78 Derngate is re-modelled by Charles Rennie Mackintosh in 1916 for his client, Northampton model engineer, W.J Bassett-Lowke.
Purchased for Bassett-Lowke by his father as a wedding present, the house had originally been constructed 100 years previously.
The house is a typical early-nineteenth century brick terrace, built c. 1815-20. It consists of a basement kitchen and offices (opening into the garden at the back, because of the fall of the land), two ground floor rooms, two floors of two bedrooms each, and an attic room with dormer window, added later. It had a small courtyard at the rear, with a well and outside W.C.
