Wingfield Manor
Wingfield Manor is a ruined manor house left deserted since the 1770s, near the village of South Wingfield and some west of the town of Alfreton in the English county of Derbyshire. There is a working farm that forms part of the old manor. It is now in the care of English Heritage, listed on Historic England's Heritage at Risk Register, and is not open currently to the public. History Construction of the manor began in 1441 for Treasurer to Henry VI, Sir Ralph Cromwell, though the building was not completed until after his death when John Talbot, the second Earl of Shrewsbury, bought the property. His family maintained the manor within the property for nearly two hundred years. After which, Parliament decreed that the manor be dismantled and allowed to fall into ruin, and parts were taken for building materials, leaving behind the present ruins. It is also considered to house the first flushing toilet, built in 1596. Mary, Queen of Scots, at Wingfield The sixth Earl of Shrewsbury was entrusted with the care of Mary, Queen of Scots, when she was detained from 1569 onward, in his various houses around Derbyshire, Wingfield among them. In August 1569 the Earl was anxious to move Mary from Wingfield. He wanted to take her to Sheffield because Wingfield needed cleaning. There were over 240 people in residence and the manor "waxed unsavoury." At Sheffield, the Earl had two houses, Sheffield Castle and Sheffield Manor and could easily move the queen between them when cleaning was necessary. Mary was still at Wingfield at the time of the Rebellion of the North in November 1569. The Earl of Shrewsbury heard of a plot to release Mary at that time. The Earl of Northumberland and his wife had come to stay nearby at Wentworth House. The alleged escape plan involved the Countess of Northumberland pretending to be a nurse and coming to attend Christine Hogg, the pregnant wife of the embroiderer Bastian Pagez. The Countess was "something like the queen in personage" and would take Mary's place while she escaped. Queen Elizabeth wrote to the Earl of Shrewsbury on 14 March 1570 giving permission for him to move Mary back to Wingfield because the water supply at Tutbury Castle was inadequate. The Earl had hoped to take Mary to Chatsworth House and also made preparations there. Mary was back at Wingfield in 1584 and Ralph Sadler described in October how the "castle" was guarded by soldiers armed with pistols, muskets and halberds, and the difficult terrain nearby which would deter escape. He wrote about the unsatisfactory conditions in November, when she was to move to Tutbury Castle. Mary's bedchamber at Wingfield was too close to the kitchens and the "smoke and scent of meat" from below, despite being the best lodging in the house. It may have been at Wingfield that Mary met Anthony Babington, whose family lived at Dethick nearby, who organised the abortive Babington Plot, a Recusant Catholic plot against Elizabeth I.