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Updated: June 24, 2025
Tapton House is a large roomy brick mansion, beautifully situated amidst woods, upon a commanding eminence, about a mile to the north-east of the town of Chesterfield. Green fields dotted with fine trees slope away from the house in all directions. The surrounding country is undulating and highly picturesque.
The gardens and pleasure-grounds adjoining the house were in a very neglected state when Mr. Stephenson first went to Tapton; and he promised himself, when he had secured rest and leisure from business, that he would put a new face upon both.
He was also curious about the breeding and fattening of fowls; and when his friend Edward Pease of Darlington visited him at Tapton, he explained a method which he had invented for fattening chickens in half the usual time. Mrs. Stephenson tried to keep bees, but found they would not thrive at Tapton. Many hives perished, and there was no case of success.
Stephenson extended his coal-mining operations in the same neighbourhood; and in 1841 he himself entered into a contract with owners of land in adjoining townships for the working of the coal thereunder; and pits were opened on the Tapton estate on an extensive scale.
Stephenson told Lord Denman the interesting story of his life, which held him entranced during the remainder of the journey. Many of his friends readily accepted invitations to Tapton House to enjoy his hospitality, which never failed.
Tapton House was included in the lease of one of the collieries, and as it was conveniently situated—being, as it were, a central point on the Midland Railway, from which he could readily proceed north or south, on his journeys of inspection of the various lines then under construction in the midland and northern counties,—he took up his residence there, and it continued his home until the close of his life.
When proceeding from Chesterfield station to Tapton House with his friends, he would almost invariably challenge them to a race up the steep path, partly formed of stone steps, along the hill side. And he would struggle, as of old, to keep the front place, though by this time his “wind” had greatly failed.
Towards the end of his life, “Bobby” lived in clover, its master’s pet, doing no work; and he died at Tapton, in 1845, more than twenty years old. During one of George’s brief sojourns at the Grange, he found time to write to his son a touching account of a pair of robins that had built their nest within one of the upper chambers of the house.
Shortly after his return to Tapton, he had an attack of intermittent fever, from which he seemed to be recovering, when a sudden effusion of blood from the lungs carried him off, on the 12th August, 1848, in the sixty-seventh year of his age.
Through the streets of Todborough and on through the environs of the city the gay cavalcade rode decorously and discreetly; but nearing Tapton Downs, the spirits of the party seemed to rise as they encountered the fresh sea-breeze. "I am sure you must be dying for a good gallop," said Blanche, turning to Sylla Chipchase.
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