Monument record MDR7909 - Farnah Hall (site of), Windley

The Farnah Hall site comprises a series of houses, the earliest probably being medieval. The estate, part of the medieval Champeyne Park, passed to the Bradshaw family in c. 1390. It may have been at that time that the moated site c. 200m to the west [SMR 28001] was abandoned, with the Bradshaws marking their standing with a new house (twice since replaced) on the site of the later Farnah Hall. It was sold to the Coapes family in the 17th century and to the Curzons in around 1800. The last house to stand on the site was constructed in c. 1738 and consisted of a five by four bay two-and-a-half storey twin range block. To the south was a two-storey addition. A low two-storey service wing ran to the north. It was up for sale in 1857, but was let until 1916. In 1925 it was found to be structurally unsound and was used as a target for Home Guard grenade training from 1941. By the 1980s it was a ruined shell and very overgrown. The previous house, of c. 1600, replaced one which was the seat of Anthony, 4th son of William Bradshaw of Duffield. (1) According to a tradition in the Curzon family, to whom Farnah Hall passed in the early 19th century, the house was built by Francis Smith of Warwick in c. 1738. (2) Farnah Hall first appears in the Kedleston Deeds in 1780, with a lease and release by William Coape Sherbrooke of Arnold Esq to John Beighton of Hazelwood, gent., of an 'ancient capital messuage and all outbuildings etc called Farnah Hall with various parcels of land including the Motts'. (3)