Brook Cottage

Brook Cottage is a house built around 1790 or earlier, with early 19th century additions and later 19th century remodelling. It features painted coursed gritstone and red brick, with rendered gable and ridge stacks, coped gables, and a Welsh slate roof.

The building has a T-shaped layout, with a remodelled late 18th century section to the west and a service wing extending eastwards at the rear. The front elevation is asymmetrical, consisting of two storeys and five bays. It has 2 over 2 pane sash windows with plain surrounds, and undivided upper floor sashes in gabled dormers that rise through the eaves. There is an off-centre doorway on the right side, featuring a 6-paned half-glazed door within a late 19th century open-fronted glazed porch with a flat roof.

At the rear, there is a canted bay window with late 19th century glazing at the right-hand end of the frontage range. The service wing has a shallow-pitched roof and a tripartite glazing bar sash window on the upper floor at the right-hand end. Below this, there is a tall tripartite opening with a half-glazed door in the centre and narrow flanking lights, all with glazing bars. The left-hand end features a very wide gable stack.

Brook Cottage is noted in the survey for the Enclosure Award for Duffield from 1791. The site later became part of the textile manufacturing complex developed by the Ward and Brettles families, who were specialists in hosiery manufacture. The firm of Ward, Brettles and Ward was the largest hosiery manufacturer in the late 19th century, and Brook Cottage served as the factory manager's dwelling during this period. The association with hosiery manufacturing in Belper continued until the late 20th century.