Ivy House

This view looking down the hill towards Market Harborough
has Ivy House (formerly 'Cessnock') on the right.
The front wall and gate and a bay window are visible.

In the last years of the nineteenth century East Farndon Hall was the home of a staunch Baptist, James Dulley. He wanted the village to have its own chapel and it was for this purpose that he built the house now known as Ivy House. The local Harborough newspaper records, in its issue of 11th October 1898, that there was an opening ceremony, at which Mr. Popham of Brighton delivered an address. The description says that 'it is in the form of a house, with rooms upstairs'. Perhaps Mr Dulley always thought it could be used as a residential property, if its use as a chapel was not a success. It does not appear to have continued as a chapel for more than about a decade.