After mounting the inner steps, the visitor passes into the first court-yard, and will not fail to notice the remarkable character of the splaying and chamfering of the building in the angle over the inner archway. This is one of the most remarkable features of the building. Its strange character is to some extent occasioned by the winding of a double spiral stone staircase, leading to the tower over the entrance archway. The inside of this gateway, with the enormous hoop, said to have been the hoop of a mash-tub, hanging on the wall, is shown in our vignette. We are now in the lower court-yard, and at once perceive that Haddon consists of two court-yards, or quadrangles, with buildings surrounding each. Immediately opposite the gateway are the stone steps that lead to the state apartments; to the right is the chapel, and to the left, the HALL proper, with its minstrels’ gallery and other objects of curious—some of unique interest. The general arrangement will be best understood by the ground-plan, which, however, requires some explanation. [Illustration: GROUND AND GARDEN PLAN OF HADDON] On account of the abruptness of the slope on which Haddon is built, it stands so unevenly, that a horizontal line drawn from the ground in the archway under the Peverel Tower would pass _over_ the entrance archway. Consequently, that archway, the porter’s lodge, and entrance to the spiral staircase on its right hand, and on the left the two rooms entered from the walk behind the partition wall, and before mounting the steps, form what may, looking at it in that light, be called a basement story, to which also belongs the cellar, entered by a flight of fourteen steps descending from the buttery. Lysons, in his “Magna Britannia,” vol. v., engraves—first, a basement plan, comprising the entrance archway and the low rooms above alluded to; second, a ground plan; third, a plan of the upper floor, including the ball-room and other state rooms; and the numerous bed-rooms and other apartments on the north and west sides. These plans are extremely correct and minute: it transpires from letters in the Lysons’ correspondence (Addit. MS. 9,423, British Museum), that they were made by the surveyor of the then duke, to illustrate a little privately printed account of Haddon, written by himself, and were lent to Lysons for his work by D’Ewes Coke, Esq., barrister-at-law, then steward to the duke. The designations given by Lysons to the apartments are therefore probably correct. From his lists, and a curious catalogue of the apartments at Haddon, date 1666, we gather the general inference that the rooms on the west side of the lower court were, in the latter days of its occupation, occupied by the officials of the household; those on the entire south side were the state rooms; those on the east side of the upper court were the family apartments—the bed-rooms extending down to the intersection of the lower court; those over the front archway,