|
Ashe Hill
Sutton Lane
Ivor Smith - November 2008
On the 17th March 1950, the erection of a house and garage was approved by Repton RDC, and on the 20th November Royston Pollett of Rake Hill, Egginton Road bought ‘4150 square yards or thereabouts’ of land on Sutton Lane from the Buckston estate.
In 1956-57 the house was built. It was also called Rake Hill, causing the postman some problems, there now being two house of the same name in the village. Mr. Pollett retired to the south coast in 1964 and the house was bought by Mrs. Lillie Gilbert, who had been born at Ashe Farm. Mrs Gilbert’s first husband was a gentleman by the name of Mr Durose, who at one time owned Egginton Hall.
The original Rake Hill on Egginton Road was by now owned by a Dr Gurling and mail was getting mixed up even more often, so in the mid 1960s Rake Hill II was renamed Ashe Hill.
The footpath that now runs through the north-western edge of the land originally cut straight across the plot. It was redirected, as was necessary in the 1950s, by a private Act of Parliament.
The most notable feature of the house is the cantilevered north-western section which rests on steel joists allowing the whole of the ground and first floor areas to have unobstructed windows on that face of the house.
Derbyshire County Council, as the highways authority, proposed from the mid 1920s to widenSutton Lane. It reserved the right to buy a strip of land from all the properties on the northern side of the lane and the double hedges that mark the gardens affected, like Ashe Hill, persist even though the widening was abandoned when the bypass was opened in 1991. The wide section of the lane towards Main Street is actually owned by the adjoining properties as part of the same blight.
In 1979 the house was purchased by the current occupants, who slashed and burned their way through the forest and scrub that Mr. Pollett installed and added a flat behind the garage in 1991.
|
