Riber Castle is a 19th-century Grade II listed country house in the hamlet of Riber on a hill overlooking Matlock, Derbyshire. It is built of gritstone from a local quarry which was pulled up the 200-metre (660 ft) hill by a series of pulleys.
Known locally as "Smedley's Folly" because of the difficulty of getting water to the hill summit, it was built by the industrialist John Smedley in 1862 as his private home. His wife lived in it until her death in 1892. After the death of Smedley's wife, the castle became a boys' prep school until this became financially unsustainable in the 1930s. The architectural historian John Summerson attended the school in the early 20th century. While he enjoyed his time at the school, the building's architecture had lesser appeal; he described the castle as "an object of indecipherable bastardy – a true monster".It's certainly an oddity which can be seen for miles, but at least it looks like a castle from a distance. Seen up close it comes across as bonkers even though restoration work still seems to be going on. There are more architecturally interesting houses in nearby Riber village, so that contrast doesn't help.
The Wolley family acquired the Riber estate around the end of the fifteenth century. Indeed, the three-storey east wing of the Manor House with it’s mullioned and transomed windows – which Pevsner described as “a most felicitous picture” – has the initials GW and MW along with a date of 1633 inscribed on the gable-end. Writer & Historian Roy Christian thinks the lower, west range could be ‘much earlier’.
7 comments:
Rich people often give themselves the problem of getting water to their houses - they like to build mansions on the tops of hills so they can see and be seen. That proved to be the downfall of our local stately home, Uppark. When it caught fire in 1989, the fire brigade couldn't get enough water out of the existing pipes to save it.
Ah Uppark. Yes the fire brigade initially had the fire under control until they ran out of water and had to try to run a pipe up from South Harting which took so long that the fire gathered strength and burnt the rest of the house down. I was working at Uppark before the fire, (and after it for a time) and saved the Print Room from it. My reward was to be frozen out of the organisation completely, without acknowledgement. Nothing fails like success when it comes to the NT.
Sam and Tammly - at the time I remember wondering if it was worth restoring. I've never visited it, but if I did now I'd have some difficulty in looking at it as original rather than reconstructed however well it was done. Not quite the same in other words.
Tammly - I've heard a number of anecdotes about the unpleasant side of the NT. It has lost sight of what it is supposed to be - that's the impression I'm left with. It's why we left.
Tammly: Yes, we live in South Harting, and are friends with the original owners. From what locals tell us, the fire brigade did their best with a long series of pumps and hoses. And most locals hate the NT, for what it's worth.
AK: The reason why the NT became this way was because the people in it who were enthusiasts for history and preservation became outnumbered by the careerists.
SV: I knew them too. Did they ever tell you the story of how after the fire, Drury (the DG of the NT) arrived with a legation from Qn A's Gt and said to old Mrs F, "It's marvellous, we'e saved all the contents from the ground floor!" She drew back her handbag and fetched him one on the side of his face. In my opinion, quite right too!
Tammly:
Brilliant! Interestingly, her daughter is in the process of moving back into a flat there. She never says much about the fire.
Update! But my wife tells me she has related the story about the handbag. And apparently they had to persuade old Mrs. F. to tone down her memoirs, because her comments about Drury and the NT would have been libellous.
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