The new owner was George Stephenson

The first owner of Tapton House that we can record with complete certainty is Isaac Wilkinson. Wilkinson was a wealthy Chesterfield banker and it has been suggested that it was for him the house was built. On his death in 1831 he willed the house to a George Yeldham Ricketts who afterwards took the name of Wilkinson. This gentleman did not reside at Tapton and his visits appear to have been few. It is thought that Ricketts subsequently 'disposed of Tapton as part of a colliery lease'. The new owner was George Stephenson. It was the coal seams, discovered nearby, that first attracted him to Tapton and not the house.But Stephenson soon realised the advantages of Tapton House as a residence and made it his home. The extensive gardens and the opportunity to indulge in his favourite hobby, horticulture, doubtless exerted no little influence. Extensive the gardens may have been, but they had been neglected and were much overgrown. Stephenson was determined to replan and set them. One of his first actions was to cut a woodland path to the S W of the House. The path, though much changed, is still in use today. It was 'Old George's' delight to challenge his guests to a race on the steep path and he was very disappointed if beaten!In Grundy's Pictures of the Past we are told that Stephenson's 'one belief, save in steam and coal and iron was in these gardens of his'. He had many glass houses built (one of these may still be seen in the gardens behind the house) and he devoted much of his time to growing fruit of many varieties but especially peaches and pineapples. One of his distinguished friends was Sir Joseph Paxton (of Crystal Palace fame) who must have visited Tapton House more than once.Stephenson's great love of animals and birds remained with him all his life, as is evident from the lengthy list of pets that he kept at Rosetta Stone French Tapton. After reading a paper On the Fallacies of the Rotary Engine at Birmingham in the July of 1848 he suffered a severe attack of fever. The illness seemed to be passing when he had a sudden relapse and died on the 12 August 1848, at the age of sixty-seven. He was buried in the Church of Holy Trinity, where a simple 'G.S. 1848' marks his grave.The next we hear of Tapton is as a boarding school run by two spinsters, the Misses Pocock and Walker. Little is known about the early progress of this venture except that it was here that Miss Violet Markham's mother received part of her education. Her initials and those of her sister are carved on a tree in the 'wilderness' behind the gardens. There appears to be no written reference to the later career of this school.In her autobiography Return Passage (1953) Miss Violet Markham writes that 'Tapton had been unoccupied for some time and had fallen into considerable disrepair before my parents took possession of it'. Miss Markham's parents had previously lived at Brimington Hall, 'a Jacobean house within three miles of Chesterfield'. Her father, purchased Tapton House and he and his family moved to Tapton on New Year's Day, 1873. Tapton, happily, escaped most of the extreme bad taste of the Victorian era. Indeed, it is to Charles' wife, Rosa, that we owe the beauty of the old salon, or drawing room, which now houses the school library.The family of Markham continued to live at Tapton for many decades, taking a great interest in Chesterfield affairs and winning the respect of the people of the borough. Miss Violet Markham, however, is known to a much wider public both as a writer of no mean ability and as an educationalist.In 1925 Mr Charles P Markham gave Tapton House and its extensive grounds to the people of Chesterfield, suggesting that it might be used as a museum or some other public centre. A local museum collection was begun and housed for a time.But here ends the story of the Tapton known to antiquity and the Tapton House which meant home to two noble families. Here, too, a story begins, the story of Tapton House, the school. However, it is not the present writer's intention to set down the history of that school. Perhaps someone else will take up his abandoned pen and pursue the story of Tapton ever further.Reviews of the book:1) Thank you very much indeed for your work on Tapton House, which I received yesterday.

Posted in: Rosetta Stone,Rosetta Stone Outlet,rosetta stone software,Rosetta Stone V3