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12 PART II DESCRIPTION OF HADDON HALL BY S. RAYNER
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The illustrations referred to by Rayner are on the corresponding pages of this file.]
In the midst of romantic scenery, on a rocky eminence, at the foot of which flows the
river Wye, and not far from its confluence with the Derwent, stands the castellated
mansion of Haddon [see Plate 25]. Its embattled parapets and crested turrets, proudly
towering above the branching woods in which it is embosomed, cause it, when viewed
from the vale, to assume the appearance of a formidable fortress. The building however,
in its present form, is not in the least calculated for defence or protection against a
besieging force, according to the military tactics of any period; though there can be little
doubt that this mansion, which was the work of different ages, occupies the site of a
Norman Castle, portions of the lower part of which may be traced in the walls of the
towers which overlook both the upper and the lower portals.
The general arrangement of this structure is that of a castellated hall, exhibiting some of
the characteristic features of the more ancient castles, which were the residences of the
nobles and other great landed proprietors of this country from the time of its subjugation by
the Norman William [1066], and his followers, till near the close of the fifteenth century,
when the triumph of Henry VII [reigned 1485-1509], over the partizans of the rival family
of York, terminated the long and sanguinary contest for the crown between the Yorkists and
Lancastrians, in the course of which, great numbers of the ancient nobility and chivalry of
England perished in the field or on the scaffold. Peace and good order being to a certain
extent established, it was no longer necessary that the dwellings of those belonging to the
higher orders of society should be strongly fortified buildings, in which their families and
retainers might be protected from the attacks of those whom national discord or private feud
had made their foes; for now, those who had been accustomed to decide their quarrels by the
sword, more frequently resorted to the courts of justice for the redress of injuries, such as
had heretofore been the causes of violence, rapine, and bloodshed, in abundance.
Hence arose the necessity for erecting habitations more adapted for the convenient
accommodation of the owners and their domestics than the old castle which they had
previously occupied; and a new mode of building was consequently introduced. But it could
not reasonably be expected that, under such circumstances, domestic architecture should be
exempt from the defects commonly observable in most works of art of a comparatively early
date. Those who were employed to construct new habitations or to alter and adapt old ones,
at a time when the crenellated bastion, the moat, and the drawbridge, were no longer
essential appendages of the dwelling of a manorial proprietor, must have laboured under
peculiar difficulties in the execution of the tasks assigned them; and it almost necessarily
followed that their modifications and reconstructions must often have displayed
characteristics of the ancient fort, and have presented few of the conveniences of, and fewer
still of the beauties, which distinguish the noble mansions and palaces of modern times.