1 and 2 Midland Cottages

ROWSLEY

BAKEWELL ROAD

No. 1 & 2 Midland Cottages

II

Pair of cottages, now single dwelling. 1850. By Joseph Paxton. For the Midland Railway. Finely coursed squared stone with stone dressings and slate roof with central ridge stack of brick on a stone base. Further tall brick stack on rear outshot. Simple Italianate style. 2 storeys. 4-window front faces away from road and has round-arched windows to ground floor, 2/2 sashes or windows with ornamental glazing bars. Sashes or windows with arched lights above. Ground floor windows have projecting arched heads supported on impost blocks and all windows have sills supported on corbels. Each gable end is blank but for a stone porch, the flat hood supported on unusual carved brackets with pendentives. The rear has 2 windows over the shallow hipped roof outshut which is an original feature (cf the cottages at Darley Dale). HISTORY. These cottages are very similar to a pair (q.v.) next to Darley Dale station which are also by Paxton. The minutes of the Midland Railway of August 10, 1850, specify that 'Mr.Paxton be requested to prepare the plans, to let the works and superintend the construction' of 2 houses, an office and 4 cottages at Rowsley station. The minutes explain that this was because the station staff had to travel so far to their work. Joseph Paxton, who was already working on the Crystal Palace for the Great Exhibition the following year, had been Head Gardener at nearby Chatsworth since 1826 and agent since 1849, and had carried out many outstanding works there. The railway line to Rowsley, which was the nearest station to Chatsworth, had opened in June, 1849, and Chatsworth had 80,000 visitors that summer. Many of these must have travelled through Rowsley station (a special train brought the first large party of 600 from Derby in June soon followed by a party of 2000 from Sheffield), and therefore the proximity of railway staff to the station was certainly essential! This is a fine quality little-altered pair of railway cottages by a distinguished architect and landscape gardener, and also has historic interest in that the construction for railway staff responded to the huge number of travellers passing through the station.