DODDINGTON HALL
By Rev. R. E. G. Cole, M.A.
Some six miles to the south-west of Lincoln, well within view of the great Minster on its sovereign hill, but on the very border of Nottinghamshire, stands the little village of Doddington, otherwise Doddington-Pigot, situated on the slightly rising ground which here forms the watershed between the valleys of the Witham and the Trent. Its most notable feature is the Elizabethan mansion, known as Doddington Hall, which is the more prominent, inasmuch as it is not secluded in any surrounding park, but stands guarded only by its own picturesque gate-house, in close and friendly proximity to church, and rectory, and village.
Needless to say, the place had a long history before the present Hall was built. Already at the time of the Domesday Survey it had its church and priest, and its manor had been given by Ailric, its owner in Edward the Confessor’s reign, as an endowment to the newly built Abbey of Westminster. Mention is especially made of the woodland, which still is such a feature of the place, and which then formed an unbroken tract, a mile and a half in length, and half a mile in breadth. No other property was held by the Abbey in Lincolnshire, and doubtless the distance made its personal management by the Abbot and convent difficult and inconvenient. At all events, from very early times the manor was held under them, for a fee-farm rent of £12 per annum, by the knightly family of Pigot, whose long tenure, lasting for some ten generations, attached their name to that of the place, to distinguish it from the several other parishes so-called. Even so, difficulties at times arose; and in 1303 the Abbot had to make complaint in the King’s courts that Sir Baldwin Pigot had failed to render the customary rents and services, and that when he caused his beasts at Doddington to be seized, the knight and his men had rescued them and assaulted the Abbot’s servants. As a rule, however, this fixed rent of £12 continued to be paid by successive tenants to the monastery until the Dissolution. It then passed into possession of the Crown; in 1661 it was sold with other Crown rents by Charles II. to Sir Edmund Turnor, and from his direct descendant it was redeemed by the late owner of Doddington in 1860, after a continuous payment of some 700 years.
It is not our purpose here, however, to trace the early history of the place. It will be sufficient to say that as early as 1194 John Pigot asserted against the Abbot his right to hold not only the manor, but the advowson of the rectory, the patronage of which has remained to his successors down to the present day. Another Sir John Pigot in 1275 claimed to have not only right of free chase and warren in his woods at Doddington, but also his own gallows there—a right which he pleaded that his ancestors had exercised for a hundred years past. The last of the family, yet another Sir John Pigot, was High Sheriff of Lincolnshire in 1433, and died without surviving issue in 1450. His widow not only retained possession of the estate, in spite of two remarriages, but contrived to sell the reversion of it after her death to her neighbour, Sir Thomas Burgh, Knt.
Sir Thomas Burgh, who was summoned to Parliament in 1487, and in the same year was created K.G., became the owner of Doddington in 1473, and the inheritance of it continued in his family for some 110 years. Their chief Lincolnshire manor place, however, was at the Old Hall, Gainsborough, and Doddington was an outlying possession with which they had little personal connection. We cannot wonder, therefore, that when Thomas, 5th Baron Burgh, also K.G., fell into difficulties, chiefly owing to the burdens entailed by his honourable offices as Governor of Brill and Lord Deputy of Ireland under the thrifty Queen Elizabeth, Doddington was the first of his estates sold to meet his expenses.
This was in 1586, and the purchaser was John Savile, Esq., son of Sir Robert Savile, of Howley, co. York. At this time he was M.P. for Lincoln, and doubtless found it convenient to have a residence in the neighbourhood; and as John Savile of Doddington he held the office of High Sheriff of Lincolnshire in 1590. Later he became “the famous Sir John Savile,” who was several times Knight of the Shire for Yorkshire, and was created Lord Savile of Pontefract in 1628. His son Thomas, born at Doddington in 1590, became Comptroller and Treasurer of the Household to Charles I., and was created Earl of Sussex in 1644.
