This book explores the history of Tapton House (Home of George Stephenson b.1781 d.1848, and its residents from 1794, when it was built, to the year 2000. The residents included Isaac Wilkinson, a wealthy Chesterfield banker, who built the house; George Yeldham Ricketts, who managed to get rid of a fortune, left to him by Isaac, very quickly; George Stephenson the railway engineer, Clay Cross industrialist, horticulturalist and friend of Joseph Paxton of Chatsworth House fame and the Markham family, industrialists and civic leaders Charles, Rosa, Charles Paxton, Arthur and Violet. In its time Tapton has been an elegant home, a ladies boarding school, a co-educational school and finally a college of further education.

The book contains many previously unpublished illustrations and will appeal to those who are interested in discovering more about the house and the people who lived and worked there in the nineteenth and twentieth century. It also gives us a chance to revisit the period when it was Tapton House School, to discover yet more about the place and people we loved so much.