HADDON is, in the Domesday Book, mentioned as a berewick in the manor of Bakewell; it was granted by the Conqueror to his natural son, William Peverel, and it is not improbable that some parts of the present building were constructed about that time. It remained in the possession of the Peverels two generations only, and was then granted by one of the family to a retainer named Avenell,[12] on the tenure of knight’s service. In the reign of Richard I., or that of John, it again changed owners, passing by the marriage of the coheiresses of the Avenells into the families of Vernon and Bassett. “The heiress of Vernon, in the reign of Henry III., married Gilbert le Francis, whose son Richard took the name of Vernon, and died, in 1296, at the age of twenty-nine. This Richard was common ancestor to the Vernons of Haddon, Stokesay, Hodnet, Sudbury, &c.” Haddon continued a joint possession of these two families until in or before the reign of Henry VI., when the whole became vested in the Vernons, who had purchased Bassett’s moiety.

Haddon was in the possession of the Vernons more than three centuries and a half, and several of its lords held situations of great interest and responsibility. Sir Richard Vernon is mentioned as Speaker of the Parliament held at Leicester in 1425; and his son, also named Richard, was the last person who held for life the important office of Constable of England. The grandson of the latter, Sir Henry Vernon, had charge of the education of Prince Arthur, son of Henry VIII., and is said to have had his royal pupil residing with him for some time at Haddon. Sir George Vernon, the last of this branch of the family, was distinguished for his magnificent style of living, the number of his retinue, and unbounded hospitality, which procured for him the appellation of “King of the Peak.” His possessions amounted to thirty manors, all of which on his death, in 1565, descended to his two daughters, Margaret and Dorothy. On a division of the property, the Derbyshire estates were assigned to Dorothy, the younger of the coheiresses, who married Sir John Manners, second son of Thomas first earl of Rutland, ancestor of the present noble owner, his Grace the Duke of Rutland.

Haddon was a favourite place of residence of the Earls of Rutland, and also of the first Duke, who was raised to that dignity by Queen Anne, in 1703, and who, during the life of his father, was summoned to Parliament by writ, as Baron Manners of Haddon.[13]

The first Duke resided here in great state, maintaining seven score servants, and keeping Christmas with open house, as his father had done before him, “in the true style of old English hospitality.”[14] In the reign of Queen Anne, the family finally quitted Haddon as a place of residence, and in 1760 the old hall was despoiled of nearly all its moveable furniture, which was taken to Belvoir Castle, where it still remains. Since that period Haddon has been carefully preserved, and, except on one or two occasions, when the festivities of the place were for a moment revived, a solemn stillness has reigned throughout its precincts, broken only by the tread of the occasional visitor.

The Hall occupies a situation of extreme beauty, being placed on a bold shelving

mass of limestone, at the base of which runs the river Wye. It is surrounded by well-grown woods, and offers an almost infinite variety of rich subjects for the artist. It has much of the appearance of an old fortress, but is in reality little fitted for defence; the greater part of the present building having been erected by the Vernons and Manners in times when moral force and law had happily taken the place of the tenure by which property was maintained in earlier ages. The buildings cover a considerable space of ground, and are arranged in the form of a double square, enclosing two quadrangular courts. The entrance-tower, at the north-west corner, is one of the more ancient parts of the structure. The entrance is by a large arched gateway, leading to a flight of old dilapidated steps, on ascending which the visitor finds himself in the first great court.

The interior of the building has been so well and so minutely described by Mr. King, in the “ArchÆologia,” that we will transfer some of his remarks to our pages. Beginning, then, with this tower, he says:—

“The approach is by a steep hill, which a horse can scarcely climb, and which continues quite to the great arched gateway that forms the entrance: this is directly under a high tower, and seems originally to have had double gates. From hence you pass into a large square court, entirely surrounded by the apartments, and paved with flat stones. But you ascend it, at the corner, by a flight of angular steps, just within the gate, in such a manner that it is impossible to have admittance otherwise than on foot, and no horse or carriage could ever approach the door of the house. After crossing this court, you come to a second flight of steps, which lead up directly to the great porch, under a small tower, on passing through which you find yourself behind the screen of the Great Hall,—a room that was originally considered as the public dining-room for the lord and his guests, and, indeed, after them, for the whole family; for, in tracing the ancient apartments, there appears manifestly to have been none besides of sufficient magnitude for either the one purpose or the other.” From this hall a flight of steps leads to the upper chambers.

