wide sargasso sea

From Mr. Darcy's house in the morning to the home of the superior English literary gentleman, Mr. Rochester, in the afternoon...

Haddon Hall, about fifteen minutes away from Chatsworth, in Derbyshire, has traditionally been used as Thornfield Hall in Jane Eyre adaptations.  {This is the best version, in my opinion.}

Haddon is one of the seats of the Duke of Rutland, 

presently occupied by the Duke's younger brother, 

Lord Edward Manners, and his family.

It is a lovely spot, so near to Chatsworth yet surprisingly 

little known.  Which was just fine, because after the crowds

of Chatsworth, it was nice to see this somewhat wild and 

slightly run-down country manor in the Derbyshire Peaks.

 

"We now slowly ascended a drive, 

and came upon the long front of a house..."

"Of proportions not vast, though considerable: 

a gentleman’s manor-house, not a nobleman’s seat."

"To be sure it is pleasant at any time; for Thornfield is a fine old hall, rather neglected of late years perhaps, but still it is a respectable place."

First to the medieval (12-14th C.) chapel...

"The church, as the reader knows, was but just beyond the gates."

The main attractions are wall-paintings from the 1420s.

St. Christopher with Christ face the doorway.

Bats live in the chapel roof, which causes a challenge for conservators caring for the fragile wall-paintings.  In England bats are protected species and it is against the law to remove them, even if they are harming the building! You could hear them squeaking in the roof.

A trio of skeletons.

And a Victorian child effigy, of Lord Haddon, died aged nine.

"She proposed to show me over the rest of the house."

"And I followed her upstairs and downstairs, admiring as I went..."

"For all was well arranged and handsome."

"Yes; this is the dining-room."


With an amazing Tudor painted ceiling.

A Tudor Greyhound.

And a Tudor Rose.

These carved figures are, according to tradition, portraits of
Henry VII and Elizabeth of York.

 

Heraldic sg.

"The large front chambers I thought especially grand."

"Though dark and low..."

"Interesting from their air of antiquity."

"Rows of venerable chairs, high-backed and narrow."

 

"All these relics gave to the third storey of Thornfield Hall
the aspect of a home of the past: a shrine of memory."

 

"I liked the hush, the gloom, the quaintness."

Nineteenth-century diamond graffiti.

The best long gallery in Britain.

"Mum" looking at the gallery.

Heraldic sg.  The peacock on the left is the badge of the Manners
family; the boar on the right is that of the Vernon family.

These quarries are intentionally warped to provide
a beautiful textural quality to the windows --
a style known as Bombay Glass.

"'Sit,' he said; 'the bench is long enough for two.'"

"Even for me life had its gleams of sunshine."

"Many call me discontented. I couldn't help it: the restlessness
is in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes.”

“Would it comfort, or would it wound you
to have a similar painting?  Tell me that." 

"To the window... I followed, taking care to stand on one side,
so that, screened by the curtain, I could see without being seen."

"She was one of the ladies who sang: 

a gentleman accompanied her on the piano."

"Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from 

the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised

by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones."

"Embroideries, wrought by fingers that
for two generations had been coffin-dust."

A tapestry of rich and royal hue.

Outside.

 "A great meadow, from which 

these were separated by a sunk fence."

"I was yet enjoying the calm prospect and pleasant fresh air, yet listening with delight to the cawing of the rooks, yet surveying the wide, hoary front of the hall, and thinking what a great place it was."

"An arch in the wall, lined with ivy; it contained a rustic seat."

"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: 

I am a free human being with an independent will." 

A change of scenery, a taste of greenery.

 

I'm like a trend.

I'm back and forth.

Like a modern Lady Jane.

Blame my ever-changing mood.


Can't stop my domino effect.


"While all the flowers in this old garden awake and expand..."


"No nook in the grounds more sheltered and more Eden-like."


"Perhaps, if I walk softly, I can slip away unnoticed."

"Like barriers of separation from the living world; but yet quiet and lonely hills enough, and seeming to embrace Thornfield with a seclusion I had not expected to find."

 

When that big house burned down all around her,

in the smoke and the fire...

xx