In 1593 Mr. Savile, having ceased to represent Lincoln, sold his Doddington estate. It was bought by Thomas Tailor, gent., who for many years had been Registrar to the Bishops of Lincoln, and whose neat handwriting may still be seen in the diocesan registers, dating from at least 1570. His residence hitherto had been in the parish of St. Martin, Lincoln, in which his two wives and others of his family were buried. The first of these wives was a daughter of Sir William Hansard, of South Kelsey, Knt.; the second a daughter of Martin Hollingworth, Mayor of Lincoln in 1560. Evidently the office of Episcopal Registrar was a lucrative one, for it appears by the inquisition taken after his death that, besides Doddington, he had purchased five other Lincolnshire manors, with messuages and lands in other parishes to the extent of nearly 10,000 acres.
Whatever the ancient manor-house at Doddington may have been like—and it had at least served as a residence for one of Mr. Savile’s position—we must suppose that it had become out of date, and not suited for the requirements of a man of Thomas Tailor’s wealth. And if we wish to see what sort of mansion was considered suitable, when Elizabeth was Queen, as the residence of a man of means, wishing to retire and set up as a country gentleman, we may find one in the present Hall, which remains in all essentials in its original state as it was built by him between the years 1593, when he purchased the estate, and 1607, when he died. Probably the date 1600 on a leaden plate at the top of the central cupola, marks the year of its completion.
Its site, closely adjoining the parish church, was doubtless that of the former manor-house. The principal entrance is on the east, through a three-gabled gate-house, two storeys high, standing back from the public road. Coped walls of brick connect this gate-house with the Hall itself, and enclose a quadrangle, which appears in 1700 as an open grassy court, but is now well-nigh filled by four stately cedars of Lebanon. A similarly walled quadrangle on the west is laid out as a flower garden. Between these courts is placed the house itself, facing east and west, and rising in three storeys to the height of 52 feet, surmounted by a plain parapet and flat roof of lead, from which rise three octagonal turrets of brick, capped with leaden cupolas. Roughly speaking, its ground plan is of that E-shape, fancifully said to represent the initial letter of the great Queen’s name, with projecting wings at either end, and a smaller projection in the centre, the lowest storey of which forms an entrance porch on either side. Its extreme length from north to south is 160 feet, and its greatest breadth at the wings is 75 feet. The house, as well as the gate-house and connecting walls, is built of brick, with stone groins, string-courses and coping, and has large square, stone-mullioned windows. Many of the small-sized bricks, made in fields close by, and of unsifted clay, are over-burnt and black; these are built in alternately with the others, or in parts are arranged so as to form a diamond pattern.
We may be permitted here to quote the description of the house as given by such an authority on the architecture of the period as Mr. Gotch. “Twelve years later,” he says, than Barlborough in Derbyshire, “we get Doddington in Lincolnshire (1595), a plan which reverts to the type of Montacute. It has the usual characteristics of the simplest kind—wings one room thick—the entrance at the end of the hall, leading on the left to the buttery, pantry, and kitchens; the parlour at the head of the hall, and the principal staircase adjacent. Here, however, as at Montacute, the hall is only one storey in height; it has a room above it, the great chamber, and on the top floor the gallery extends over the whole central part from wing to wing.
“There is an entrance court in front of the house, enclosed by a wall. It is approached through one of the quaint gate-houses of the time, which were a reminiscence of a more turbulent state of society, when it was necessary for all who went to the house to do so under the porter’s eye, but which in the calmer times of Elizabeth were occupied by some of the numerous functionaries who ministered to the pleasures of the rich. The detail at Doddington is of the plainest, the only attempt at richness being round the front door. The windows are of reasonable size, the strings are narrow, and are all of the same quasi-classic profile. The parapet is perfectly plain, and the roof is without gables, the sky-line being broken, as at Barlborough, with turrets, formed by carrying up the porch and the two projections in the internal angles of the front. The house is an example of a plain and businesslike type, which may be accounted for by the fact that it was built for a business man, one Thomas Tailor, Registrar to the Bishop of Lincoln.”[131]
Doddington Hall.
