Norton Hall & John Bullock III [1576–1641]

John Bullock III, baptized on 20 May 1576 at St Mary le Bow, London, was the son of John Bullock II [c.1539-1607] of Darley Abbey, Derbyshire, and Elizabeth Smythe [nee Pierson] who had married on 4 October 1573 at St Mary le Bow. Her father, William Pierson, and John Bullock II were both described as of “Thynner Temple” on the post-nuptial Indenture of Marriage Settlement, dated 11 October 1573¹. John Bullock II was, in fact, a highly successful Inner Temple lawyer who used his position and family contacts to further his career.² With the financial rewards of his legal work he was able to purchase property in Derbyshire: half the manor of Norton in 1572; the manor of Greenhill in 1573; and the Darley Abbey estate in 1574³.

Following his father into the legal profession John Bullock III, of the Inner Temple, was ‘called to the outer bar and from henceforth to be an utter barrister’ on 8 June 1600⁴. He was appointed feodary for Derbyshire, an important position in the Court of Wards, in which he was responsible for assessing the value of land and property and collecting due revenue on behalf of the Crown. No doubt he secured the post through the influence of his father, John Bullock II who in 1586-88 held the position of Treasurer of the Inner Temple – its highest office - although, perhaps, a recommendation by his future father-in-law, Thomas Fanshawe [1533-1601], Second Queen’s Remembrancer of the Exchequer played a part. His father, John Bullock II, who had entered the Inner Temple in 1554, was a fellow student with John Manners [c.1535-1611], second son of Thomas Manners, 1st Earl of Rutland, who had entered the same year. It may be that John Manners⁵, who inherited Haddon Hall in 1565, and who was High Sheriff of Derbyshire on three occasions between 1575 and 1597 was also able to exert an influence in John Bullock III’s appointment as feodary for Derbyshire.

The role of rent collector for the Crown was one which other members of the Bullock family had held in previous years. Thomas Bullocke, a distant relative, was described as feodary for the Honor of Tickhill in South Yorkshire in 1569⁶ and 1576⁷ whilst, even earlier, on 11 March 1551/2 John Bullock III’s grandfather, John Bullock I of Greenhill [c.1510-1580], had been appointed bailiff and collector of the Crown rents and revenues of all the lands and manors in the county of Derby which had belonged to the lately dissolved abbey of Beauchief.⁸

Bullock & Cavendish

For at least 3 generations the Bullock family, as members of the minor gentry in Derbyshire, existed on the fringe of society attached to the Cavendish family. Edward Bullock of Unstone’s wife, Jane Parkin [c.1550-1621], was ‘Gentlewoman to the Countess of Shrewsbury [Bess of Hardwick]’⁹, who was mother to Henry, William & Charles Cavendish; John Bullock III’s daughter, Dorothy [1619-1658], married Francis Cavendish¹⁰, illegitimate son of Henry Cavendish of Doveridge; and, later in the century, John Bullock [1627-1699] of Greenhill & Staveley was noted as ‘a favourite Steward of the Cavendishes’¹¹.

John Bullock III, in his official capacity as feodary, is mentioned several times in surviving correspondence and accounts. His first documented appearance in relation to financial matters is in a letter of 15 March 1603/04 addressed from Derby to Gilbert, 7^th Earl of Shrewsbury – brother-in law of Henry, William & Charles Cavendish - where he states that he is unable to comply with his request, made on behalf of Gervase Strelley, to delay payment of £220 for a mortgage as he has payments to meet himself.¹² John Bullock III appears several times between the years 1604 – 1607 in the accounts of William Cavendish, Lord Cavendish of Hardwick¹³, as “Mr Bullock the feodary” to whom Cavendish paid rent to the Crown for lands in Derbyshire and South Yorkshire which were the inheritance of his step-son and ward, Sir Richard Wortley. William Cavendish [1552-1626], who was admitted to Gray’s Inn in 1572 would, no doubt, have known John Bullock III through his legal work in London, whilst their professional interests in Derbyshire ensured a steady contact over the years. By 1615, when William Cavendish was custos rotulorum [principal Justice of the Peace] for the county of Derby, John Bullock III was appointed High Sheriff of the county¹⁴, and on 15 June 1619 they both served as members of a commission of 12 men appointed to inquire into charities in Derbyshire.¹⁵ On 17 August 1626 the signatures of ‘W. Devonshyre’ and ‘Jo. Bullok’ appear attached to a letter sent from Chesterfield and addressed to King Charles I by ten Derbyshire J.P.s accounting for the refusal of Derbyshire to pay a ‘benevolence’ – a forced gift of money - to the Crown.¹⁶ John Bullock III’s name in this list, which also included Peter Frechevile of Staveley and Roger Manners of Whitwell, is a telling indication of his position within the county. His responsibility for the maintenance of law and order as a Justice of the Peace for Derbyshire is shown in the records of the Quarter Sessions, where his name features several times between the years 1631-1638.¹⁷

