Dorothy's father, Sir George Vernon, "The King of the Peak," allowed
his wrath to cool in time, and the happy couple returned and made their
home at the Hall.
John Manners was a younger son of the Earl of Rutland, and father of
the first Duke of Rutland, whose cradle is now exhibited in the state
bedroom of Haddon Hall.
The great ball-room from which Miss Dorothy fled is over one hundred
feet long, eighteen feet wide, and fifteen feet high. On the south
side, toward the garden, are three very large, recessed windows, and on
the north side is a huge fireplace with ancient fire-dogs. At the east
end of the room is a glass case containing a bust of Grace, Lady
Manners, wife of Sir George Manners. This is said to have been made
from a cast taken after death. Certainly the lady was far from
beautiful if one judges from this representation of her charms!
The interior of the family chapel is in a semi-ruined state. On the
right there is a stoup for holy water, about four hundred years old,
and just beyond it are the servants' seats. In the chancel are two
large, high, family pews, one on either side, the master and his sons
occupying one, and the lady and her daughters the other.
The stained-glass window in the chapel was of great beauty, but, early
in the nineteenth century, the greater part of it was mysteriously
stolen in the night, and its place has been filled with fragments of
colored glass taken from other windows.
In the kitchen may still be seen the immense fireplace, the large,
hollowed-out block, evidently used for a chopping-tray, a
salting-trough, and a few other pieces of culinary apparatus.
In the banqueting-hall is the minstrels' gallery, the front of which is
carved and paneled, and decorated with stags' antlers, and there is
also a gallery along one side, probably of later construction. The lord
and his guests sat at one end of the hall on a raised platform, while
the retainers sat at tables in the body of the hall. The high table is
a remarkable specimen of its kind, and one of the most interesting
relics of feudal times.
At the north end of the hall, just inside the entrance, is a kind of
handcuff, fastened to the wall and so arranged as to hold a man's wrist
up at arm's-length while liquor was poured down his sleeve--the
punishment meted out to every guest who did not drink all that the laws
of hospitality forced upon him!
Over the banqueting-hall is the drawing-room, the walls still hung with
ancient tapestries. There is a great deal of beautiful old tapestry in
Haddon Hall, and it all seems to be woven or worked in small pieces,
even the shades of coloring being done separately and then sewed
together.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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