Before we proceed to describe the HALL, however, we shall give some accounts of its earlier owners—the VERNONS—reserving for an after-part the history of their successors, the illustrious family of MANNERS, from their origin, as knights, to the period of their high elevation, as Earls and Dukes of Rutland, and so down to the present time. The history of Haddon, unlike that of most of our ancient baronial residences, has always been one of peace and hospitality, not of war and feud and oppression; and however much its owners may, at one period or other, have been mixed up in the stirring events of the ages in which they lived, Haddon itself has taken no part in the turmoils. It has literally been a stronghold: but it has been the stronghold of home and domestic life, not of armed strife. * * * * * [Illustration: _Arms of Vernon quartering Avenell._] HADDON, at the time of taking the Domesday survey, when the manor of Bakewell belonged to, and was held by, the king, was a berewite of the manor; and there one carucate of land was claimed by Henry de Ferrars. Over-Haddon, a village two or three miles off, on the hills, was also another berewite of the same manor. To whom Haddon belonged in the Saxon period is not clear; the first owner of which there is any distinct knowledge is this Henry de Ferrars, who held it in 1086, and who, by grant of the Conqueror, had no less than 114 manors in Derbyshire alone; he built Duffield Castle, and founded the Church of the Holy Trinity, near the Castle of Tutbury. Haddon was at a very early period held, it is said, by tenure of knight’s service, by William Avenell, who resided there, and was possessed of much land in the neighbourhood. Soon after the foundation of Roche Abbey, in 1147, William de Avenell, Lord of Haddon, gave to that establishment the grange of Oneash and its appurtenances. One of the daughters and co-heiresses of William de Avenell, Elizabeth, married Simon Bassett, of the fine old family of Bassett, owners of much property in this and the neighbouring counties; the other married Richard de Vernon; and thus Haddon passed into that noted family, of which we proceed to give some particulars.