What style Thomas Tailor kept up in his stately mansion we cannot tell, but that he had not impaired his fortune in the building of it is evident from his will, proved at Lincoln, 30th November 1607, in which he disposes of considerable sums of money, while the inquisition taken after his death sets forth in detail his numerous landed estates. Though his two wives and most of his children had been buried at St. Martin’s Church, Lincoln, he willed his “bodie to be buried in the parishe church of Doddington.” He was buried there on 26th November 1607, as we learn from the transcript of a former parish register, though there is nothing to mark the place.
He was succeeded by his only son, a second Thomas Tailor, born at Lincoln in 1580, who seems to have been a somewhat eccentric character, if we may judge from the following stories related of him, which were taken down from the mouth of an old inhabitant of Doddington:—“Tommy Tailor once told his steward who was going to Lincoln to market to bring him a goose. On his return he asked about it, and the man told him they were so dear he had not got one. So Tommy shut him up in a room with a lot of money on the table, and kept him there two days, asking him when he came out if he had now discovered that the use of money was to buy what one wanted, not to keep to look at. Another day he met a woman on the road carrying some butter; he asked what it was a pound. The woman told him, and he bought it of her, taking it and putting it on the branch of a tree. She walked on, but soon turned back to take it away. However, he was lying in wait, and pounced on her just as she had taken it down, and said he had bought and paid for it, and he should put it where he liked. Another person on whom he played the same kind of trick took away the chicken he had bought, threw his money at him, and called him an owd fule. He kept his money in a great chest, and hid it away, and, unfortunately, died very suddenly of smallpox before he explained where he had put it.” Some have fancied that his ghost still walks the Hall in anxiety for his hidden money; and it was commonly believed of a late owner of Doddington, who was fond of employing his leisure in working in the woods, that he was in search of “Tommy Tailor’s chist.”
As Thomas Tailor of Doddington-Pigot, he held the office of High Sheriff of Lincolnshire in 1620, and in the visitation of the county in 1634 he signs the short pedigree of his family, comprising only two generations. It was, perhaps, a mark of his eccentricity that, though he had served as High Sheriff, he had not cared to apply for a grant of arms, and the herald has appended to the pedigree a note: “He had been high shreife, but had no coate.” It is doubtful whether he had ever married; but, at all events, he left no issue, and in his nuncupative will, declared 13th December 1652, he acknowledges his niece, Elizabeth, Lady Hussey, to be his heiress.
Thomas Tailor had lived through all the stress of the Civil War, without either himself or his house having apparently been affected by it. In the course of it Lincoln had been twice besieged and taken; Cromwell’s forces had encamped on the neighbouring moor of North Scarle, and must have passed within sight of Doddington as they marched thence to defeat the Royalists at Gainsborough. The house and parish must have been well within reach of the Parliamentary forces at Lincoln, as well as of the King’s troops at Newark, who on one occasion extended their forays past it as far as Kettlethorpe, and on another burnt the very similar hall of the Jermyn family at Torksey, which was garrisoned by the Parliamentary troops. Yet he and his estates seem to have escaped unscathed. It was far otherwise with the family into whose possession Doddington now passed.
