Wonders of the Peak

Buxton Museum & Art Gallery

Buildings & Architecture

Crowdecote – site of a lost castle?

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There’s not much visible today, but you might be standing close to the site of a Medieval motte (a mound forming the site of a castle). The objects below are recorded as being from “the site of an ancient mansion, Castle Field, Crowdecote”.

Silver short-cross penny, Henry III, 1216-1247 – DERSB : 1979.1743
Iron arrowhead – DERSB : 1979.1738

Crowdecote is nearby to Pilsbury Castle, which is well documented and still visible today in the form of earthworks. It controlled an important crossing point over the River Dove. But did Crowdecote also have a fortified crossing?

The artifacts above were originally in the collections of local antiquarian, Micah Salt, whose activities and collections were recorded in a series of publications by W Turner, who wrote in 1903:

At Crowdicote, near Hartington, there are remains of foundations of an old castle. A passage like a cave had been made under them. In it were found, about twenty years ago, a number of relics … The cottages near the spot are partly built of sandstone, evidently from the ruins

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A ‘Rebus’ at the Almshouses

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Look at the crest on the end of the Almshouses end-on to the street.  This is a “rebus’ – a puzzle that uses pictures to represent words.  In this case, it is the family crest of the Pegge family, who built these almshouses around 1699 – a chevron between three pegs. They are now private dwellings with one a holiday let.

The second group, parallel to the street, is Owfield’s Almshouses, which are still in use as almshouses.  They were built between 1615 and 1625, with a second storey added in 1848.  In a trade directory of 1822, they were described as ‘for aged and broken down house keepers’.  They were restored in 1990 when two houses were turned into one.

A walk around the heritage sites of Ashbourne, including the almshouses, can be found in Ashbourne Treasures Town Heritage Trail, which can be obtained from the Visitor Information Centre in Town Hall Yard, off the Market Place.

Smith’s Tavern

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Looking towards Smith’s tavern from the Market Place

Smith’s Tavern is a popular pub in the town despite the fact that it is upstairs to get in, up more stairs to the back room, and is narrow.  All these features, while not ideal for the twenty first century, are there because the pub site is a fossilized medieval burgage plot.

This feature is most clearly seen by looking down towards the pub from the market place and looking at the roof line.  The properties either side have been merged with their neighbours.  However further west there are single units and a three unit shop of the bakers and café.

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Tiger Yard and Lamplight Restaurant

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Alongside the Lamplight Restaurant is Tiger Yard, a good example of of an Ashbourne yard. A number of yards survive in Ashbourne and can be explored.  There were built on medieval burgage plots – narrow strips of land with a building at the front and a long croft (garden) behind. As the Town’s population expanded building space was short and parts of the medieval crofts were built on to form these yards containing workshops, storerooms and cottages.

Most yards were entered through a “tunnel” entrance and many had a public house at the entrance.  This yard was named after the Tiger Inn, now the Lamplight Restaurant, at its entrance.

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9 Dig Street

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Dig Street appears to be a corruption of Ditch Street and probably the route of tributary draining into The Henmore. Note how it dog legs over the bridge and then the road continues down a very straight Compton. It has long been commercial with a number of clock makers having businesses there in the Victorian period.

The Cheddar Gorge, 9 Dig Street, was probably built in the late 18th century. However, the shop front is a bit later, early 19th century.   Note the two projecting bay windows with narrow pilasters. There is original decorative fanlight over the door. The brick wall down the right hand side of the shop is unusual and rare in the Midlands. It is called Flemish Garden Wall Bond. There are 3 stretchers (long-side of the brick) to every header (end of the brick).

Flemish Garden Wall Bond

Further information about the 9 Dig Street can be found on the OurAshbourne website http://ourashbourne.co.uk.

A walk around the heritage sites of Ashbourne, including the Cheddar Gorge, can be found in the Ashbourne Treasures Town Heritage Trail, available from the Ashbourne Visitor Information Centre in Town Hall Yard on the Market Place.

Compton

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Compton is a straight, wide road and an Anglo-Saxon civil boundary between the Domesday townships of Clifton and Sturston. Compton is not in Domesday. This suggests that there was no settlement there and the pre-existing linear feature was used as a convenient boundary. It was a completely separate place and not part of Ashbourne until 1873.

Compton is not only the name of a street but was originally the name of an area. The name Compton (Campdene) may go back to before the Conquest and might mean ‘the valley where a fight occurred’. In the period 875 to 925 Ashbourne was on the border between the areas controlled by the English and the Danes. Derby was taken by the English in 917. So a skirmish around Compton is quite possible.

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