An indication that John Bullock III and William Cavendish enjoyed something of a social relationship is suggested by an entry in William Cavendishes accounts for 1604¹⁸, when a gift of venison was delivered to Darley. In August the following year, William Cavendish entertained Bullock at his newly-built house at Owlcotes where the accounts record: “given and lost by my Lord at Owlcotes at play when Mr Bullock was there 3s.”¹⁹ Their acquaintance may also have owed something to the fact that William Cavendish was a subscriber to the East India Company in whose voyages John Bullock II’s brother, Francis Bullock, ‘Cittizen & Skynner of London’²⁰ had an interest. More than this, John Bullock II’s future mother-in law was Joan Fanshawe [nee Smythe] whose brother, Sir Thomas Smythe, was the first Governor of the East India Company. In 1603 the first voyage of the East India Company’s ships returned laden with spices. The dividend on William Cavendish’s investment was paid to him in pepper – weighing a ton and a half - which he stored at Staveley Woodthorpe Hall. Before it was sold in March 1607 John Bullock III may have been granted a sight of this prodigious quantity of pepper which even Bess of Hardwick, in her extreme old age, came to view.

John Bullock III inherited Darley Abbey on the death of his father in October 1607 and, following his marriage to Catherine Fanshawe in 1608,²¹ he took up residence there. The baptisms of his sons, John on 7 June 1610 and Thomas on 28 October 1612, are both recorded at St Alkmund’s, Derby, in which parish Darley Abbey was situated. He may have refurbished Darley Abbey at this time, including the installation of decorative plasterwork featuring the Bullock crest of ‘seven bills enfiled by a mural crown’, granted to him on 20 June 1609.²² This particular plasterwork ornament, which can still be seen at Brampton Hall where his younger brother Henry Bullock [1580-1633] lived, was also to be seen in the ceiling of Greenhill Hall, the home of his first cousin, James Bullock [1580-1632]. In both these properties the Bullock crest features alongside a device of knotted serpents - an emblem of Cavendish, derived from their family crest. These knotted serpents may have adorned the ceilings at William Cavendishes house at Owlcotes²³, built between the years 1593-1597, and where John Bullock III played cards in 1605. The plasterer, William Holmes, from Chesterfield was responsible for the work at Owlcotes and a few years later he may well have been commissioned by the Bullocks to ornament the ceilings of their properties at Darley, Norton, Greenhill and Brampton, and to include the Cavendish knotted serpents in acknowledgement of the association of the families.

Norton Hall

John Bullock III is referred to as John Bullock of Darley throughout his adult life in legal documents dating from 1608 to 1637, indicating that Darley Abbey was regarded as his primary residence. However, he also resided from time to time at Norton Hall, which his father had bought in 1585 as part of a substantial purchase of property from Anthony Babington.²⁴ He is referred to as John Bullock of Norton & Darley when he was granted a crest in 1609 and, although he is referred to as ‘Mr John Bullock of Darley’²⁵ in 1611, two years later he styles himself ‘John Bullock of Norton’ on a signed receipt to Sir George Manners of Haddon Hall in 1613.²⁶ The baptism of his first daughter, Catherine, is recorded at Norton on 6 November 1614. Sometime after 1614 – perhaps by 1617 when he obtained a faculty to regain the Lord of the Manor’s pew in Norton church²⁷ – the decision was taken to enlarge Norton Hall as an alternative residence at the centre of his estate there.

The earliest representation of Norton Hall is that of 1727, in an engraving of ‘The South West View of Beauchief Abby’ by Nathaniel Buck²⁸, where a house without gables can be glimpsed through trees on top of the hill to the west of Norton church tower. It is a diagrammatic thumb-nail sketch but appears to indicate a house with projecting bays at either end of the south-facing façade. By the mid-18^th century, however, a westerly extension of the house, built by Joseph Offley [1702-1751]²⁹ had destroyed this frontal symmetry. A watercolour sketch of Norton church and Norton Hall by Samuel Hieronymous Grimm c.1785³⁰; a watercolour of 1779 by Thomas Malton³¹; and an engraving of 1787 by Samuel Middiman³², after a sketch by Malton, all show the early 17^th century house to have been of three storeys defined by continuous string-courses.