Over the doorway of the porch of the Great Hall are the arms of the Vernons and of Fulco de Pembridge, Lord of Tonge, in Shropshire; the latter Sir Richard Vernon was entitled to in right of his wife, who was the daughter and sole heiress of Sir Fulk de Pembridge. From this circumstance, it has been conjectured that he built this part of the house.

The provision made in the adjoining offices for the convenience and attendance of the several servants of the household is very curious. On the left hand of the great door of entrance, directly behind the hall screen, are four large doorways, with high pointed arches, extending, in a row, the whole length of the hall, and facing the upper end. The first of these still retains its ancient door of strong oak, with a little wicket in the middle, just big enough to put a trencher in or out, and was clearly the butler’s station; for the room within still retains a vast old chest of oak, with divisions for bread, a large old cupboard for cheese, and a number of shelves for butter. “Besides, out of this apartment (which is itself spacious, and separate from the rest of the house) is a passage, down steps, to a large vaulted room, arched with stone, and supported by pillars, like the crypt of a church, which, though very light and airy, was cool, and manifestly designed for the beer-cellar, there being still remains of a raised low benching of stonework all round, sufficient to hold a prodigious number of casks, and a neat stone drain all along before it, underneath, to carry away any droppings. Through this great arched room is also another passage to what was obviously the brewhouse and bakehouse, where are remains of places for vast coppers, coolers, and ovens. Near adjoining are store-rooms for corn and malt, and a communication from thence with the outside of the building for bringing in of stores. But in other respects this whole suite of offices was quite unconnected with the other offices, and had no kind of communication either with them or with the rest of the mansion, except by the door of entrance near the hall, in which is the little wicket.”

The second pointed arch—next to the buttery, and facing the hall in like manner—is the entrance of a long, narrow passage, leading, with a continued descent, to the great kitchen, and having in the midway an half door, or hatch, with a broad shelf on the top of it, whereupon to place dishes; to which, and no further, the servants in waiting were to have access. “The next, being the third of the great pointed arches, behind the screen, at the bottom of the hall, opens merely into one very small vaulted room, unconnected with any other: that was clearly the wine-cellar; which (according to the frugality and ideas of early times, when wine was considered merely as a cordial and dram) needed to be but small.” The fourth great arch is at the bottom of a great steep staircase, quite distinct from the grand staircase of the house, and leading up to a prodigious variety of small apartments, which seem to have been designed for the reception of guests and numerous retainers, there being others, of a still inferior sort, in other parts of the house, for servants; especially in the range of building opposite to the great door of the hall.

Such was the use of these four great arches behind the hall screen, and we may with great propriety conceive, that they were the stations of the butler, the clerk of the kitchen, the cellarer, and the chamberlain, or steward of the household, of this great family. “The provision for the officers and attendants being so great, we shall yet find here, as in all very ancient mansions, that the apartments of the lord of the castle (or what we should now call the state apartments) were very few in number, and little adequate to the rest, according to our modern and more refined ideas.”

The great hall of entrance, just described, was the only large apartment for dining. At the upper end remains the raised floor, where the table for the lord and his principal guests was placed; and along one side of the hall, and also over the screen at the lower end, is a gallery, supported by pillars; from whence (when the lord and his company had retired to the apartments above, and the inferior members of the family had supplied their places) the country guests and their hospitable hosts occasionally beheld the revels.

The Great Hall still contains the old oaken table, at which the lord feasted his more

favoured guests. The Minstrel’s Gallery is carved and panelled, and ornamented in the true old fashion, with the antlers of stags—memorials of the chase. There is no ceiling; the roof and rafters are exposed to view; the fireplaces are large; and the walls are wainscoted all round, to a certain height. From this great hall, at the upper end, in the corner on the left hand, are two passages; one opening upon the terraces in the garden, inviting the guests to refresh themselves; and the other leading to the grand staircase, and the principal apartments above.

“This staircase is formed of large blocks of stone; which can hardly be said to be

either jointed or joined, and from the top of it, on the right, you enter what we should now call a drawing-room, hung with arras, and having a large bow-window as the only light to it, at one corner, and a little door at the other, behind the arras, leading into the gallery just mentioned, which goes round two sides of the hall. This room, however, (whatever name we might now give it) was called the Dining-room, and probably had that appellation because the lord of the mansion did, even originally, on some particular occasions, here entertain a few of his visitors of high dignity and rank; and because afterwards, in latter ages, it became more commonly appropriated to that purpose, when greater distinction was ordinarily made between the guests.”

