Mike Smith heads to the pretty South Derbyshire village of Ticknall and a place, he believes, ‘probably has more intriguing curiosities than any other place in Derbyshire.’ But what are they and what makes them so interesting?
The north-east window of the former parish church and, beyond it, part of the north-west wall of the old church Photo: Mike Smith Oddities in the churchyard
As soon as you enter the churchyard of St George’s Parish Church, you will come across a monument that appears to be curiously out of place.
Standing on a three-stepped base and topped by a fist-like finial, the structure looks like a slightly distorted version of the type of market cross found in many English towns and villages.
But, if the monument really is a market cross, why is it located in a churchyard?
The explanation usually given for its current position is that it was moved into the churchyard in 1772 to make way for the erection of a group of alms houses, founded by Charles Harpur to provide accommodation for ‘seven decayed house keepers’.
However, given that Ticknall was never granted a Market Charter, it seems unlikely that the original location of the cross, just outside the gates of the churchyard, was on land where a market was held.
Perhaps the structure was a preaching cross, rather than a market cross. But why should a preaching cross have been built so near to the church?
The next monument you will come across in the churchyard is even more intriguing. The tall stone edifice that stands slightly to the north of the cross is a surviving section of the north-west wall of Ticknall’s former parish church.
Separated from this bulky block by a ‘nave’s length’ of grass, there is another fragment of the former church, in the shape of the eerie skeletal remains of the north-east window.
These two gaunt ruins are evidence of the stubborn refusal of the old church to submit completely to the use of gunpowder to blow it up in 1840.
The attempted demolition was undertaken as a prelude to the erection of a new church, made large enough to cater for the rising population of the village – boosted by incomers seduced by employment opportunities in the lime works, brick works and potteries in the area.
Unlike the old parish church, which was named after St Thomas Becket, its replacement was dedicated to St George.
Was the name selected out of patriotic respect for the patron saint of England? Or was it chosen as an oblique way of thanking Sir George Crewe of Calke Abbey for his financial contribution to the new build?
The architect of St George’s was H. I. Stevens, who designed lots of other Derbyshire churches, most of which are characterised by their very conventional styling.
In the late 1840s, Mr Stevens announced that he wanted to be known as ‘Isaac Henry’, rather than ‘Henry Isaac’. Not much of a change, you may think, but a bold move for a man who had never been known for his willingness to embrace new ideas!
In times past, Ticknall was an ‘estate village’. Its residents were tenants of the Harpur Crewe family of Calke Abbey, a large mansion that stands on the site of a medieval religious house.
The strain of eccentricity that ran through several generations of the family was clearly manifested in the character of the 10th baronet, Sir Vauncey Harpur Crewe.
He spent much of his time filling the house with specimens of eggs, shells, butterflies, insects, stuffed animals and birds, and whenever his wife entertained guests, he would escape to the woods on the estate, where he would slaughter yet more creatures to add to his macabre collection.
When he discovered that one of his daughters had defied his ban on smoking in the house, he exiled her from Calke, to which she never returned in his lifetime.
The fountains were designed to be attractive as well as practical. They consist of a cast-iron fluted column topped by a moulded dome. A tap-lever is used to control the release of water from the mouth of a lion’s head mask, from where it flows into a receptacle that rests on an integral platform.
When Sir Vauncey’s scheme became redundant in 1962, after Ticknall’s homes had been connected to the mains by the South Derbyshire Water Board, the water authority bequeathed the pillar fountains to the village. The local W.I. agreed to take care of them and John Smedley, a local builder, donated bright-green paint to coat them.
The Parish Council has now taken over the maintenance of the 14 fountains that remain. One of them, which stands in front of the Methodist Church, is still operational – ‘still in water’, as they say in these parts.
Because the distinctive pillar fountains are such a noticeable feature of Ticknall, it is easy to overlook other intriguing curiosities.
One of the three spring wells that provided drinking water for the village before the pillar fountains were installed is preserved as a listed structure. The well and the trough beneath it are housed in a brick-arched enclosure, built into the garden wall of the appropriately named Spring Cottage.
The most curious house in the village was built in the 1840s by George and William Sheffield, who tried to emphasise their status by adding a false third storey emblazoned with the slogan ‘Sheffield’.
Several years before Calke Abbey was bequeathed to the National trust in 1985, the number of servants had been cut to a minimum and many of the rooms in the house had been abandoned or fallen into disrepair. Rather than expressing dismay about the condition of the property they had acquired, the National Trust reacted by preserving the building as ‘an un-stately home that tells the story of the decline of the English country house in the twentieth century’.
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