HADDON HALL

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 46, 23 August 1927, Page 5

HADDON HALL

A HOME ONCE MORE

DOROTHY VERNON ROMANCE

(From "The Post's 1' Representative.) LONDON, 15th June. The announcement that the Duke and Duchess of Butland and their family returned yesterday to Haadon Hall for the summer has prompted an interesting article which appears iv the "Daily telegraph." It is just two centuries and a quarter since the family last resided there, and almost two centuries sines a long string of carts carried off such furniture from Haddon to Belvoir as the first Duke and Duchess thought to bo worth preserving. "By some lucky chance," says the Telegraph," "the owners of Haddou must have had a sort of pre- jnition that a day of return might dawn, for they have always kept it water-tight. It has never been botched or rudely repaired. For at least a century it has been cared for intelligently and even reverently, as the priceless historical monument that any place must be whose stones bear silent witness to the architectural development of many centuries. From the Norman work iv the Eagle Tower to the thirteenth century work in the chapel, and from the fourteenth century Banquetting Hall to the Long Gallery and terraces'of the early seventeenth century, Haddon Hall is unique.

It was finished, so to speak, three centuries ago, and then, after a while, the Key was turned upon it, and only now does it become a home once more.

SLIGHTING REFERENCES. _ '! Nothing could better illustrate the fashion that there is in taste than the slighting references to Haddon throughout the eighteenth century. Horace Walpole, who went to have a look at it whenhe was in the neighbourhood, dismisses it as «a romantic old castle of the Eutlands, but which never could have composed a tolerable dwelling ' Daves, the water-colourist, does indeed make exception of the Gallery, but for the rest observes that 'the dark; and uncomfortable rooms convey but a low idea of the taste of our ancestors or of their domestic pleasures.' However the ingenuity of the modern architect contrives to find new light for even the darkest chambers, and twentieth century science has no doubt conjured away many of the difficulties, which till lately would have made Haddon Hall a most impossible place to.'run.' After ali, such 'state' as will be maintained at Haddon in the future will not depend upon the presence of swarms of noisy retainers and the cooking of gross mountains of food in the great kitchens. Jts new phase is that of a quiet summerresidence, which it can never have been in the days of the Peverils, the Avenells, the Vernons, and the Manners. It was the Vernons who erected Haddon during 400 years of ownership, and the last of them, known for his magnificence as the King'of the Peak was the father of the Dorothy Vernon who brought the estate and lands to swell the growing territorial power of the Manners."

It was Eliza Meteyara, who signed herself "Silyerfern," who invented, or popularised; the story of John lanners persuading Dorothy Vernon to elope with him and brave the anger of her father by running off with a penniless younger son. . "Tjie cold truth," says the writer of the article, "is that there was no elopement, and no need for elopement. The Manners-Vernon marriage was all finally arranged between the parties in the ordinary way, with lawyers and settlements complete. SToung John Manners, so far from being penniless, was a most eligible and desirable match; the King of the Peak was friendly and paternal. Moreover, the Long Gallery itself and the doorway which thousands with the eye of faith have seen cautiously open to Dorothy's hand were not built till she was mistress of Haddon Hall, and—it is to be feared —had developed into .the thin-lipped, hard-fea-tured dame who kneels so stiffly on her monument in Bakewell Church. It is Haddon, the House Beautiful, not fair Dorothy Vernon, that is the authentic romance of Haddon Hall. But the romantic British public will not have it so. Dorothy Vernon, despite that grim face above the prayer-cushion, remains as eternally fair as the maid on the Grecian Urn. Everyone will wish, many more centuries of tranquil age to Haddon; even those who.are somewhat rueful of a change, which, • however, desirable in itself, must have'the effect of withdrawing, if not completely, at any rate in great measure, Haddon Hail from its place at the head of the list of the popular 'sights' of Derbyshire."