Willersley Castle
Willersley Castle is a mansion above the Derwent in Cromford in the English county of Derbyshire . English Heritage has listed the house as a Grade II * Historic Building .
The Georgian, crenellated house stands on 240,000 m² of land, has three floors and seven bays on the front facade, with the middle bay being flanked at full height by round towers.
The house was originally called Willersley Hall and was built on the slopes of Wild Cat Tor , 120 meters above sea level. After the industrialist Sir Richard Arkwright the property in 1782 by Thomas Hallet had purchased for £ 8864, he commissioned architect William Thomas from London with the construction of the house.
At the time of the purchase of the property there was no big house there, just a few farms and Derwent House , which is still on the driveway to Willersley Castle. Arkwright had a lot of trees planted after removing a large limestone rock at a cost of £ 3000.
In 1791, as the building was nearing completion, a fire broke out and caused great damage to some of the manor's interiors. The damage was repaired, but Arkwright died in 1792, before the mansion was even complete. In 1796 Richard Arkwright Jr. moved into the new house with his family. The Arkwright family lived there until 1922.
The property was bought by a group of Methodist businessmen in 1927 and opened as the Methodist Guild Vacation Center in 1928 .
From 1940 to 1946, during World War II , the mansion served as a maternity hospital for the Salvation Army , which at that time had been relocated from east London .
Today Willersley Castle is a Christian Guild hotel .
The name Willersley
The name Willersley Castle is derived from the old manor and the estate. The neighboring manors of Cromford and Willersley were split up in 1615.
The name Willersley also appears in the following geographic objects:
- the nearby Willersley Tunnel , a 699 meter long railway tunnel between Cromford and Matlock stations .
- the nearby Willersley Crag , a rock formation also known as Willersley Castle Rocks .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Willersley Castle . English Heritage.
- ↑ Willersley Castle . British History on-line
- ↑ Willersley Castle . Heritage OpenDays. ( Memento of the original from November 23, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Arkwright Society News . Arkwright Society Online. ( Memento of the original from February 16, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Newsletter of the Chaddesden Historical Group. ( Memento of the original from October 8, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Willersley Castle Hotel . Christian Guild . Retrieved August 10, 2015.
- ↑ `` Cromford Village in Derbyshire ''. CromfordVillage.co.uk. Retrieved August 10, 2015.
- ↑ A Taste of Peak District - Derbyshire Climbing . ThePeakDistrict.info. Retrieved August 10, 2015.
- ↑ Willersley Castle Rocks . UK climbing. Retrieved August 10, 2015.
Web links
Coordinates: 53 ° 6 ′ 40 ″ N , 1 ° 33 ′ 30 ″ W.