Mundy House: Mundys partied in one of Derby's finest houses

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The discovery of a 17th-century cellar beneath the Derby Cats’ Protection shop in the Wardwick has prompted Maxwell Craven to recount the history of the building, where the Mundy family, of Shipley Hall, once entertained in style.

LAST week, Derby’s Cats’ Protection workers discovered a 17th-century cellar beneath their shop in the Wardwick, in which was found a handful of ancient and not-so-ancient artefacts.

The building in which the shop is situated was, in fact, once one of the finest houses in Derby. Called Mundy House, it was long the town residence of the Mundys of Shipley Hall.

It consists of a well-proportioned, three-storey block designed in the style of William and Mary with a slightly lower and earlier section at the rear.

The stone mouldings of the facade suggest the work of the same architect as Franceys’ House in Market place, Lloyd’s Bank in Iron Gate and the house next to it, once The George.

While the street front has six window bays, the rear of the house has only four.

This rear part, once facing down a pleasant garden stretching to Macklin Street (then Cross Lanes), seems to date from the 1660s.

An examination of its steep dormered roof suggests that the flat central part, reached by a spiral staircase opening from a little tile-hung turret, was once embellished by a drum-shaped lantern, illuminating what was probably a stairwell below.

The flat area probably sported a balustrade, so that people could take the air on the roof.

Because this rear portion is a full generation or more older than the front of the building, the inference is that the original front was much earlier, probably resembling the Jacobean House next door.

We cannot, however, be certain of this, for what lies behind could have been a detached four-square house set back with a front garden.

This is why the possibility of a visit to the cellars attracted me for, sometimes, when a building was replaced, the original cellars were retained. But the cellar is brick vaulted, which means it is probably the same age as the house attached.

We know the house was the town house of the Mundys of Shipley from a reference by William Woolley, in 1715, to it being the residence of Derby MP Edward Mundy (1667-1717), uncle of the first Shipley Hall Mundy.

The original owner is unclear, unless it was the home of John Mundy of Markeaton. Certainly land bordering the Wardwick further along was part of the Markeaton estate.

He perhaps willed it to his second son, Gilbert, Edward’s father, rather than to his eldest son, who inherited Markeaton Hall.

Gilbert probably built the present street front in about 1696-7, for he married the daughter of land dealer Thomas Beighton of Cockpit Hill House in 1696 and the following year served as High Sheriff, for which a spacious Derby house was essential.

Edward’s great nephew, Edward Miller-Mundy (1850-1822), was also an MP, serving the county for almost 40 years and used the house extensively for entertaining.

The sociable Repton headmaster, Rev William Bagshaw Stevens, wrote an account of a dinner he attended there in the 1790s with Pickford’s son, Joseph.

This partying demanded a rebuild and, in the 1790s, Mundy provided a new hall, top lit from roof lights via an octagonal gallery, surrounded by a cast-iron balustrade, which was the centrepiece of his saloon. A fine Neo-Classical marble chimneypiece was also acquired, probably from Richard Brown of King Street.

In August 1808, however, Mundy sold the place to lawyer John Harrison, later the builder of Littleover Grange and Snelston Hall, and from 1831 the house was converted into offices.

The street front became shops in the 1890s, resulting in the entrance hall being shifted to the far left-hand side, with a new staircase added , and the old hall becoming a small shop. A rather ugly parapet was added to carry a tradesman’s name.

A law firm continued under various names on the first floor until 1987, when they sold up.

The new owners wanted to remove the Brown chimneypiece but, being Grade II listed, permission was unlikely until it was agreed to give it to Derby Museum. The chimneypiece was fitted at no cost to the council in the parlour of Pickford’s House, then under renovation.

So, if you go to Pickford’s House today, you can admire at leisure the superb locally- made fireplace, in front of which Derby’s elite were once entertained to dinners, soirees and routs.

The only pity was that the restoration of Mundy House itself left much to be desired. We had hoped that the ugly parapet would be removed, the lush moulded stone cornice restored and the facade cleaned, but the applicant was let off rather lightly, considering the importance of the building and its dominance of the street scene. It still looks a bit tired and down-at-heel.

Nevertheless, its presence makes that side of the street once of the great classical set pieces of Derby.

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This article is from the Derby Evening Telegraph and is reproduced online here.