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Haddon Hall is an English country house on the River Wye at Bakewell, Derbyshire, one of the seats of the Duke of Rutland, occupied by Lord Edward Manners and his family. In form a medieval manor house, it has been described as 'the most complete and most interesting house of its period'.

History

Though it was never a castle, the manor of Haddon was protected by a wall from 1195, when Richard Vernon received permission to build it. The origins of the hall date to the 11th century. William Peverel, illegitimate son of William the Conqueror, held the manor of Haddon in 1087, when the survey which resulted in the Domesday Book was undertaken.

The 9th Earl, when made Duke of Rutland in 1703, moved to Belvoir Castle, and his heirs used the Hall very little, so it lay almost in its unaltered 16th-century condition, as it had been when it passed in 1567 by marriage to the Manners family, earls of Rutland. In the 1920s, the 9th Duke realised its importance and began a lifetime of meticulous restoration, with his restoration architect Harold Brakspear. The current medieval and Tudor Haddon includes small sections of the 11th-century structure, but mostly comprises additional chambers and ranges added by the successive generations of the Peverel, Avenel, Vernon and Manners families. Major construction was carried out at various stages between the 13th and the 17th centuries. The banqueting hall (with minstrels' gallery), kitchens and parlour date from 1370 and the St. Nicholas Chapel was completed in 1427. For generations, whitewash concealed and protected their pre-Reformation frescoes. There is a 16th-century Long Gallery.

The 9th Duke created the walled topiary garden adjoining the stable-block cottage, with clipped heraldic devices of the boar's head and the peacock, emblematic of the Vernon and Manners families.

Dorothy Vernon, the daughter of Sir George Vernon, the owner of Haddon Hall, married John Manners, the son of Thomas Manners, 1st Earl of Rutland in 1563. Sir George disapproved of the union, describing his daughter's suitor as "the second son of an impoverished Earl." In addition, the Manners were Protestants, and the Vernons were Catholics. According to legend, 18 year old Dorothy eloped with Manners during a wedding party for her older sister. However, they must have later reconciled with Sir George, as the couple inherited the manor.

Layout

The hall stands on a sloping site, and is structured around two courtyards; the upper (north-east) courtyard contains the Peverel or Eagle Tower and the Long Gallery, the lower (south-west) courtyard houses the Chapel, while the Great Hall lies between the two. As was normal when the hall was built many of the rooms can only be reached from outside or by passing through other rooms, making the house inconvenient by later standards.

In literature

A 1903 play,based on a 1902 novel by Charles Major and a 1924 film tell a story based on the Vernon/Manners elopement, as does an 1892 light opera, called Haddon Hall.

The interior and exterior of the home (including the Long Gallery) were used in 1986 as Prince Humperdinck's castle in The Princess Bride. Franco Zeffirelli chose Haddon Hall as the location for his 1996 film of Jane Eyre, and the Hall featured in the 1998 film Elizabeth. Its most recent appearance in a film was in the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice starring Keira Knightley. Since then, it has appeared on television in 2006 as Thornfield in Diederick Santer's BBC version of Jane Eyre.

The hall was the setting for "An Elizabethan Feast at Christmas", a BBC2 documentary recreation of a Tudor banquet (first broadcast Christmas 2006) by the team of academics from "Tales From The Green Valley".

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County:  Derbyshire

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