Derby House

Derby House is a mid-19th century villa, likely designed by Sir Joseph Paxton for the Duke of Devonshire. It was originally a boarding house, and is now a nursing home. The house is constructed of coursed millstone grit rubble with ashlar dressings, and has a Welsh slate roof with overhanging eaves supported by wooden brackets and stone stacks.

The building is two storeys and an attic storey, featuring raised vermiculated quoins, a plinth, and a first-floor band. The front elevation has three bays. A central doorway is set within a segment-headed surround with a moulded impost and keystone, and features a four-panel door with an overlight inscribed “DERBY HOUSE / NURSING HOME”. Above the door is a round-headed window with a raised keystone, blind top, plain sash, and a projecting sill on brackets. To the right, a two-story canted bay window; to the left, a rectangular bay window on the ground floor, canted on the first floor with a hipped lead roof. All windows are horned sashes.

The left return is six windows wide, arranged 2:4, and has a two-story canted bay window with a gabled dormer in the roof, along with three round-headed, through-eaves, gabled dormer windows. The right return, also six windows wide arranged 2:4, has a two-window section to the left featuring a two-story canted bay window and a broad open pediment with four round-headed casement windows. The remaining section to the right has pairs of plain sashes and three through-eaves gabled dormers, each with a pair of plain sashes.

The interior has not been inspected. Derby House is situated within the Broad Walk, a series of Victorian villas overlooking The Pavilion Gardens, originally laid out by Paxton around 1850. While Paxton initially designed the gardens, many of the surrounding houses were built by speculative developers, with some reportedly designed by his pupil Edward Milner from 1871, and built by Saunders & Woolcott of London for the 7th Duke.