TRAVELS WITH THE WNP
 

In Search of Heroes, Part 2

The Hall that Made a Man into a Hero - Haddon Hall
By Delle Jacobs

I confess. I stole Haddon Hall. I whisked it away, stone by stone and beam by rafter, and moved it to a setting of my own, nestled in the crook of a river that looks suspiciously like the River Wye. Yes, I hoped to hide my crime by moving a few walls and making them taller. I moved the kitchen and added odd staircases and privies, and a portcullis. I even gave it a new name, Steynes Hall, and a new owner, Thomas Steynes, Viscount Savoury, whose ancestors I also invented. But I could not disguise it enough, as I discovered when I went to England last September.

If it weren't for Haddon Hall, I probably wouldn't have made the trip. True, there were hundreds of places in England I have always wanted to see, but that was the real problem. Too many places, and no way to decide which ones I was willing to pass up. But when I began to write LADY WICKED, now a two-time Golden Heart finalist story, I discovered Haddon Hall as a possible model setting. And the more I learned, the more I was fascinated. It became the one place I had to see.

Before we left, my friend Margo read my book to see Steynes Hall first in her imagination, and then go to Haddon Hall to see for herself if I got it right. My son Andy, our companion and driver, has also read parts of the book and probably wanted to know why his mom could get so excited about old buildings. I wanted to know both if I "got it right" and if the old buildings were as wonderful as I believed, but also if my alterations were really possible.

I'm not going to take you into the history of the hall, nor show most of its most famous sites. For that you can go to the official Web site, http://www.haddonhall.co.uk/. Nor can I show you all my pictures since I have more than 200. But you can see more on my Web site, www.dellejacobs.com, and also find an account of the story behind the pages of LADY WICKED.

Now, come and cross with me the busy road from the car park (taking your life in your hands) to the entrance gate. Once past the gate, we enter a different world, a pastoral world with sheep grazing alongside a tiny, shallow river. Beside the river on the left, I had hoped to see a small stone cottage that once stood there, the one that would have been Davina's home that she rented from my hero. But it is gone now. Standing on the ancient stone bridge, we look up on the hill ahead to the gray stone of the walled manor that is Haddon Hall. It seems to me my hero had a steeper climb when he left his sweetheart's cottage to return to his hall.

I gave his hall an ancient, rusting portcullis that he had to tie up to keep it from falling on people. Haddon Hall has no such gate, but instead has two wooden gates, the outer one with a small door within one of the bigger doors, that would admit only one person at a time. I like my portcullis and try to imagine where it would have been.

Once past the gate passage, we come to a row of uneven, worn, stone steps set at right angles to the building, and leading to the sloping, paved courtyard. There's the lantern tower where Savoury would go to look out over his land, but I see immediately that the artist who gave it that name was wrong. It's a bell tower for the chapel. We sit inside the tiny chapel, surrounded by quiet serenity, and try to picture the color that must have enlivened the tracery and paintings on the walls. The bell chimes the noon hour. It is a warm, mellow, welcoming sound, like open arms set to music. You can see the lovely tracery and the poignantly beautiful memorial to Lord Haddon on my web site.

The hall to the left of the entrance is so dramatic, we can't help but go there. That's my friend Margo on the left. You can see the same photo, altered to a night scene with the visitors painted out, on my website: Click here to view the photo. That's the way it would have looked to Savoury when he walked with Davina in the courtyard in the moonlight.

My next surprise is inside the Great Hall. I had pictured a huge, cavernous place like a cathedral. But it isn't that big. And the ringing footsteps I imagined are muted instead, the sound absorbed by wood-paneled walls and a grasscloth-like carpet to protect the floor. In the hall's dim light, I can't tell if the floor is stone or wood, but I anxiously hurry on, to see as much as I can in the short time we have here. So I don't really get much of a picture of Savoury and his Davina when they almost kissed in the dark shadows of the hall.

In the far corner, steps worn by the passage of thousands of footfalls over time take us up to the Great Chamber, and on to the breathtaking Long Gallery. But before we go there, take a look at the gates at the base of the stairs.  Dog gates, to keep the dogs downstairs. Fewer fleas in the beds that way. There is no dog in my story until the last chapter. But see the missing slats in the lattice? I can see Daisy as just the kind of dog who would have seen to their demise in order to get to her people.

Up the stairs, now, and to the left to the Long Gallery. You can see this bright, beautiful, long room on the Haddon Hall Web site. I'm choosing instead to show you one of the lovely small bays.  Savoury's Elizabethan ancestors would have spent many a dreary winter day walking here, with ambient light pouring through the many windows on each side. Here he hung the paintings he and Davina treasured. Some of the glass in this lovely square bay is only 4 mm thick. Several windows in the house have some stained glass, especially in the chapel, and many rooms have glass set in intricate patterns. The hall is also known for its wonderful collection of tapestries, but these are difficult to photograph because they must be kept in low light environments to help preserve them.

Now, a quick dash back through the hall, back to the kitchen on its far side. This is where you roast an ox whole! But for Savoury, it was the bane of his existence, for nothing he could do could make the kitchen chimneys draw. He built a new kitchen, much as the real owners of Haddon Hall turned the stables into their modern kitchen and arranged a tram-like device to carry the food up the hill to their dining chamber.

And finally we go out to the gardens where Savoury and his love walked and even made love in the moonlight. How I wish I could show you more of these magnificent terraced gardens, but we are limited in space, so check my Web site for more. Savoury had the advantage of the more modern gardens you see here, for Davina had a knack for growing things. The fountain is 20th century, but it seems so much a part of the hall, it's hard to believe it hasn't been there for a few hundred years.

Now, last, look over the garden wall with me, down the valley at Dorothy Vernon's Bridge, where that famous ancestor of the Manners family is said to have passed when she eloped with her love, John Manners. Maybe, maybe not. But she seems sort of like the shades of Savoury's ancestors who walked with him in the moonlight, who taught him about heritage and belonging, as did his marvelous, frustrating hall that demanded so much of him but gave him everything he really needed in return, including his love.

So now I've seen where Savoury and Davina walked, lived and loved. And along with his home, purloined though it was, I have a newer, deeper appreciation of my hero. Someday I'll go back to England in search of more heroes and their places. But I doubt if there will ever be any in my mind to equal the sense of being I found at Haddon Hall.

In July, look for In Search of Heroes, Part III: A Tale of Three Castles.

 

To read last month's Travel article, click here

back to the top