During the next of the periods into which styles group themselves, namely, that of Elizabeth and James I., there were notable additions made to Derbyshire houses. There is all the beautiful work of the Earl of Rutland at Haddon—of him who came into possession in right of his wife, Dorothy Vernon. Chief among it is the long gallery, which he formed among the ancient walls, pulling down here and adding there, adorning it with handsome panelling and a fretted ceiling, all ornamented with his own arms and those of his wife. There are Hardwick Hall, and Barlborough; the remains of Swarkeston in the extreme south, and Sudbury in the south-west, not to mention numerous manor houses scattered all over the county. Hardwick Hall is, in some respects, one of the most interesting of Derbyshire houses. It is an excellent example of the stately and symmetrical planning which was much in vogue in the days of Elizabeth, and it has survived without any serious alterations, except such as were necessary for the comfort of modern life. Haddon has not been obliged to submit to this test, and therefore retains even more of its original flavour; but Hardwick illustrates vividly the large ideas and the desire for magnificence which dominate much of the design of that period. Moreover, it retains what very few of its contemporaries can boast of—its entrance gatehouse and garden walls. The builder was the renowned Bess of Hardwick, one of the great Elizabethan builders, a worthy rival of the Cecils and Hattons. She claims on her monument in All Hallows’ Church, Derby, to have built Hardwick, Chatsworth, and Oldcotes; but the last-named has disappeared, and Chatsworth has been rebuilt, leaving this house as her sole monument. The legend runs that so long as she kept building she would not die, but that a long frost occurring while she was engaged upon Bolsover, the men were obliged to desist from their work, and thereby struck the knell of their mistress. But we have already seen that Bolsover was the work of her son, and that it was not begun until six or seven years after her death. The work at Hardwick presents the most complete contrast to that at Bolsover. There everything had to be restricted to the narrow limits of the old site; all the work is carefully designed, and much of it delicately executed. Here the arrangements are far from compact, and the detail is coarse. No particular ingenuity has been exercised. The staircases are merely flights of steps, without any of the charming balustrades and newel-posts which adorn most Elizabethan staircases. The windows are so overdone in order to produce a striking external effect, that many of them are mere shams, and never were anything else, while others have a floor going across them, and light one storey with their lower lights and another with their upper. But it is just these points which lend interest to the place, and show how everything had to give way to the prevailing passion for symmetry.