25. Haddon Hall, Derbyshiredetails

“The most complete and most interesting house of this period [the fourteenth century] is the well-known Haddon Hall in Derbyshire. It consists of two courts (Fig. 24), the hall being placed in the wing which divides them. It is thus protected on both of its long sides and is thereby enabled to have larger windows than if it had been on an outside wall. The exterior walls of the earlier parts of Haddon have comparatively few windows in them, and these of small size; and as the kitchen is one of the rooms so lighted it is dark, in spite of a larger window inserted in the sixteenth century, to a degree which horrifies housewives of the present day.

“Haddon being built on the slope of a hill could not be protected by a moat, hence it was more than ever necessary to be careful about external apertures. Some parts of Haddon are of the twelfth century, including much of the west wall, portions of the chapel (at the south-west corner), and the lower parts of the south and east walls and of the Peverel or Eagle tower; the licence granted to Richard de Vernon to fortify his house of Haddon with a wall 12 ft. high without crenellations is still preserved. This licence was granted by John, Earl of Morteigne, who, in 1199, became King John. The extent of this early work shows that already in the twelfth century there was a large house here, its area being little less than at the present day. But during the fourteenth century it was practically rebuilt on the lines which now remain, inasmuch as work of this period is to be found over the whole building. The extent of the house, and particularly the multiplicity of rooms, go to show how vastly the desire for comfort had increased by this time. Much other work was done in later years; the chapel was either enlarged or altered, and a range of rooms was added or rebuilt in the fifteenth century. In the early part of the sixteenth many of the rooms were embellished and modernised by Sir George Vernon, “the King of the Peak”; and yet later his daughter Dorothy and her husband Sir John Manners built the beautiful long gallery on the top of earlier rooms and laid out the garden with its picturesque terraces and noble flight of steps.” (pp. 46ff)