in order to facilitate the removal of tobacco
deposits, there must have been some earlier
panelling which was presumably moved elsewhere
c. 1811. The room itself was 25ft 8in by 16ft 3in,
opening off the entrance hall from which also

rose an impressive oak staircase with a ramped
handrail set on a balustrade with three turned
balusters per tread. Also opening off the hall were
the breakfast parlour, study and drawing room,
the latter altered as a laboratory by a later owner,
Dr. Forester French, a friend of William Strutt,
to conduct medical experiments. There was also
a second staircase, a private drawing room on the
first floor, three bedrooms with sitting rooms and
a further five bedrooms in the attic.
In 1817 the Derby builder/architect Joseph
Cooper built a new stable block and extended
the service wing to include a ‘fireproof safe’ and a
self-flushing water closet after the design by John
Whitehurst FRS for Clumber Park as refined
by Charles Sylvester and William Strutt. The
gardens were terraced down to St. Peter’s church
yard.
Dr. French, a brother-in-law of F N C Mundy of
Markeaton Hall, had bought the house from Dr.
Degge’s heirs, and in 1844 his heirs in turn sold
it to Alderman Robert Forman, an exceedingly
rich 53-year old Chellaston-born maltster who
went on to serve as Mayor of Derby in 1848.
His maltings were nearby and in 1823 he had

This page top to bottom: Abbot’s Hill House, taken on the same day as the
previous photograph, by C. B. Sherwin [M Craven]
Gatepier at the end of Degge Street, the only visible vestige of Abbot’s Hill
House, 2013 [M. Craven]
Panelling from Babington Hall, datable to c. 1630s, once at Abbot’s Hill as
installed in The Leylands, Penny Long Lane, 1986 [M. Craven]

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