[1] The manor of Duffield was granted by King Charles I to the Newton family who built a new mansion house there in the 1620s.

In the early 19th century he left the property to his kinsman Thomas Porter Bonell whose daughter married Sir Charles H Colville.

After Colville's death, the house was sold to John Bell Crompton of Milford (High Sheriff in 1847) a Banker of Irongate, Derby.

Smith extensively restored and improved the house creating the present mansion of three storeys and five gabled bays.

[3] The school closed in 1970 and in 1977 the property was acquired by the Derbyshire Building Society for whom it was restored and extended by architects George Grey and Partners.