37-39 St John Street

▪ Grade II* listed building (of more than special interest)

▪ Original building(s) probably dates to 1784

▪ May have been rebuilt by Thomas Pidcock c1799

▪ Contains the “Painted Room” with landscapes on the walls (1830s?)

▪ Pidcocks, plumbers, glaziers & painters 1799-1870

▪ John Barker, Shrovetide ball painter, occupied the workshops early 20th century – 1948

▪ Linda Elaine has been a tenant since 2002

Numbers 37-39 are on the north side of the street towards its eastern end.

The Building

This is a Grade II* listed building which dates to the 18^th century and has a room containing early 19^th century wall paintings.

It is three storeys high plus a cellar, built of red brick, and has a roof of plain tiles with chimney stacks at both ends. The eaves cornice consists of bricks set diagonally (cogging). The building has an L-shaped plan with a long range at the back on the west side.

On the first and second floors there are 2x2 sash windows with keyed lintels which are late 19^th century or more modern replacements. Those on the second floor are smaller. On the left rear side at second floor level there is a single Gothic brick-arched window divided by Y-shaped ribs (tracery) and with diamond shaped panes (see below).

On the ground floor, there are also two windows, the one on the right being like the windows on the first floor while the one on the left is a canted bay window with the large central and the smaller flanking sashe windows each having two panes of glass. This bay window was a later, probably Victorian, addition.

Also on the ground floor is a flight of semicircular steps leads up to the six-paneled door in which the upper two panels are glazed (also a later addition). The door surround (jambs) is ribbed (fluted) with the same style of keyed lintel as seen on the windows.

There are less than 10 known examples in the country of early 19^th century painted rooms. The paintings, with Dutch-style landscape panoramas, were executed by the local artist Thomas Ravensdale (1811-72) who was in the employ of the Pidcocks who lived in the house (as documented by Charles Edwin Pidcockin 1914, see below left). The wall paintings were probably made in the 1830s when Thomas Ravensdale’s name appears in the commercial directories as a house painter and letter cutter for gravestones.

The wall paintings have been covered up on a number of occasions only being rediscovered in 1914 and1966 (see below). They depict Kedleston Hall with the Meynell hunt and perhaps Sandybrook Hall.

Some photographs were taken more recently before they were covered up again:

The History of its Occupation and Use

The original building(s) at this location probably dates to 1784 because Land Tax records do not show anything until this date. In 1784, John Burton, who was a cordwainer (shoemaker), is shown as the owner and occupier. In 1792, Mark Bassano, grocer, become the occupant and in 1797 Thomas Pidcock, plumber and glazier, became the owner taking up occupation himself, along with other tenants, in 1799. Thomas Pidcock may have rebuilt the house (see below).

Thomas Pidcock died in 1822 and the house was advertised to be sold by auction (see below). It is described as “Two sashed messuages or dwelling houses…in the several possessions of Mr. Henry Pidcock & M. Whitaker, with a small tenement unoccupied, and a Glazier’s shop in the yard behind the messuages, also in the possession of Mr. Pidcock.”

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Release and mortgage documents from 1824 show that the property was acquired by Henry Pidcock, the son of Thomas Pidcock, by taking out a mortgage. These documents refer to the property as two dwellings built where “two old messuages” previously existed. The one at the front was a public house "The Three Crowns", whose proprietor was Benjamin Stevenson, and the other at the rear was occupied by William Oliver. Three other parts of the property are also mentioned:

1)    A room or chamber at the rear which has previously stood and had been occupied by Anthony Woodhouse.

2)    A workshop at the upper part of the yard at the back previously occupied by Mark Anthony Bassano and Thomas Hurd but in 1824 by Henry Pidcock and Thomas Whittaker.

3)    A house in the yard behind the property on the west side occupied by Richard Massey(?).

No date for when the new property replaced the old ones is given and all that is said is “some time since”. Benjamin Stevenson (1720-87), as a master brewer, had taken on an apprentice in 1784 so it is therefore thought likely that the new property dates from the very late 18^th century.

Henry Pidcock passed away in 1833 leaving the house to his wife Sarah and, upon her remarrying or her death, to his five children, Thomas, John, Henry, Margaret Ann, and William.

In the 1842, Sarah dissolved her partnership with her eldest son Thomas (see below left) and then in 1844 gave notice that she would not be responsible for any of her son Henry’s debts (see below right).

Sarah continued running the business until her death in 1870 when the house was sold to William Thompson Burgess who continued the business with John Lees. William was probably related to Sarah, whose maiden name was Burgess, and had been taken on by her while he was a boy (see excerpt above from Uttoxeter Advertiser & Ashbourne Times, Wednesday 06 May 1914_p6). The 1870 conveyance document gives additional occupants of the workshop and the house on the west side.

Burgess and Lees, plumbers, are listed on St John St in commercial directories from 1870 to 1899. John Lees married William Thompson Burgess’s daughter Annie but he passed away in 1880. Shortly before his death in 1896, William Thompson Burgess conveyed the property to his daughter Annie Lees. The 1896 conveyance document gives additional occupants of the workshop and the house on the west side.

With her father’s death, Annie retired and became a private resident. She only survived her father by 13 years and in her will she left the property to her cousin Anna Maria Cooper who lived in Sibstone, Leicestershire. Between 1909 and 1951, 37-39 St John St, including the workshop, were rental properties.

The most notable occupant during this period was John Barker who ran his house decorating business from the workshop.

John Barker is most well-known for painting Shrovetide football balls from 1878, when he was 14 years old, until shortly before his death in 1948, at the age of 84 (see examples below lower left and right). He painted the first balls used on Tuesdays including that presented to Princess Mary in 1922 when the game acquired the “Royal” prefix (see photo below upper left), and that turned up in 1928 by the Prince of Wales (the Prince also received a replica ball painted by John Barker). He was also a player on the Down’ard side, goaling at least three times in 1891, 1892 and 1925, and started the game by turning up in 1918 and 1920. He also painted balls in national colours that were sent to the Ashburnians on the front in 1916 and 1918 so they could play the game.

The Pidcock/Burgess/Lees/Cooper families owned 37-39 St John St for more than 135 years but their association with the property came to an end in 1951 when Lilian Saint Cooper, Anna Maria’s daughter, sold it to Edith Wood (mother) and Frank Wood (son). Neither Edith or Frank appears to have taken up residence in the house, however, John Temple Wood, Franks’s son, opened a betting shop on the premises no later than the 1960s and it is understood he and his family did live in the house.

Dick Marsh acquired the property in 1982 and, after renovations, opened a kitchen showroom which traded for 9 years (see advert below left). From 1992, there were various short-term tenants of the shop, Ashbourne Home Decor, Photo-Images (see advert below right), and the Internet Café. The upper floors were converted to flats in the 1990s. Dick Marsh sold the property to Jane and David Powell in 2008 and the current tenant of the shop, Linda Elaine, has been there for 22 years.

© Paul Thompson 2025