 |
| Norman House on School Lane |
There are 14 listed buildings in the village of Beeley – all of which fall within Beeley Conservation Area, to the west of the junction of School Lane and Brookside – and having had a good look at the exterior and interior of the first of these, the Grade II* Listed St. Anne’s church, I set off to explore this part of the village.
 |
| The listed buildings in Beeley Conservation Area |
Opposite the church on Church Lane is the Grade II listed Dorset House (1856) and coach house, the Gothic style former vicarage that is said to be by G.H. Stokes, a pupil of Sir George Gilbert Scott who worked for the Chatsworth Estate, married Joseph Paxton’s daughter and is buried at St. Peter’s church in Edensor.
 |
| Dorset House |
The village is set above the floodplain of the River Derwent on the mudstone/siltstone of the Bowland Shale Formation, with land rising up to an elevation of 354 metres to the east, where the Chatsworth Grit forms an escarpment that is a geological continuation of the moorland to the north, where it forms distinctive gritstone edges.
The Ashover Grit, from Burnt Wood and Limetree, has been quarried since at least the C17 for building stone and grindstones and has been used for all the buildings in the village, although thinly bedded sandstone used for flagstones and presumably stone slates had been previously been quarried from Beeley Moor.
 |
| Various buildings on Pig Lane |
Taking a quick look at Pig Lane, which used to be the principal packhorse route to Chatsworth House, the agrarian nature, including the pigsties, is very evident in the buildings – none of which are listed but are built with gritstone with stone slate roofs.
 |
| The 1898 Ordnance Survey map of Beeley |
Beeley is recorded in Domesday Book, with the lord of the manor being King William himself, and agriculture has traditionally been the principal occupation, with farmers having secondary interests in small scale quarrying, coal mining and lead smelting, with cottage industries such as weaving at the end of the C18.
 |
| Various buildings on School Lane |
Returning to School Lane, some of the houses and cottages appear on the 1814 Chatsworth Estate Map and, by the time the 1898 edition of the 1:25,000 scale Ordnance Map was published, the extent of the village that we see today was pretty much established. Someof these are now in private wnership but, where the building is still retained by the Chatsworth Estate, the distinctive ‘Chatsworth Blue’ paint is used for the woodwork.
 |
| Beeley village hall |
Continuing past the small triangular green at the junction with Chapel Hill, the timber clad village hall (1925) is eye catching, not least because its design and materials, which do not conform with the local vernacular architecture, would probaby not be approved for any Conservation Area or National Park today.
 |
| The Cottage |
From its grounds, I took a photo of The Cottage, which dates to the C17, is built in coursed rubble gritstone with a stone slate roof and has rather small mullioned windows. From here, I got as close as I could to the Dukes Barn (1791), which was enlarged by the 5th Duke of Devonshire and at one time was used to stable the work-horses and store drays.
 |
| Views of the Dukes Barn |
The Grade II Listed Old School (1841), which is now two cottages, is the work of Paxton and, according to the very informative and comprehensive Conservation Area Appraisal, is an adaptation in a Gardenesque style that is contemporary with the building of Edensor.
 |
| The Old School |
Opposite the Old School is a very large and impressive C18 barn, now converted to residential use, with an open hay barn at the west end that has very tall square stone piers, which Historic England describe as being stepped in three tiers.
 |
| Views of the barn on School Lane |
A little further down School Lane, the Grade II Listed Norman House – a C17 and C19 house, cottage and barn – was on my next building on my list to photograph. The mullion windowed gable end faces the street and to the rear of the building is a long narrow croft, which suggests that that the property may have been laid out on a burgage plot and therefore possibly has earlier origins.
 |
| Views of Norman House |
Laid out on at the east end of the School Lane elevation are six stone slabs, two with holes, that are the components of the village stocks, which were moved in 1946, probably from the small village green mentioned above.
 |
| Stone slabs from the old village stocks |
On the opposite side of the road is the Old Hall, which has a high garden wall and I could only get glimpses of it from various viewpoints as I continued my walk around the village. The oldest part of the house is probably mid C17, but the Derbyshire Historic Environment Record entry presumes that it stands on the site of the original capital messuage of the de Beeley family, who held the manor between the C13 and mid C14.
 |
| Views of the Old Hall |
A small part of the boundary wall had partly collapsed and, taking advantage of this opportunity, I obtained a small piece of gritstone, which is probably Ashover Grit, to add to my rock collection. Looking at it with a hand lens, it is uniformly medium grained and has discernable bedding planes with occasional very small flakes of muscovite mica.
 |
| A specimen of medium grained gritstone |
Continuing down the hill, Historic England dates Pynot Cottage as being probably C17 and C18, with the principal elevation fronting School Lane having small 2-light mullioned windows. I just took a couple of general record photos, before turning down Brookside.
 |
| Pynot Cottage |
No comments:
Post a Comment