Listed Building record MDR9013 - Walton Hall, Foljambe Avenue, Chesterfield

Godfrey Foljambe held the manor of Walton from 1388; in 1636 his descendents sold it to the Ingrams. In January 1569, Mary Queen of Scots was held prisoner there. In the Wolley manuscripts it is lamented that Walton Hall was ruined and demolished around 1648, with the exception of some parts of the manorial chapel. (1) An anonymous memorandum amongst the Wolley MSS., written about the year 1648, says "The ancient seate Walton nere Chesterfield, wherein the great contynewall housekeeping was mayntayned before in Mr Foljambe's tyme, is utterly ruyned, plucked downe, and sould, no materiall, as ys reported left, nor almost any mencyon made were so greate hospytality, and that in my tyme used". (2) The present Walton Hall is a modest-sized but excessively plain gentleman's villa of about 1795, of two and a half storeys and three well-spaced bays with a first floor sill band, built around a much older core as a farmhouse. Its predecessor was a much grander early 15th century courtyard house, which was only partly lived in when tax was paid on 13 hearths in 1670. The earliest dwelling on the site was erected either by Robert le Brito in Henry I's time or by one of his immediate descendants. It came to Thomas Foljambe of Tideswell, who united the moieties of the manor and built a new mansion house. It had a chapel attached, all vestiges of which have long since vanished. It came ultimately to the Woodyeares who presumably, as absentee landlords, demolished whatever was left of the old house and built the present one, perhaps either for a younger son or as a tenanted farm. (3) Walton Hall is a vernacular building dated to 1788 as indicated by door lintel date.