St Helens House Including Attached Former School Buildings And Front Wall

ST HELENS HOUSE INCLUDING ATTACHED FORMER SCHOOL BUILDINGS AND FRONT WALL

A town mansion subsequently adapted as a school, now vacant. The main house was built in 1766–7 by architect Joseph Pickford for John Gisborne, an alderman of Derby and Whig landowner associated with the Duke of Devonshire. It was extended around 1807–9, 1874–8, in the 1890s, and in 1914.

The main mansion is constructed in fine ashlar at the front with red brick to the sides and rear, under a slate roof. Designed in Palladian style, it rises three storeys with a seven-window range at first floor comprising 6/6 sash windows. The ground floor is treated as a blind arcade, partly of chamfered rustication, containing further 6/6 sashes. The three central first-floor windows on the piano nobile are set within a fine Roman Ionic attached portico and have pediments and balustraded panels below (some balusters now missing). The flanking sashes have cornices. The second floor contains 3/3 sashes. A plain frieze and modillion cornice support five large urns, of which one is currently dismantled for safety reasons and stored in the side yard. Corner pilasters to the rear also support two further urns. The sides of the house feature similar sashes, and to the rear is a lower two-storey service wing with comparable fenestration.

The interior is impressive and grand in scale. The entrance hall features a triglyph and modillion cornice, a Hoptonwood stone fireplace with cast-iron grate, and elaborate doorcases with panelled mahogany doors. Cross beams with plaster decoration were probably added in the late 19th or early 20th century for strengthening. The cantilevered staircase in the inner staircase hall is also of Hoptonwood stone with richly carved tread ends and fine wrought-iron balustrade, almost certainly by Benjamin Yates (successor to Robert Bakewell), in a design produced twice by the latter. An elaborate Venetian window with Gothic detailing dating to around 1807 lights the staircase, and plaster decoration adorns the ceiling. The ground-floor saloon to the left contains a fireplace of Siena and Carrara marble with very fine and rich plaster decoration to frieze and ceiling, together with mahogany doors within fine doorcases. The room to the right features similar plasterwork, mahogany doors and doorcases, and a 19th-century fireplace. Fine cornices, moulded window reveals (some carved), dado rails, and six-panel doors appear throughout many rooms. Additional fireplaces survive on all floors, including an alabaster example on the first floor bearing graffiti with schoolboys' initials and dates from the 1880s, fitted with a cast-iron grate. A stone secondary staircase with plain iron balustrade and ramped handrail also survives. The roof, visible only in small sections through access points, appears to be original.

Following the acquisition of the house by Derby School in 1862, a substantial extension was designed by Thompson and Young and constructed between 1874 and 1878. This extension, known as the Pearson Building, stands to the left of the main range and is connected by a single-storey link building (doubled in front, probably in the early 20th century, but retaining the original rusticated front of 1874–8 internally). The extension is constructed in ashlar with brick to the rear, executed in austere classical style with rusticated ground-floor stonework. Rising three storeys, it features a six-window front at first-floor level comprising sash windows with margin lights. The central three windows are grouped beneath a gable formed into a pediment by the cornices of the second-floor outer sashes, while the central sash has its own small individual pediment. A wider bay to the right accommodates a staircase behind. Similar sashes appear to the sides and rear on all floors. At the left end, providing access to the former assembly hall, is a covered external stair with decorative cast-iron detailing and balustrade. Below the central first-floor window on the front is a foundation stone inscribed with the date 1874, possibly raised to its present position during construction.

The interior of the extension includes a stone staircase with plain iron balustrade and high dado of matchboard panelling. The first floor is largely occupied by the large former assembly hall or 'Big School', with walls articulated by pilasters supporting a ceiling divided into long transverse compartments. The central end section forms an adjoining area with similar fenestration, linked by an opening framed with pilasters forming a proscenium arch.

Further linked extensions in brick and vernacular revival style date to the 1890s and 1914, located to the left and including the former Headmaster's House. From the front left-hand corner of the mansion extends an ashlar wall curving round to King Street, where there is an end-pier in brick with a stone roundel dated 1891. Near the corner of the mansion is an iron pedestrian gate.

Historically, St Helen's House was built as the town mansion of John Gisborne (d. 1779), a prosperous alderman and High Sheriff of Derby. His country seat was Yaxall Lodge in Staffordshire. Following his death, the house passed to his son Thomas, a friend of William Wilberforce. In 1801, Thomas leased and subsequently sold the house to William Strutt, FRS, the eldest son of cotton pioneer Jedidiah Strutt and a director of the family's cotton spinning and silk throwing enterprises (now part of the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site). Strutt was an inventor and important local figure, serving as Chairman of the Derby Improvement Commission from 1788 to 1829. He made alterations to the house, including additional service accommodation to the east (subsequently truncated in 1877 for a street extension), and introduced an innovative hot-air heating system. Strutt died in 1830 and was succeeded by his son Edward, elected MP for Derby shortly thereafter, though he lost his seat in 1847 and moved to Kingston Hall, Nottinghamshire. The house thereafter saw only occasional family use.

In 1860, the Strutt family offered to sell the house to the governors of Derby Grammar School. It was purchased in 1862, partly by mortgage raised by Derby Corporation, which became sole owner upon repayment in 1873. Derby School occupied the buildings from 1874 until 1966, after which they were used by the Derby and District School of Art and the Workers' Educational Association until 2004.