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The Old Manor in the Derbyshire village of Norbury was reconstructed from a late-fifteenth-century building. Some of the old Flemish stained-glass roundels, recorded since 1581, depicting the months and showing the seasonal activities of the farm labourer, were also preserved. It is described in George Eliot's 'Adam Bede' as: 'a very fine old place, of red brick, softened by a pale powdery lichen, which has dispersed itself with happy irregularity'.
It was owned by the Catholic Fitzherbert family whose kinsman Mr Marcus Beresford Busfield Stapleton Martin (1911–1987), bequeathed it to the Trust along with a few paintings, notably the John Hoppner (1758–1810) landscape, which had been in his family since it was painted by the artist.