Tissington Village

The beauty of Tissington, as with many an English village, is the result of evolution.  No planner designed it, no bureaucrat decided how and where the houses were to be built.  The village grew in that effortless and instinctive way that villages did before the Industrial Revolution began to change the face of England.

There are wide green spaces and the houses, scattered about, are unintentional and unselfconscious architectural gems.  The by-road to Tissington is flanked by a lodge and large stone gate-piers and is lined by an avenue of limes.  These trees were planted in 1970 by the late Sir John FitzHerbert to take over from the Victorian avenue that had to be cut down in 1991/92 as a result of rot and decay.

 

 Instead of this road, more like a private drive than a public thoroughfare, approaching a nobleman's solitary seat as one might expect, it leads to the exquisite beauty of the village of Tissington.  Another approach to the village passes from the east through a shallow ford or water-splash where a white post indicates the depth.  However, once in the village, the most striking building is the Hall, a splendid mansion that is unique amongst country houses in that it stands in the midst of the village, central to community life.

The long, low mansion is the seventeenth century home of the FitzHerbert family.  Presently the ninth Baronet, Sir Richard FitzHerbert (who inherited the Title and Estate in 1989) lives there.  The FitzHerberts built the house and have lived there for the best part of five centuries, adding not only to the size of the Hall but also to the Estate domains throughout those years.  The family funerary monuments crowd the small churchyard which can be seen from the Hall to the north of the Church.

Standing in this oasis of peace, as yet spared from the curses of modern progress, it is difficult to believe that this was once a battleground, for during the Civil War, there was a skirmish here between royalists and parliamentarians.  The FitzHerberts were for Church and King.  Colonel FitzHerbert garrisoned the Hall for the Royalist cause, and the family were lucky that their home was not destroyed.

Tissington Village, on account of its unique beauty, attracts many thousands of sightseers every year, not only from this country, but from all over the world, yet it should not be forgotten that the village is the home and workplace to 150 people, many of whom were born and bred in the Village, like their ancestors before them.