Jacobean House
Jacobean House
his was Derby's first brick building,
built in 1611. It was once much larger,
having five gables until in 1855 when
the Victorians drove Becket Street
right through the house.
rs
Gisbourne, the wife of Derby's mayor,
was the first lady within the town to
have her own coach. When she left
her home her servants and retainers
accompanied her to the borders of
Derbyshire, either to help her
negotiate the foul, deep-rutted roads
of the time, or perhaps to make sure
that she was really gone!o this day, a
mysterious phantom coach and
horses are sometimes seen parked
outside the house and a headless
coachman has been seen coming
through the coach archway which
may still be seen on the left-hand side
of the building. Also, the dark,
mysterious figure of a man is seen
standing in the Wardwick entrance to
the house. A solicitor who once had
offices in the building, moved his
premises elsewhere as he could no
longer stand working in the building
late at night, due to the strange things
that happened there when he was
alone.
ayne Anthony in his book
Derbyshire Ghosts, (J.H.Hall & Sons,
1992) describes how one lady, Mrs
Hall, a former worker at the building
experienced the following: "I was in
the upstairs rooms of Jacobean
House, looking for something or
other, when I felt someone brush past
me and immediately turning, I
caught sight of a lady in a blue dress,
who turned her head to look at me,
smiled and walked down the stairs. I
immediately followed her, and on
reaching the bottom floor I asked
colleagues if they had seen anyone
pass them, to which they replied that
no one had, as far as they were aware.
left it at that and did not tell them
why I had asked such a strange
question. Later on that week, I saw
the lady again, this time going up the
stairs, and still wearing the same blue
dress, the only difference being that
she had added a white shawl which
hung loosely around her shoulders.
"Again I followed her. on reaching
the upper floors of the building, I
could find no trace of the woman.
Shortly after this event had taken
place, work colleagues came rushing
into the room where I was working
and stated that they had just seen the
ghost of a lady in blue walking up the
stairs, who had vanished before their
eyes.
t was at this point that others
working in the room stated they too
had experienced similar visitations. I
saw her many times during my
employment within the building,
always in blue and always in the
vicinity of the stairs, I was never
frightened of meeting her and in
many ways I looked forward to seeing
her, for she always looked so gentle
and kind and I don't think that she
would ever hurt anyone. Whenever
anything went missing - and things
very often did - we always put it down
to the 'Blue Lady'
moving them. Some
things were never found and some
things would turn up days or weeks
later, but never when they were
needed."
here are a reported 14 ghosts in
Jacobean House, making the building
one of the most haunted within the
city of Derby.
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The information on this page is supplied courtesy of Wayne Anthony (author) and Richard Felix (local historian).
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