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Azzabuv
This message was updated on 9/10/2005 7:44:23 PM by Azzabuv |
Shipley History
replied on: 1/12/2005 6:39:07 PM In past modern excavations on the Hall Site, a medieval wall and windows were revealed. These were in the cellars of the last Hall and it seems that when Edward Mundy initiated the first phase of the building of Shipley Hall, levelling of land for the larger building led to an overall raising of the Hall Site. A Mr. Tissington, writing to Edward Mundy on 11/04/1750, said, "Tomorrow, i promise to be at Shipley, when i shall have the pleasure of viewing the growth of your new house, which i hear is rising fast". The account books for 1778, show payment for 27,200 bricks to the value of £15/12/9d halfpenny (£15.84p) and payment for glazing of £12/10/9d (£12.54p) What was actually built for this value is still not quite clear, but a bricklayer, Mr. Radford and a glazier, Mr. Allen, were paid for their labours in 1779. From letters written by Edward Miller Mundy's sister, Lady Hester Newdigate, we learn that, in 1784, she found the Hall in a miserable state, which she called "The empty melancholy house at Shipley". By Summer 1788, however, Edward had married the widowed Lady Middleton and, thus, much activity was going on there. Lady Hester, who was on a visit, desribed how her brother showed her, "every Barn, Coachouse, and stable round his new walls" and how "They talk of ye Great Room, but nothing is done towards it, which Ned says is ye fault of his architect" (her husband, Sir Robert Newdigate) "who ought to have been here now and have found his plan upon ye spot". The death of Lady Middleton, 1n 1789, caused Edward much grief and perhaps delayed the building of the East front and the Ballroom. In December 1809, the 'Derby Mercury' records a festive occasion with upwards of 170 persons present, for what we can suppose was the first use of the new Ballroom for "the most elegant and best conducted fete which has been witnessed for many years within this Country". Nearly forty years later, in 1848, on the occasion of the consecration of the new church at Cotmanhay, there was a luncheon at Shipley with "table for sixty being laid in the new unfurnished Drawing Room". The account book for 1874, shows a total of £2,236 being spent on repairs and improvements for the House and Gardens. The bulk of the money, over £1,800, was spent on the new Vinery, which was later called the 'Glass Corridor'. The rear octagon extension on the South side of the Hall, was the last major building work, being completed around 1895. The final flourish was the exterior Porch added about 1905. Sadly, it was only fifteen years later, that the resident Squire, Alfred Edward Miller Mundy, died and the Family left what had been its home for nearly 200 years. The main entrance was formed by the single story stone Porch, leading into the main entrance hall. Immediately facing the main entrance was the Grand Marble Staircase, which was reported to have been taken to America after the demolition of the Hall in 1943. To the right was an octagonal room, the dining room, which contained portraits of the Miller Mundy Family. The dining room adjoined the library, which was reputed to be very fine, its walls and doors all lined completely with books. Adjoining the library was the billiard room, another octagonal room, though not as grand as the dining room. The Snug, where the gentlemen retired to smoke and play cards, completed the North of the Hall. Returning to the entrance hall, the large octagonal Ballroom lay to the right. It contained a German made twenty foot electric organ, whose music would ring out over the surrounding countryside, also a beautiful cut-glass chandelier and a finely decorated ceiling. A small ante-room adjoined directly onto the Ballroom, providing a place where the ladies might retire during a Ball or after a dinner party. A large Drawing room adjoined, with a single story bay projection, which housed the entrance to the Glass Corridor. The butler's and housekeeper's room lay next, where the butler would have worked at his accounts and polished the silver. The bow projection on this wing, housed the bakery on the ground floor. This, then, was the Shipley Hall which King Edward VII visited and admired, which D. H. Lawrence described in "Lady Chatterley's Lover" and which dominated the surrounding countryside area until the mid-1940s. Several attempts were made to sell the Hall, once as a possible Boarding School and Ilkeston Town Council considered purchasing it in 1930. But, eventually, during the last War, the Colliery Company decided that the building should be demolished and Watts of Nottingham, duly tore down 300 years of Shipley History. Azzabuv. |
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