The two projecting end bays were carried full height as square towers beneath a flat parapet³³. As observed in the Grimm sketch, this new frontage appears to have been built against an older fabric with gables³⁴, and with an access onto the new flat roof from a covered stairway positioned against a large stack of chimneys. On the right, between this show-front and the churchyard wall, was a lower gabled building – no doubt part of the earlier house – which recalls a similar arrangement at both Wigtwizzle Hall and Ickles Hall. Grimm’s sketch shows a 10-light mullion and transom window lighting its upper chamber, which can be identified as ‘The Churchyard Chamber’ from an inventory drawn up after the death of John Bullock II’s son, William, in 1667.³⁵ A large suite of over a dozen service rooms – buttery, west larder, dairy, boulting house, bakehouse, brewhouse, scullery etc. were grouped around the kitchen, on the ground floor in the old part of the house, with a corresponding range of storerooms above – dairy chamber, cheese chamber, candle chamber, flour chamber, wool chamber etc. That it was a very substantial house is confirmed by its 18 hearths recorded in the 1670 Hearth Tax return for Norton³⁶.

The new building works provided an up-to-date symmetrical façade to the old house, with the entrance doorway tucked into the right-hand tower below a tiny window, as indicated in the Malton engraving of 1787, and more clearly shown in the Grimm watercolour of 1785. This doorway would have led into a new ground-floor hall on the left lit by tall 6-light windows, as suggested by the scale of the windows shown in Malton’s watercolour of 1779, alongside which was a ‘parlor’, a ‘studdy’ and a ‘Dyneing room’. On the first floor distinguished by equally tall 6-light mullion and transom windows, which are carefully delineated in Grimm’s sketch of 1785 and glimpsed in Malton’s watercolour of 1779, lay the main rooms for reception. Chief of these was ‘the greate Chamber’ – in which were listed ‘certeine pictures’ and ‘his library’ in 1667 - alongside ‘the Spangle Curteine Chamber’, and ‘the Chamber over the parlor’. On the top floor of the house was the nursery, a gallery and several chambers named after the upper servants – John Parker’s chamber, Mr Richard’s chamber, Nicholas’ chamber etc.

The ground-floor and first-floor windows of 6 lights – 3 lights high by 2 lights wide - were, both in form and scale, just like those on the principal floors of the Little Castle at Bolsover built for Charles Cavendish, younger brother of William Cavendish, and which was largely complete – apart from internal decoration - by 1616³⁷. It may be that John Bullock II’s friendship with William Cavendish had persuaded John Smithson³⁸, the architect of Bolsover, to have a hand in the design of the new frontage to Norton Hall, or that masons who had worked at Bolsover were afterwards employed there. Such 6-light windows are found only at Bolsover and at Shireoaks Hall, and nowhere else in the region. Shireoaks Hall, was built for Henry Hewett or his son, Thomas, between the years 1610-1620, and is attributed to John Smithson.³⁹

The towers at Norton Hall – perhaps originally battlemented - were a characteristic feature of Smithson’s work at Wingerworth Hall and Barlborough Old Hall. Whilst this new extension to Norton Hall was being built John Bullock III lived at Darley, where he was noted in 1616 as High Sheriff of Derbyshire⁴⁰, and where his third son, William, and his second daughter, Dorothy were born. Their baptisms are recorded on 5 February 1617 and 7 November 1619 respectively at St Alkmund’s Derby.

