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In April 2008 one of Littleover's oldest properties was put up for sale for the first time in almost a century -'Fressingfield' on Blagreaves Lane. Despite its name and location being very 'well-known' in the Blagreaves area, the history and substance of the property itself was something of a hidden secret - here Peter Seddon reveals a little of its background for one of our popular 'Stories Behind The Pictures' series.

It is often said that estate agents details tend to 'over-embellish'. Yet in many cases they 'under-embellish', for in the space available for description they are not able to present the more intimate side of a property's history.

The delightful image above - for which Derby estate agents Scargill Mann should be roundly congratulated - is just such an example. Here is the story it doesn't tell.

On Saturday 29 March 2008 a chapter in Littleover's history came quietly to a close, when at St. Mary's Nursing Home in Ednaston, the staunch 'Littleoverite' Eleanor 'Meg' Grimwood-Taylor passed away peacefully aged 92.

She had been a well-known and highly-respected figure in Derby and Derbyshire - a Conservative councillor, leading light in the Guiding Movement, and in 1970-71 the Mayor of Derby. All in all a veritable Littleover stalwart - a comforting institution even - and certainly in the eyes of more 'senior' Littleover residents someone who was considered a long-surviving guardian of the 'old standards' before 'everything went downhill'.

'Miss Grimwood-Taylor' - her familiar title despite a late-life marriage - was one of those people for whom the term 'a real character' might have been invented. But what made her particularly unique in terms of Littleover's history was her long-term residency in a single property - the 'Fressingfield' of this article.

She was born there in 1915 and lived in the house continually until the beginning of March 2008 - just a few weeks before her death. That is almost 93 complete years in a single home - almost certainly a Littleover record.

This not only made her a real link with Littleover's past, but it also rendered the family-stronghold 'Fressingfield' something of a closed book to all but her inner circle. Only when the property was placed on the market in April 2008 was 'Fressingfield' fully revealed to the public gaze.

I use the term 'revealed' deliberately, for the orientation of 'Fressingfield' made it rather a 'secret house'. It was built to take advantage of the far-reaching country views over south Derbyshire and beyond, so the Blagreaves Lane 'frontage' so familiar to passers-by was in fact its rather plain rear elevation, whose dark, relatively featureless, ivy-clad walls revealed nothing at all of the property's true soul.

So what a surprise to many when the photograph accompanying the sales brochure revealed such a pleasing-looking property - the first time that most Littleover residents had ever been given sight of the property's hidden 'front'.

Here is a little of its history.

The property now known as 'Fressingfield' was built some time after 1855 on land purchased by George Verinder Darby from the Beard family. The residence became known as 'Oaklands Villa' and in its early years it was leased out. In 1861 it was occupied by the Rev Edward Moorhouse Hall, his wife, sister in law and staff.

In March 1866 George Darby sold the property to Francis Ley of Ley’s foundry. He changed the name to 'The Oaklands'. Although a daughter was born there in 1871, the Ley family chose not to make the property their long-term home.

Early in the 1870s they sold 'The Oaklands' to John Noble, then assistant Manager of the Midland Railway - in 1880 he became that company's General Manager. John Noble died in 1896, four years after leaving the Midland Railway, and his widow died in 1899.

The house was then sold to John Nutt, a licensed victualler, and in May 1906 he in turn sold it to the corn merchant George Henry Mart. In October 1913 Mart sold it to Mary Broomhead-Colton-Fox, who acquired the property for her daughter Marjory Sarah - in fact it was a rather grand 'wedding present' following her marriage in 1914 to Sancroft Grimwood-Taylor.

So thereby began the Grimwood-Taylor association.

Between October 1913 and October 1914 the house was transformed for the newly-wed Grimwood-Taylors from a pretty mid-Victorian villa to the tile-clad rambling 'country house' which remains today - it displays a distinct stylistic air of the celebrated architect Edwin Lutyens, although alas it is not 'by' him.

The Grimwood-Taylors swiftly re-named their property 'Fressingfield' - in honour of the Suffolk village of that name from which the family hailed. And in 1915 the couple's daughter Eleanor Grimwood-Taylor was born in the house which was to be her lifelong home.

Some interesting historical snippets attach to the property. During the Second World War the coach house at Fressingfield served as HQ for an Air Raid Wardens' post, and the cast iron stove used during those times was still there when Eleanor Grimwood-Taylor passed away in 2008 - more than a suggestion that the term 'time-warp' may have been quite appropriate to Fressingfield.

Certainly with the passing years it became a rather incongruous property to find in a suburban area, for as land in the Blagreaves locality was progressively built upon, Fressingfield was rendered into a 'country house' which was no longer 'in the country'.

Consider how it was in the 1920s and early 1930s. At that time the Fressingfield staff included a cook, kitchen maid, pantry maid, and housemaid. And to look after the grounds the gardener Mr Smith - he lived in Hillcross Avenue with his daughter Doris in a house belonging to the Grimwood Taylors - and his garden boy Arthur Wibberley.

Nor must we forget the chauffeur Wilkins, who conveyed non-driver Mrs. Grimwood Taylor in the stylish family Rover. The new-fangled vehicle was an early concession to modernity, for prior to that she had employed her own pony and trap, only forsaken in the 1920s.

There was also a much loved 'nanny' named Mary, who came from a cottage near Stenson Lock. She was an important presence in Eleanor Grimwood-Taylor's childhood, but in due course left to be married. She is buried at Twyford churchyard.

The 'master of Fressingfield' Sancroft Grimwood-Taylor was a solicitor with the well-known Derby firm Taylor, Simpson and Moseley. One of his most demanding clients was seated at Calke Abbey near Ticknall. Grimwood-Taylor would drive out there in his 1922 Sunbeam Open Tourer to conduct business - but he was always instructed to leave the 'infernal machine' at the Calke Abbey gatehouse, from where a carriage and coachman would take him up to the stately pile.

Sancroft Grimwood-Taylor was also a pioneer member of the Derby Wireless Club before the First World War. One of his 'experiments' was to broadcast early radio transmissions via a large loudspeaker horn which he placed in an open bay window of 'Fressingfield' fronting Blagreaves Lane.

By such novel means he was able to serve up 'music from London' to anyone who cared to hear it. It has been placed on record that he described families walking out from Derby on a Sunday afternoon and sitting on the grass beside Blagreaves Lane to enjoy the 'free concert'.

Fair to say it all seems a world away from the cut and thrust of today's much vaunted 'property ladder'.

So there it is - a small but not inexpensive piece of 'history for sale'. Selling agents Scargill Mann & Co. are offering Fressingfield to the market at a price guide of £850,000.

More details of this and other prominent Littleover properties will feature in a new book to be published on 26 September 2008 - 'A History of Gayton School and the Blagreaves area'. Thanks go to its author Helena Coney for researching some of the Fressingfield history included in this piece.

Should anyone have memories of Fressingfield to add to this article, click on 'edit' or 'discussion' to make a contribution.

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