Building record MDR10746 - Ivy Leigh, Main Street, Ticknall

Ivy Leigh is an L-shaped brick house of two storeys facing north onto Main Street. The house stands higher than the road, and excavations for a garden pond have shown that this is not a natural rise of the land, but made-up ground rich in pottery fragments and occupation debris. There was once a small cottage in what is now the garden to the west, and a range of outbuildings linked to the house on the east side. The house is hard to date; like all the houses in Ticknall it was built and formerly owned by the Harpur Crewe Estate using local bricks and tiles, and very often re-using old material, such as timber beams taken from elsewhere. It would seem that the front part of the house was built with two rooms on each floor, with probably a single-storey service extension at the rear, which was later rebuilt. It was probably built in the mid 18th century, perhaps for a craftsman; it has been suggested that this may have been a potter, accounting for the pottery debris in the garden. The Tithe Award of 1843 lists the occupier as John Shaw, a butcher according to directories. The Tithe Map shows a large square building on the street front east of the house, presumably the butcher's shop. (1)