Wingfield Manor House – Destruction Derbyshire – a journey through time
A long shadow of dereliction has cast down upon the beautiful Derbyshire countryside for two and a half centuries. Wingfield Manor, located just four miles from Alfreton, saw three hundred years of dramatic history come to an end. Never to rise again.
The property was originally constructed for the Treasurer to King Henry VI, Ralph Cromwell, in 1441. Unfortunately for Ralph he was not to see his Country Manor House completed. It was then taken on by the second Earl of Shrewsbury, John Talbot, who’s family was to be the custodians for the next two centuries.
The turbulent years to follow were to see the Wingfield Manor used as a Prison for Mary Queen of Scots, the scene of multiple Civil War Era sieges and quite possibly the first flushing toilet in the United Kingdom, if not the world.
A little over a hundred years after the palatial property was first constructed it was to “welcome” it’s most well known, if not appreciative, guest. Mary Queen of Scots was to be detained within the walls of Ralph Cromwell’s house from 1569 as well as several other properties within the beautiful county of Derbyshire. At one point she had to be moved within the county as there was 240 other citizens living in the Manor. A fact that shows the grandeur of the property, yet for the catholic population of the time was in illustration of the substandard conditions the true Queen had to endure.
Off and on, Mary was to spend almost 20 years in Derbyshire. During this period soldiers patrolled the perimeter armed with pistol & musket. If this was not deterrence enough the rugged landscape did little to justify a potential escape. However, attempts were made. Anthony Babington, whose family lived in nearby Dethick, organised the Babington plot, which would see Mary freed & the overthrow of Queen Elizabeth I. This plan was to fail & Mary was to be executed in 1587. However, did she return in the 1940’s to a rural town in Lancashire, that is certainly one claim.
The Century following Mary’s incarceration was not to prove any easier for Wingfield. The English Civil War of the 1640’s was to see the house change hands between Royalist & Parliamentary forces twice, both times following a bitter siege. In 1643 the property was in the hands of Philip Herbert, the fourth Duke of Pembroke, who was a staunch Parliamentarian. The Duke, despite his support for Oliver Cromwell, was not to put up a determined fight and lost the property after a short siege. A siege that was even put on hold briefly due to the Battle of Marston Moor in nearby Yorkshire.
Cromwell’s men were not to take this lying down & the following year a far more brutal siege was to take place. A military action that reduced the once great home to little more than the ruins we can see today. Cannons were fired at from a very short distance, which destroyed the curtain wall. Evidence of the bombardment can still be seen 500 years later, with destruction caused by the 32 pound balls being visible on the north wall.
Following the conclusion of the civil war Parliament decided that Wingfield Manor could never again be used as a defensive position and its ruinous state had to be left to decay. By the 18th Century the proximity to the North South axis was no longer of any particular fear & a renaissance seemed possible. Immanuel Halton, an astronomer refurbished the Great Hall, but his presence did not see regular use sustained through to the 19th Century. From that point through to today it has remained a shell of it’s former self.
The site is now under the guardianship of English Heritage, with visitors able to almost visualise the great upheavals witnessed by the great & the good that walked these grounds so many years prior to our time. Once again, with little imagination one can very easily be transported into the times of our ancestors.
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