Derby Independent Grammar School

Derby Independent Grammar School

A small country house, now used as a Special Hospital, built circa 1780 for Josias Cockshutt. The building was enlarged circa 1806, possibly by Wyatt, and the south front was refaced in 1826 for Cockshutt Heathcote to designs by Richard Leaper, an amateur architect from Derby. Further enlargement took place in 1881–1883 for Sir Abraham Woodiwiss. The building has undergone twentieth-century institutional alterations and additions.

The exterior is constructed of brick rendered and ashlar faced with ashlar dressings. It features slate hipped roofs behind a parapet. The entrance front comprises ten bays, with a rendered three-bay, two-and-a-half-storey projecting wing to the north-east, which was the original house. The ground floor of this wing has a single glazing bar sash to the left; the remainder is obscured by an inappropriate twentieth-century single-storey extension. Above are three glazing bar sashes, with three smaller glazing bar sashes above again.

The central recessed two-storey, five-bay addition of circa 1806 is followed by a further addition of 1881–1883 in similar style, extending two bays to the south-west. This block has a plain plinth and first-floor cill band, with a moulded cornice topped by acroterions. The entrance bay projects slightly and is topped by a pediment. It features a projecting tripartite porch of 1881–1883 articulated with Roman Doric pilasters supporting an entablature. The central doorway is emphasised by two slightly projecting Roman Doric columns supporting a pediment. The half-glazed double doors are flanked by narrow side lights. Above and behind is a small tripartite glazing bar sash. Either side are two glazing bar sashes in moulded surrounds. To the right is a slightly projecting bay with a plank door and glazing bar overlight in a tall ashlar pedimented surround. Beyond again is another single similar glazing bar sash. Over the entrance is a single glazing bar sash in a moulded surround within a shallow segmental arch supported on small Roman Doric columns, the arch itself moulded with a keystone. Either side are two more glazing bar sashes in moulded surrounds. To the right are three small twentieth-century casements and beyond again another glazing bar sash in a moulded surround.

The two-storey, eight-bay south-east front has a moulded plinth, ground and first-floor plain bands, and a moulded cornice topped by acroterions. The ground floor is rusticated with rusticated pilaster strips; the first floor has Roman Doric pilasters. The central two bays are flanked by two-storey bow windows. Beyond these are two further bays. The two central bays have tall glazing bar sashes in finely moulded surrounds. The bow windows have three glazing bar sashes to each floor, with surrounds featuring exceedingly tall and slender Roman Doric pilasters supporting an entablature. Either side again are two more glazing bar sashes in finely moulded surrounds. The upper floor has a similar window arrangement.

Interior

The oval former two-storey staircase hall originally contained a staircase which has been removed and the space floored to create two rooms. The lower room now contains a fine wooden pedimented doorcase and niches. The upper room retains niches and a bracketed cornice plus a late nineteenth-century overlight.

The former saloon retains its wreathed and swagged Adamesque plasterwork with low-relief panels, ornate cornice, and ceiling rose. Above, another room has similar wreathed and swagged plasterwork and cornice, plus later raised and fielded panelling with thin pilasters to the picture rail.

The present staircase hall of 1881–1883 has an oak single-flight stair with turned balusters supported on Corinthian columns, plus seventeenth-century-style square panelling topped with an entablature. It incorporates an oak fireplace surround reusing some pieces of original seventeenth-century panelling. The ornate plasterwork ceiling, also seventeenth-century in style, dates from 1881–1883.

A ground-floor room in the original block contains a large, very fine stone fireplace with overmantle, largely of the early seventeenth century and of very high quality, probably brought in at a later date and slightly altered. It has crude Ionic columns supporting a mantelpiece entablature with a probably mid-eighteenth-century ornately carved arabesque frieze. The overmantel has Ionic pilasters with carved panels supporting an elaborately carved entablature. The central panel contains two fruit and foliate wreaths with ribbons, divided by an ornately turned baluster.

Another upper room has heavy nineteenth-century Rococo-style plasterwork.