HADDON HALL

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 82, 5 April 1924, Page 16

HADDON HALL

HOME OF DOROTHY - VERNON,

Those who have never visited Haddon Hall may not believe what is so obvious to those who have^-that here "is one favoured corner of the world which has defied time, /fleclares a writer in the ("Christian Science Monitor." When you have left, behind the little river and have climbed the hill to the castle entrance, date's are all composed of ciphers, centuries play mischievous games and skip across the room into xopposite chairs. You are no longer in the twentieth century, but the sixteenth. Dorothy Vei--' non. might have fled the length of tho terrace beneath the beeches, down the moss-green steps, only yesterday. You are ready to plead her cause against any and all who refer to her hasty departure from the/ballroom as "a fabrication of the eighteenth century." ■ , At Haddon Hall her personality is every bit as. vivid as the more tangible brick, and stone and turf. \ For are you not walking along uneven' passages, through paved courts, under Tudor portals into the very panelled rooms which Dorothy Vernon knew 1 Nothing seems altered. The damasks may be, faded and-musty, the pews in the chapel''grey with age, yet the uncertain English sunshine casts , occasional, shadows, -faintly red: and blue and • purple, through the same casements, ■ painted . with armorial bearings. It heeds but the flicker.of an eyelash and-r-presto! back troop all the barfquest guests, a gorgeously apparelled crowd of them. You see the solemn procession': of servants: carrying the dishes aloft at arms' length ; you hear the scrapings .of the musicians, preparing for tho dance; then you watch intently for Dorothy's escape—when all at once: "This way, please, ladies and gentlemen,"- prat-., ties fjhe guide. Well,, be rid. of the guide at any cost. , Go at a "late hour, in a season unpopular with, tourists ; get Haddon Hall to yourself for one-half hour/ if you would see history dissolve, into the tissue of tha moment. -. ■