British Towns and Villages Network

Stately Homes of the United Kingdom of Great Britain

 

Drakelowe Hall

  
  Drakelowe Hall; The family moved out in 1931 after 28 generations had lived there. The contents were sold in 1933. The house was demolished. Once the home of Sir Nigel Gresley the engineer.
Details of Drakelowe Hall

 

  Drakelowe Hall  

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1860 Owner

 Gresley Baronet 

 

1860 County

 Derbyshire 

 

Property exists today in some form ?

 No 

 

Go to location and local map

 
 

The family moved out in 1931 after 28 generations had lived there. The contents were sold in 1933. The house was demolished. Once the home of Sir Nigel Gresley the engineer.

 
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Historical notes about Drakelowe Hall

The text published below was originally written, to accompany the image above, in the middle of the 19th Century during the reign of Queen Victoria. Be aware however we have made some minor alterations to both the content and its layout that hopefully makes it more readable by our users. We have also, in some cases, added content to bring the information up to date where new data has become available, we will continue to do this over time.

DRAKELOWE HALL

Near Burton-on-Trent, Derbyshire – Gresley, Baronet

 

Derbyshire has been styled by Kinder the “Amphitheatre of Renowned Persons;” who further stated that “no countie in England had so many princelie habitations,” and it is no less distinguished for the numerous fine mansions it contains at the present day.

This was an ancient seat of the Gresleys, and is described in Domesday Book as belonging to Nigel de Stafford, an ancestor of the family, who held it by the service of rendering a bow with a string, a quiver of Tutesbit, a word the meaning of which appears to be now unknown, with twelve fletched arrows, and one unfeathered shaft.

Another record, of the date of 1200, describes the service to have been a bow, a quiver, and twelve arrows.

In the year 1330 Geoffrey de Gresley claimed the somewhat unsatisfactory right of having a gallows at Drakelowe, and also at Gresley.

The mansion stands on low ground, and hence, as is supposed, its name. It is a large irregular pile.

The family of Des Voeux, resident for some time at Drakelowe Hall, derives from

  • PRESIDENT DE BACQUENCOURT of the Parliament of Rouen, who had two sons, the second of whom,
  • ANTHONY VINCHON DE BACQUENCOURT, a man of great learning, left the Church of Rome for the Reformed Faith, and wrote against the Jansenists, as also on the subject of miracles, and translated and published a commentary on the book of Ecclesiastes; the last named work was considered of so much value that the University of Dublin conferred on him the degree of Honorary M.A. He took the surname of Des Voeux, and died in 1792, leaving, with a younger son and a daughter,
  • CHARLES DES VOEUX, Esq., of Indiville, in the Queen’s County, Governor of Masulipatam, and second in the Council at Madras, who was created a Baronet the 1st of September, 1787, and dying in 1814, was succeeded by his eldest son,
  • SIR CHARLES DES VOEUX, second Baronet, who married, first, Christina, daughter of Richard Hird, Esq., of Rawdon, Yorkshire, and, secondly, Lady Caroline Paulet, daughter of the Marquis of Winchester, by the former of whom he had
  • SIR HENRY WILLIAM DES VOEUX, third Baronet, Lieutenant-Colonel in the army, High Sheriff of Derbyshire in 1864, who married, the 16th of July, 1839, Lady Sophia Gresley, widow of Sir Roger Gresley, Bart., M.P., and daughter of George William Coventry, seventh Earl of Coventry, and so became resident at Drakelowe Hall.
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