This room is low; the ceiling is divided by five beams, which were once gilt and otherwise decorated. It has a rich cornice, and the walls are covered with oak wainscoting. It contains a fine oriel window, decorated with arms, emblems of the chase, and royal portraits, said to be those of Henry VII. and his queen, whose son, Prince Arthur, as we have seen, was partly educated here. In this room is a portrait of the king’s jester, “Will Somers.” Under a carving of the royal arms is the following pithy exhortation, in old English, Drede God and honor the King; a right good old-fashioned mode of exhibiting moral precepts, a custom more honored in the observance than the breach.

“On the left of the passage, at the head of the great stairs, you ascend again by five or six enormous semicircular steps (framed of solid masses of timber, as ill joined as the stone steps), to a fine long gallery, 110 feet in length, and 17 in width, which is now all wainscoted, in a curious manner, with fine oak, the frieze being adorned with boars’ heads, thistles, and roses. This wainscoting, though modern in comparison with the antiquity of the house, is yet become in these days very ancient, and conveys an excellent idea of the magnificence of the intermediate ages. There is a great square recess in the midst of the gallery, of fifteen feet by twelve, besides several great bow-windows; and the whole puts one very much in mind of the galleries in the old palaces in France, so often mentioned by Sully and the French historians.”

This magnificent Gallery, or ball-room, is said to have been erected in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It occupies the whole south side of the inner court. Its narrowness seriously impairs what is otherwise a very beautiful design: its height is fifteen feet. The floor is of oak, respecting which tradition gives a curious story; to the effect

that the boards were all furnished from one tree that grew in the garden, and that its roots were cut into the circular steps by which entrance to the gallery is gained. The windows contain the armorial devices of the successive owners, and those of Prince Arthur. The ceiling is extremely beautiful, graceful, and elegant, in a high degree,

and is a fair specimen of an age that, more than any other, produced wonderful designs of this description. The architecture of Elizabeth and James had nothing to shew more beautiful than its ceilings. From this gallery a short passage leads to a room named by Mr. King “My lord’s parlour,” but on insufficient authority. From this apartment there is a passage, through ill-framed doors, to a flight of stairs, leading down to the principal terrace of the garden.

The “garden at Haddon” has been time out of mind a treasure-store of the English landscape-painter; one of the most favourite “bits” being “Dorothy Vernon’s walk,” with the door out of which tradition describes her as escaping to meet her lover, Sir John Manners, with whom she eloped.[15]

“All these rooms, except the gallery, were hung with loose arras, a great part of which still remains; and the doors were concealed everywhere behind the hangings, so that the tapestry was to be lifted up to pass in or out; only for convenience there were great iron hooks (many of which are still in their places), by means whereof it might occasionally be held back. Few of these doors fit close, and wooden bolts, rude bars, and iron hasps, are in general their best and only fastenings. Besides the gallery, the dining-room, and these three apartments, there were only two others, and those but small ones, which could be said to belong at all to the principal suite. One of these apartments, however, is very remarkable; having an odd cornice, with a deep quadruple frieze, three or four feet in depth, if not more, formed of plaster, and adorned with a running foliage of leaves and flowers, in four compartments, like bands, or fillets, one above another. The room is hung with arras, as the others are; but from a quaint sort of neatness appearing in the whole of it more than in them (we quote again from Mr. King), “I am much inclined to call it my lady’s chamber. There is, behind the tapestry, the door I mentioned, leading to a steep flight of narrow steps, which descend into the great court, not far from the arch belonging to the chapel, and which gave her an opportunity of going thither rather a nearer way than the rest of the family, and without crossing so much of the great court. All the rest of this great pile of building (containing another large square court besides that we have been speaking of) is filled with small trifling apartments, not one of which deserves description, but which formed a labyrinth almost as inextricable as that of Crete, and which could be of no use but to lodge a vast host of dependents, retainers, and servants.”

The Chapel is placed at the south-west corner of the Hall. It is of great antiquity, and

contains many objects of interest, although it is of comparatively small size. It has a body and two aisles: the pulpit and reading-desk are on the left side. The pews of the family are high, of rich old oak, which was originally gilt. There is, also, a rich Gothic window, which formerly contained much painted glass, of old date, part of which was stolen some years ago. The roof was reconstructed in 1624 by Sir George Manners. Part of the chapel is exhibited in the appended engraving.

One remark only we have space to add. The evil hands that have fallen upon so many of our national edifices have spared Haddon; the ruthless improvements of “classic Goths” have been forbidden here. This we owe to the noble house of Rutland: who claim, therefore, a debt of gratitude alike from those who love nature and those who venerate antiquity.