haddon hall chapel

I could happily visit Haddon Hall every week! 

Within the grounds of Haddon Hall I always head to the St Nicholas Chapel first, tracing a 'map' of my first visit many years ago. I'm fascinated by the foliage and flower dry fresco paintings and love to gaze up, noticing how each large motif skilfully fits into the others surrounding it to create a continuous pattern that climbs the walls. I marvel at the skill involved in painting consistently to this scale over a large surface. Wondering at the daunting first brushstroke, the mixing of pigments, at the scaffold required to work at hight, imagining arm ache and the physicality of this labour. How marvellous to become absorbed in marks made in the 1400's. How I'd love to peek into the process, see the start of a days work, observe the everyday of that era.

And then, within feet, I travel to 1894. The death of a 9 year old child, the eldest son. Eyes drawn to the tender depiction of feet and hands and incredible carved drapery.

'For ever wilt thou grieve and he be fair.'

Detail of chapel fresco

Three skeletons of a Medieval morality tale

charming graffiti

Late last month I visited Haddon Hall on a drizzly Sunday. After a week of heavy rain the Derwent River was mud toned and high, surging under the footbridge to the hall. Nearby, rain sodden fields reflected the sky in silver mirrored surfaces, blades of grass piercing clouds. 

Haddon Hall is a fascinating site with parts of the building dating to the 12th Century. For a period of two hundred years the hall was empty and left to ruin, so visitors scratched charming graffiti into glass panel and wooden interior. We have much in common with our ancestors. 

I get excited when rediscovering these marks, wondering about the people, their conversations, the day, the journey to the hall, what awaited them when they returned home. The halls windows are like no other I've seen, angled like cleverly folded origami paper to allow as much light as possible to enter the building. These illuminated diamonds hold whispers from the past in unfamiliar script and dates jump out - 1779, 1828. I try to imagine what the world was like then, pondering literacy rates and who had the agency to leave their mark, who didn't? 

haddon hall

It must be close to 20 years since I first walked the wonderful circular route from Bakewell, through the grounds of Chatsworth, past Rowsley and Haddon Hall before returning to Bakewell. The walk is varied, with forests, modest climbs, verdant rolling landscape, stately homes, quaint stone houses, tea rooms and the memories of people I've walked with over the years. For these reasons it's a favourite of mine but in all those years I've never taken the path to Haddon Hall, well, last Saturday I did! Roaming the hall and gardens with my sister and struck by the feeling that this is a lived in house rather than an exhibit I wondered in what films the hall had featured. Back in London that same evening, holiday over, I tuned in to watch Jane Eyre and was stunned to see the hall and garden populated and full of life on the screen. How exciting to see the same pink blossom I'd photographed that morning! Below are snippets from my visit, things that caught my eye. I'm being a tease so no views of the building, you will have to go and see it for yourself.