78 Derngate C.1916

The house is a typical early-nineteenth century brick terrace, built c. 1815-20. It consisted of basement kitchen and offices (opening into the garden at the back, because of the fall of the land), two ground floor rooms, two floors of two bedrooms each, and an attic room with dormer window, added later. It had a small courtyard at the rear, with a well and outside w.c. 

It was built by William Mobbs, plumber and glazier, whose father John Mobbs, victualler, had bought two acres of the Tower Close in 1808. William was the great-grandfather of Edgar Mobbs, hero of the rugby field and First World War.

In 1815 John Mobbs gave his son William a plot 59 feet from north to south and 113 feet from east to west, fronting the road to St. Thomas’ Well (i.e. now Derngate). On this plot William built numbers 76, 78 and (slightly later) 80. They were built as investment property, and leased out to respectable people of the lower middle class. The nineteenth century occupants included:

1841 William Wood, auctioneer
1851 William Wood, retired auctioneer
1861 Jonathan E. Ryland, author, editor and translator
1871 Unoccupied
1881 John E. Mawbey, schoolmaster (with his wife, six teenage boy boarders and one female servant!)
1891 John Mawbey, ex-schoolmaster
1901 Sarah Buritt, of independent means

In the early years of the twentieth century the tenants changed frequently. In 1916 it was bought by J. T. Lowke for his son W. J. Bassett-Lowke. The Bassett-Lowkes lived in it until 1926. It was then sold a number of times:

1926 Harold Moore Scrivener, architect
1932 Lily Maud Amphlett
1948 Dr. Burgess, for his widowed mother Flornce Burgess.
1964 Northampton High School for Girls

At first the School leased it as offices, to K. Ward Publicity then to the Victoria Wine Company. They then used it as classrooms to teach maths and history to the 6th Form, before vacating it in 1993. The school had got the house listed in 1965, meriting a category of Grade II*.

People such as Tom Osborne Robinson had long advocated the preservation of the house. The decision of the High School to sell all their property in Derngate in the mid 1990s galvanised local and national concern. In June 1996 the Borough Council bought a 999-year lease, with the support of Maggie Barwell. Two years, later the newly-formed 78 Derngate Northampton Trust took a 99-year sub-lease with the purpose of restoring the house and opening it to the public, along with the adjoining house, number 80, as an exhibition and circulation space. Work began in the summer of 2002.

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