History

Situated on the edge of the Peak District village of Ashford-in-the-Water, The Rookery was originally a Derbyshire longhouse with adjoining farmyard, cottage and barn probably dating from the sixteenth century.

According to The Old Halls, Manors and Families of Derbyshire published in 1892, the ‘earliest inhabitants we can trace were the family of Milnes, say in the sixteenth century, now ennobled; it has since probably been the homestead of scions of two other baronial houses, the Fynneys and Cheneys’.

In the eighteenth century The Rookery belonged to the Bullock family, Lords of the Manor of Norton (formerly in Derbyshire and now part of Sheffield). The family lived at Greenhill Hall and made money from water mills and scythe smithies on the River Sheaf. The Bullocks had a reputation for eccentricity. Noah Bullock, built himself an ark on the Derwent and lived in it with his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Another member of the family who resided at The Rookery was ‘partial to intoxication [and] would sit on horseback for hours to drink huge quantities of beer, preferring such a position to the cosy hostelry of the village or his own drawing room’.

The Rookery was bought from the executors of John Bullock by the Sixth Duke of Devonshire (1790 – 1858) in 1821 for the sum of £3,000. It was described at the time as ‘a small estate’ and obviously included some land and possibly mineral rights for the nearby marble mines. According to Chatsworth’s records the house was in good condition and the Duke (‘The Bachelor’) needed to spend very little on the property to prepare it for his mistress, Elizabeth Warwick. Most of the money was spent on laying out the garden where it is recorded that he planted 200 roses bought from Paris. The Sixth Duke eventually had several mistresses installed in houses close to Chatsworth and The Rookery, being the first of these, became known locally as one of the ‘birdcages’.