FORMER RESIDENTS OF DEBDALE HALL, MANSFIELD WOODHOUSE
Debdale Hall, Debdale Lane, Mansfield Woodhouse, Nottinghamshire, c 1900
Picture the Past, NCCM000567
Debdale Hall pre 1930s
Picture the Past, NCCW002101
Major-General Sir John Talbot Coke 1901
Picture the Past, NCCW001564
Notes from the research of Mr. H. Barnett, President of the Old Mansfield Woodhouse Society
By Jill Usher
Debdale Hall, Mansfield Woodhouse (Formerly Thistle Hill Hall)
Debdale (Deepdale) Hall was the residence of the Chappell family in the seventeenth century.
Elizabeth, daughter of John Chappell married William Mompesson, Vicar of Mansfield. William was the grandson of the Reverend Mompesson, the Vicar of Eyam, Derbyshire.
Their daughter Ann Mompesson lived at the Hall until her death (rebuilt by her) at the end of the eighteenth century. During her lifetime she was visited by the poetess Anna Seward, the “Swan of Lichfield”, whose letters to Miss Mompesson are full of praises for the tranquillity of Woodhouse.
In the year 1803 the Hall was purchased by the Coke family and the last of this family resident at Debdale was Major General Talbot Coke, who was a hero of the Boer War, who left in 1904.
The last people to reside here were the Ellis family who were the owners of Sherwood Colliery and remained here until the 1940’s when the Hall became a recovery hospital.
Ann Mompesson died before the completion of the Hall.
Paper on Hayman Rooke by Pam McNally, Mansfield Woodhouse Library, contains information re. Ann Seward.
Miss Mompesson – Died 1798
Lived in her Mother’s House in Woodhouse, still existed 1906 according to Prior.
William Mompesson 1639 – 1709
2 daughters, 1 son George – 2 sons
William, Vicar of Mansfield
2 daughters – Miss Mompesson of Woodhouse
Ann Seward 1747 – 1809
She was dubbed "Swan of Litchfield".
Father Vicar at Eyam then Bishop at Litchfield.
Wrote letters to Miss Mompesson with whom she stayed, extolling the virtues of Woodhouse.
Letters in Litchfield Library
Miss Mompesson’s mother a Chappel.
Riber Hall sold to Chappels 1681, family extinct 1724.
Estate to Heirs – Walls of Darley and Joseph Greatorex.
Tricked into a marriage conducted by a bogus priest who had not been ordained.
She left the Marquis and went with her children to her parents’ house at Debdale but was turned away.
Another member of this family married the Rev. William Mompesson, the grandson of the famous Vicar of Eyam – the plague village in Derbyshire.
This couple’s daughter, Anne Mompesson, inherited Debdale Hall. She was visited by her friend, Anna Seward, Swan of Lichfield, Poetess. Anna’s father had also been Vicar of Eyam after Mompesson. She wrote letters praising the tranquillity of Mansfield Woodhouse.
Anne Mompesson altered the Hall but died before its completion.
It then came to the Coke Family of Brookhill, near Pinxton. Their famous son, Major General Talbot Coke, led one action in South Africa which led to the end of the Boer War.
After the Cokes, it came into the hands of the Ellis Family, owners of Sherwood Colliery Company, after nationalisation it passed to the National Health Service and was a recovery hospital.