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17 PART II DESCRIPTION OF HADDON HALL BY S. RAYNER
BANQUETTING OR GREAT HALL. Over the great porch in the lower court-yard are two
shields of arms, one belonging to the Vernons, and the other to the family of Pembridge.
As Sir Richard Vernon, who was Speaker of the House of Commons, married the sole
heiress of Sir Fulk de Pembridge, he may with probability be regarded as having erected
this portion of the edifice, as well as the greater part of the Chapel; and these are perhaps
of an earlier date than any other parts of the building except the bases of the angular towers
near the Upper and Lower Entrances, and the substructure of some of the adjoining walls,
with the west end of the Chapel; all of which display traces of higher antiquity.
From the passage between the Upper and Lower Quadrangles, a door in the screen
opens into the [Banquetting] Hall, which says King, “most undoubtedly was originally
considered as the only public dining-room for the lord and his guests, and indeed, after
them, for the whole family: for in tracing the ancient apartment there appears manifestly
to have been none besides of sufficient magnitude for either the one purpose or the
other.” Over the entrance lobby is a music gallery, the front of which, as well as that of
the screen, consists of panelling, ornamented with Gothic carving (see Plate 7); and at
the opposite, or upper end of the room, is the raised floor, or dais, on which still stands
the long oak table (see Plate 20), at which sate the lord of the mansion and his principal
guests, carefully placed according to their rank; those of higher quality above the salt,
which always occupied the centre of the hospitable board, while persons of inferior
degree were stationed below the salt. On the floor below were other tables, for retainers
or visitors, not entitled to sit at the table where the lord himself presided. In the
comparatively rude ages when such customs prevailed, doubtless many a scene of mirth
and glee was here enacted; while unrestrained by the master of the feast, the jovial
companions late and long protracted their noisy revels, which did not always terminate
without brawls and bloodshed. Laws enforced by penalties, however, were not wanting
to prevent or punish improprieties of behaviour in these mixed assemblies; and of one of
the regulations contrived for this purpose, a monument remains in the form of a kind of
iron hook, attached to the wainscot of the screen of this hall, by means of which a man
who refused to take his horn of liquor, or committed some other offence against convivial
usages, might have his wrist locked, as in a pillory, as high as he could reach above his
head, and while in that position, a quantity of cold water was to be poured down the
sleeve of his doublet. But in the early times, when inns were seldom to be found except
in towns and cities, the hospitality of the lord of Haddon was not confined to the banquets
at which he daily presided, but provision was ever ready for the hungry traveller; and of
the Vernon it might be said, in the language of Chaucer,
“His table dormant in his hall alway
Stood ready covered all the long day.”