The building works at Norton may have been overseen by a cousin, Godfrey Frogatt of Mayfield, near Ashbourne, acting as an informal agent and probably living in a part of the old Norton Hall whilst the new works were under construction. John Bullock III’s sister, Elizabeth, was Godfrey Frogatt’s great aunt⁴¹. It is likely that Frogatt continued to live at Norton Hall as a trusted and valued member of John Bullock III’s household. In 1626 Frogatt’s signed receipt⁴² for payment of the tithes of Holmesfield by Lady Manners of Haddon Hall clearly shows him acting as receiver of Crown rents on behalf of John Bullock II, the feodary. Between the years 1621-1635 Frogatt was witness to several of John Bullock III’s acquisitions of property in the parish of Norton, to provide for his four daughters, Catherine, Dorothy, Isabell and Alice. In 1628 the settlement in favour of these four daughters was entrusted to John Bullock III’s illustrious relatives: Sir Christopher Hatton of Kirby, Northants; Sir Thomas Fanshawe of Jenkins, Essex; William Fanshawe of Parsloes, Essex, esquire; Henry Condie of Allestrie, co. Derby gent and – completing the list - Godfrey Frogatt of Mayfield, co. Staffs gent.⁴³ On 5 January 1629/30 Godfrey Frogatt cemented his connections with the Bullock family by his marriage at Norton to Elizabeth, daughter of John Bullock III’s first cousin, James Bullock of Greenhill Hall. He remained a close confidante of John Bullock IV, acting in the role of agent when, along with John Bullock IV and Simon Peck [vicar of Norton], he was charged with receiving the rents of lands and property to pay the legacies specified in John Bullock III’s will. He was the first-named of only two witnesses to the Memorandum appended to John Bullock III’s will on 24 April 1641: “There beinge present at the premisses those whose names are underwritten G. ffrogatt William Allestrey”.

By 1620 the new Norton Hall was complete, evidenced by the date 1620 which could be seen in a plasterwork ceiling there⁴⁴, and in that year John Bullock IV and his family moved from Darley to live at Norton. The will of Joanne Bullocke of Unstone dated 2 March 1620/21, in which John Bullock III was appointed executor, refers to him as “Mr John Bullock of Norton Esquire”, and a sale of property in Norton to him on 2 December 1622 by Francis Parker of London calls him ‘John Bullock of Norton co. Derby esquire’.⁴⁵ He already owned half the manor of Norton, purchased by his father in 1572⁴⁶, so when the opportunity arose to buy the remaining half from Charles Blythe of Dronfield in 1622 he did so. By 1624 the purchase was complete⁴⁷, bringing the whole manor into single ownership once again. The baptisms and burials of his children from 1624 to 1628 and the burial of his wife, Catherine, in 1628 are all recorded at Norton, confirming his residency there. His own burial took place at Norton on 24 May 1641, although in his will dated 24 April and proved 2 July 1641 he is called John Bullock of Darleigh.

The early 17th century decorative plasterwork at Norton Hall

The new frontage to Norton Hall built by John Bullock III in the early 17^th century survived until its demolition and replacement in 1812-1815.⁴⁸ The passing reference by Armitage to a plasterwork ceiling with the date 1620 does not, unfortunately, specify in which room this could be seen. Similarly, a comment in the Sheffield Independent of 29 August 1878, to the parlour at Cartledge Hall having ‘well carved panelling with fluted frieze much after the style of some taken from the Old Norton Hall’, is the only reference to there having been wainscot panelling at Norton Hall. Nonetheless, taken together, these scant remarks indicate that the interiors of Norton Hall, as might be expected, were of significant quality. It is highly likely that there were plasterwork ceilings in both the parlour and great chamber, as these were invariably the rooms given the most decorative treatment. The sinuous ‘tramline’ ribwork forming geometric shapes upon the plasterwork ceiling in the Star Chamber at Bolsover Castle might well have been repeated at Norton Hall, just as it seems to have served as a model for the parlour ceiling at Carbrook Hall a few years later in 1623. In addition, an arabesque plasterwork enrichment which features at Bolsover in the Star Chamber, dated 1621 on the painted panelling, and at Barlborough Old Hall, dated 1618 over the entrance doorway, may also have graced one of the ceilings at Norton Hall.

However, with the 1620 date panel - and probably the Bullock crest and Cavendish emblem featuring as cast ornaments - a more traditional ribwork design enriched with a range of cast ornaments is likely to have been favoured for the ceiling to which Armitage refers. Such a design would have been fully in keeping with the style of work at other Bullock properties: - the parlour ceiling at Brampton Hall and that formerly in the ‘Oak Room’ at Greenhill Hall. The last regional example of an overall ribwork ceiling laid out in a geometric design is that surviving in the parlour at Renishaw Hall, built for George Sitwell and traditionally dated 1625. George Sitwell acted for John Bullock III as feodary in 1624 as evidenced by his signed receipt of 8 November⁴⁹: it is quite possible that Sitwell’s work at Renishaw was done in emulation of that in his master’s house at Norton Hall.

David Bostwick
16 January 2024

[Amended to include Shireoaks Hall
19 June 2024]