Revolution House

Revolution House
Derbyshire
Revolution House
Type:	Museum
Location
Grid reference:	SK38397496
Location:	53°16’13"N, 1°25’33"W
Village:	Old Whittington
History
	Built 17th century
	Museum
Information

Revolution House is a 17th century inn standing on the High Street in Old Whittington in Derbyshire, which is now a museum recounting a dramatic episode in history. The inn was, in its time, known as the Cock and Pynot Inn and it was in the Cock and Pynot in 1688 that conspirators met to plan the invitation to be sent to Prince William of Orange to sail to these shores and overthrow the tyranny of his uncle, King James II.

Revolution House is a small stone cottage, which is now a museum. The inn is a Grade II* listed building.

The invitation to William

In 1688, William Cavendish, Earl of Devonshire, whose seat was at nearby Chatsworth House, held a covert meeting at the Cock and Pynot in Old Whittington, with Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby and Mr John D'Arcy, fourth son of the Earl of Holderness. Poor weather caused them to move their meeting inside the inn. This group devised the plans to extend an invitation to Prince William of Orange, the effective ruler of the Netherlands, to overthrow King James II, whose Roman Catholicism and tyrannical rule had become intolerable. Prince William landed in Devon on 5 November 1688 and swiftly caused James to flee: this change came to be known as the Glorious Revolution.

The tiny museum of today features period furnishings and exhibition of local interest.

On the centenary of the meeting in 1788, the local vicar, Samuel Pegge, was amongst about fifty dignitaries who met at Revolution House in 1788 on the centennial of the Glorious Revolution, while it was still an alehouse. The procession was led by the Duke of Devonshire, the Duchess and the Mayor of Chesterfield.

There is a public house in Old Whittington which is called the 'Cock and Magpie', founded in 1790, its name taken from the old Cock and Pynot when the latter was converted into a cottage: a pynot in the local dialect is a magpie.

Structure

The renaming part of the inn is a seventeenth century building in stone rubble. It has a thatched roof, stone coped gable ends with kneelers. It is over one and a half storeys. A plaque on end wall bears the following inscription: "AD 1688. In a roan which formerly existed at the end of this cottage ... The Earl of Danby, the Early of Devonshire and Mr John Apey, eldest son of the Earl of Holderness met sometime in 1688 to concert measures which resulted in the Revolution of that year".