Ashford-in-the-Water Revisited - Part 5

 

A view of the River Wye in the grounds of The Rookery

During my exploration of Ashford-in-the-Water, the next building on my list to photograph for my British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge was the C18 Rookery Cottage, which is set on the steeply falling ground beyond the boundary wall that runs along the south side of Buxton Road. 

 

The topography of the Wye Valley at Ashford-in-the-Water

 

I could only get a glimpse of over one of the lower sections of the boundary wall, which is enough to show that it is built with yet another example of the traditional vernacular building materials of limestone rubble walling, with gritstone dressings and stone slate roofs. 

 

Rookery Cottage

 

The early C19 coach house and stables, which has been partly converted into a garage, is built with the same materials and some Welsh slates to replace the original stone slates, but the building doesn’t possess any noteworthy qualities and is only listed for group value. 

 

The Grade II Listed former coach house and stables

The Rookery is a substantial late C18 house, possible with an older core, but I could only get partial views of each of the visible elevations. The house was apparently used in 1829 by William Cavendish, the 6th Duke of Devonshire, to accommodate his mistress Elizabeth Warwick. 

Views of The Rookery

The next building on my list to photograph, the C18 Bridge at the Rookery, was far too distant to capture with my zoom lens; however, with the resolution of my Panasonic Lumix TZ100 being very high, I was able to use an enlargement of a general photograph for my Photo Challenge. 

 

The Bridge at The Rookery

 

Making my way back along Buxton Road to Fennel Street, where I went to find the C19 well, which is contained within a semicircular arched niche that is set into the adjoining limestone wall, with a simple iron railing in front of it. 

 

The C19 well off Fennel Street

A little further down Fennel Street is the Riverside Hotel, where the gate piers and the early C19 main building, with its rendered early C20 extension, are separately Grade II Listed. Having photographed the gate piers from the road, I then obtained permission at the reception to have a wander around its grounds to photograph its accessible elevations. 

 

Views of the Riverside Hotel and its gate piers

 

In the grounds of the Riverside Hotel, a C19 dovecote is incorporated into a boundary wall, which is Grade II Listed for its group value. Although not part of my Photo Challenge, I had photographed this on my previous visit to Ashford-in-the-Water a few years earlier. 

 

A dovecote at the Riverside Hotel

 

Someone had already photographed the Grade II* Listed Sheepwash Bridge, which Historic England date to the C18, but the entry in the Derbyshire Historic Environment Record suggests that it is a C16 packhorse bridge, which was extended at a later date. 

 

Sheepwash Bridge and the sheep pen

 

Heading back to Fennel Street, I cut through the Holy Trinity churchyard to take a couple of photographs of the Grade II Listed Honeysuckle Cottage, which dates to the C17 but was altered in the C19. The walling is a mixture of limestone and gritstone rubble, with very large gritstone quoins and a stone slate roof. Along with the nearby mid C19 Chantry Cottage, which is built with the same materials, it is only listed for its group value. 

Honeysuckle Cottage and Chantry Cottage

Of greater interest to me is the former Methodist Church (1895) on Court Lane, which sits between these two cottages. Although not listed, it possesses tall windows with trefoils to the south elevation and to the entrance porch, with the latter having a Perpendicular Gothic style castellated parapet and a Tudor arch to the doorway. 

 

The former Methodist church on Court Lane

 

While in the churchyard, I found the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) headstone for Private J. Johnson of the Hampshire Regiment, whose regimental crest I had not seen before. Looking at the CWGC memorial mason’s worksheet, Woodkirk Blue from the Thornhill Rock at Morley in Leeds was used for the original headstone, but this seems to have been replaced by what I think is Stancliffe Darley Dale gritstone. 

 

The regimental crest on the CWGC headstone of Private J. Johnson

 

Looking around the memorials, I noted that the Coal Measures sandstone on one of the traditional Victorian headstones has delaminated along a bedding plane, to reveal both ripples and a large clay ironstone nodule – a feature that I had never seen during my exploration of numerous churchyards and cemeteries.

 

A clay ironstone nodule exposed in a delaminating headstone

 

Although I briefly looked inside Holy Trinity church, where there is a beautiful example of an inlaid Ashford Black Marble table, I didn’t take any more photos of it and was more interested in the Millennium Memorial. This has been made from a castellated chimney from the vestry roof and stands adjacent to a wall memorial that commemorates men from the village who died in WWII. 

 

The Millennium Memorial at Holy Trinity church

 

Crossing the road, I was surprised to discover that a newly wed couple were having their wedding photographs taken in the vicinity of No. 6 Watts Green and, not wishing to impose on their day, I continued along Church Street to photograph Clifton House and Brushfield House, a pair of mid C19 gritstone built matching houses. 

 

Views of Clifton House and Brushfield House

 

With my Transpeak bus back to Bakewell not due for the best part of an hour, along with very many groups of walkers and others that had decided to take advantage of a nice late September day, I finished my brief exploration of Ashford-in-the-Water by relaxing over a couple of pints of Robinsons beer at the Bull’s Head.

 

The beer garden at the Bull's Head