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25 PART II DESCRIPTION OF HADDON HALL BY S. RAYNER
“A great Butcher, who used to fit the family at Haddon with small meat, a fat man
weighing eighteen stone, named John Taylor, from Darley Dale, came at Christmas time
when they were keeping open house. And the old Earl’s wife would not let the butter go
into the larder until she had seen it; so it remained in the old family hall (the Banquetting
Hall), and stood there for some hours. The Butlers (of whom there were two, one for the
small beer cellar and the other for the strong), had for several weeks before missed two
pounds of butter every week; and they could not think what had become of it, or who had
taken it. So they determined to watch, one Butler spying through the little door, and the
other through the great door; when presently the great Butcher came as usual for orders
for small meat. And after looking round, he lays his fingers upon the butter, and pops
one pound of butter within his coat on one side, and another pound on the other side.
This was observed; and the Butler from the strong beer cellar came up to the Butcher
saying, “Jack—it is Christmas time—I have a famous Jack of strong beer, and you shall
have it before you go. Sit you down by the kitchen fire.” He sat there awhile, when the
Butler handing him the flagon, said, “Don’t be afraid of it, I’ll fetch some more.” And as
he sat near the fire, the butter on one side melting with the heat, began to trickle down his
breeches, into his shoes. “Why Jack,” said the Butler, “you seem a great deal fatter on
one side than on the other. Turn yourself round, you must be starved on this side.” He
was obliged to comply; and presently the butter run down that side also; and afterwards,
as he walked up the Hall, the melted butter ran over the tops of his shoes. “The Earl,”
says Hage, “made a laughing stock of it; but if such a thing was to be done in these days,
the man would be turned out of the family.”
“My aunt told me,” adds the guide, “that the old Earl used to sing to the men at
Christmas-tide,
‘You’re all heartily welcome, lads; drink what you will;
For here lives John, at the Wooden Oak still.’”
The nobleman to whom this anecdote relates was Sir John Manners, who succeeded his
cousin, as Earl of Rutland, in 1641. Some extracts from the Bailiff’s accounts, relative to
the expenses of open-housekeeping at Haddon Hall, during Christmas-tide, in 1663, have
been published by Mr. Lysons; who says that from 1660 to 1670, although the family chiefly
resided in Belvoir, there were generally killed and consumed every year at Haddon, between
thirty and forty beeves, between four and five hundred sheep, and eight or ten swine. The
successor of this Earl, who was created Duke of Rutland by Queen Anne, is said to have
maintained here one hundred and forty servants; and like his father, he kept open houses in
the true style of old English hospitality, for twelve days annually after Christmas.
Not long after the commencement of the last [eighteenth] century, the establishment at
Haddon Hall was probably broken up; though the building was not neglected, but has
always been kept in good repair. A ball was given by the present Duke of Rutland, in the
Long Gallery of this mansion, on the occasion of his coming of age. And in 1802, the
inhabitants of Bakewell celebrated the treaty of Amiens, by an entertainment, with
dancing, in the same apartment.