All rise for the ‘King of Ashbourne’ – railway extension saw street lifted
Ashbourne heritage tour guide GEOF COLE continues his virtual tour of the town, this week focusing on the south side of Church Street
look at the south side of Church Street starts at the top of Station Road and continues towards the church.
When the railway was extended to Buxton in 1899, some Georgian properties next to the chapel were demolished and Ashbourne’s first new road since medieval times, Station Road, was created.
The railway also had an impact on Church Street. The line had to go under the street, but the presence of the Henmore limited the depth of the railway cutting.
To give sufficient clearance for a steam engine, Church Street had to be raised. The effect of this can be seen on 38 Church Street, which is a three-storey building but, to accommodate the railway, the lower two stories were joined into one. Next door, Hulland House is a fine gentlemen’s house built about 1740, with an additional carriage house added in 1790s.
It was the home of the Walker family, who made a fortune from tanning leather.
It was a very unpleasant and smelly process that involved human urine – often collected from the yards in Ashbourne – animal dung and decaying flesh. Tanning was usually carried out in the poorer part of a town away from the owner’s house, and the Walkers’ tannery was in Compton.
Next to Hulland House is the first group of Almshouses: these are Pegge’s Almshouses, built at right angles to the street around 1699. The Pegge family coat of arms, a chevron between three pegs, is on the end of the building. The crest is a typical “rebus” – a puzzle that uses pictures to represent words.
The second group, parallel to the street, is Owfield’s Almshouses, which are still used as almshouses. They were built between 1615 and 1625, with a second storey added in 1848.
The almshouses are managed by the Ashbourne Old Trust, who were notorious for imposing strict moral standards on their tenants, along with a reluctance to spend money.
Things are much better now, and the buildings were modernised in 1990 when two were turned into one.
Next to the almshouses is the Mansion, the largest and most imposing gentleman’s house in Ashbourne, and probably its oldest surviving brick building.
Originally built in 1680 around an earlier timber-framed building, it was rebuilt in the 1760s to the latest fashions, possibly in answer to the work done on the Grey House opposite.
The Mansion had a large paddock at the back, where Dr John Taylor, the owner, bred highland cattle.
Taylor was known as the “King of Ashbourne”, and his considerable influence in the town was helped by regular gifts of large amounts of food and drink to rich and poor townsfolk.
His wealth was helped by a reluctance to pay his debts. Taylor had no children and on his death bed, annoyed by hearour ing his relatives arguing about who would inherit, he left his considerable estate to a distant relative who he had employed as a page boy.
The reading of the will must have been interesting.
The last house in Church Street, The Old House, had a late Georgian front added onto a late 17th or early 18th Century building, which may explain its unbalanced proportions and off-centre doorway.
It is best known as the home of the Hollick family. The father and son were respected local doctors, and Dr Hubert Hollick and his daughter Kathleen were often seen planting daffodils in the neighbouring churchyard.
Dr H Hollick is buried here, but his grave has no headstone; the daffodils are his memorial.
And there we end our look at the south side of Church Street.