4 DENBY OLD HALL AND ITS OWNERS. 



previously referred to, it appears that the estate was purchased in 

 1628 by Robert Wilmot from Vincent Lowe and his trustees, 

 Thomas Hutchinson, Timothy Pusey, and Gilbert Ward, and 

 was immediately afterwards demised by Robert Wilmot to 

 Vincent Lowe for forty-one years at a rent of ^100. From the 

 style of the building one might, however, venture to speculate 

 that the founder was Patrick Lowe, father of Vincent Lowe. 

 From the external appearance alone it would be difficult to 

 assign a date to the older hall,* its picturesque style, with deeply 

 recessed mullioned windows and straight label mouldings, having 

 prevailed in Derbyshire, and, in fact, in all stone districts, not 

 only during the latter part of the sixteenth, but throughout 

 nearly the whole of the seventeenth centuries. After the 

 fifteenth century it becomes more difficult to date a building 

 from its architecture alone than it is during the mediaeval period, 

 when the way in which the native Gothic styles developed 

 contemporaneously over almost the whole of the country, at 

 a time when communication was not very rapid, is often 

 surprising, but with the Renaissance began that confusion of 

 styles which has steadily increased up to the present day. In 

 the rural districts the builders imitated, or tried to imitate, the 

 details of the imported foreign styles long before they grasped 

 the principles of their design, and even in the Stuart period, 

 while Inigo Jones was designing for his wealthy patrons purely- 

 classic buildings, we find houses all over the country that possess 

 much of the picturesque character of the Gothic work. At 

 Denby Old Hall, however, we have other things besides the 

 masons' work to assist us in coming to a conclusion as to its 

 date. Judging by the plan and the joiners' work, the writer 

 is inclined to the opinion that it was erected in the latter 

 part of the sixteenth century. 



The building is of stone, the outer walls being about 

 2 ft. 9 ins. thick; the dressings of the doors and windows are 

 of hard millstone grit, in excellent preservation, but the walling 

 is of a much poorer material, probably obtained close to the 

 site, very picturesque in colouring, but badly weathered. The 



* "Older" as opposed to the later Jacobean addition. 