Elizabeth, Lady Hussey, who now inherited it, was the only child of the first Thomas Tailor’s daughter, Jane, by her marriage with George Anton, Esq., Recorder of Lincoln, 1598-1612, and M.P. for that city in 1588 and 1592. She married Sir Edward Hussey, of Honington, Knt. and Bart., and so added Doddington to the possessions of that distinguished Lincolnshire family. Sir Edward, her husband, was eldest son of Sir Charles Hussey, of Honington, Knt., and grandson of Sir Robert Hussey, who was a younger brother of John, Lord Hussey of Sleaford, beheaded by Henry VIII. for his supposed complicity in the Lincolnshire rising of 1536. He was already a knight at the time of his father’s death in 1609, having received that honour at Whitehall in 1608, and shortly afterwards, on 29th June 1611, he was advanced to the dignity of baronet. The original bond, cancelled by being cut into shreds, by which he bound himself to furnish £1095 by three yearly instalments for the maintenance of thirty foot soldiers in Ireland for three years, is still preserved at the Hall. He was High Sheriff in 1618 and 1637, and Knight of the Shire in the Parliament summoned to meet at Westminster, 13th April 1640. When the Civil War broke out he exerted himself zealously on the Royalist side as one of the King’s Commissioners of Array; and in 1642, when the loyal gentry of Lincolnshire resolved to provide horses for the King’s service, Sir Edward undertook to supply six, his brother Sir Charles Hussey, of Dunholme, providing two. Later he and his brother and other Lincolnshire loyalists assembled at Newark for its defence, and there Sir Charles Hussey died. Shortly before its surrender by the King’s order in 1646, we find Sir Edward at Honington endeavouring to make his peace with the Parliament. He was very aged and infirm, he says; he had taken the Covenant; his estates had been sequestered; and he asks that his wife may be allowed to compound for him. In spite of his pleading, the great fine of £10,200 was imposed. This was finally reduced to £8750, of which £4500 was raised and paid in December 1647, and three months later Sir Edward Hussey died. His eldest son, Thomas Hussey, some time M.P. for Grantham, had predeceased him in 1641; the next brother, Captain John Hussey, had been slain in the fight with the Parliamentary troops at Gainsborough in 1643. It was left to his widow, and to his eldest son’s widow, Rhoda, now remarried to Ferdinando, 2nd Baron Fairfax, to clear the impoverished estates, and to raise the remainder of the fine, which was finally paid off in 1650. For this purpose Lady Hussey had to sell her jointure, and it must have been a relief to her when, on her uncle’s death at the end of 1652, she inherited Doddington and his other estates. She enjoyed them, however, for no more than six years, dying early in 1658.
She was succeeded in the ownership of Doddington by her grandson, Sir Thomas Hussey, Bart., born in 1639, whose long minority, with the addition of his grandmother’s inheritance, must have done much to repair the shattered fortunes of the family. At the Restoration we find him, with his mother, Lady Fairfax, then a second time a widow, living at Doddington, and contributing, himself £60, and Lady Fairfax £30, towards a loan for the restored King.
In 1662, 20th February, the marriage took place at Great St. Helen’s, London, of “Sir Thomas Hussey, Bart. of Doddington, bach., and Sarah Langham, aged twenty-one, daughter of Sir John Langham, Knt. and Bart., of Cottesbroke, Northants.” Portraits of Sir Thomas and Lady Hussey still look down on the gallery of their former home; and what the house itself resembled in their time we may see from the engraving of it, which was executed by John Kip, after a drawing by Leonard Knyff, c. 1700. It represents the Hall and gate-house much as they are at present, with an open grassy court between. Gardens formally laid out, and orchards of young trees in rows, surround the house; but we cannot tell how much of this is due to the artist’s imagination.
Sir Thomas Hussey was High Sheriff of Lincolnshire in 1668, and Knight of the Shire 1681-95. As such he took a prominent part in the reception of a new charter granted to the city by Charles II. in 1685. On this occasion Sir Thomas Hussey, driving in, we must suppose, from Doddington, was met at the entrance of Lincoln by the Mayor and Corporation, who received the new charter from him on the green against St. Katharine’s. After this Sir Thomas, with the Mayor and aldermen, walked up the city to the Guildhall, with bands playing and bells ringing, and the conduits running claret wine, that all might drink the King’s and the Duke of York’s health. At the Guildhall the charter was read publicly by the town-clerk, Mr. Original Peart, and the ceremony terminated with a great dinner at the Mayor’s, and more drinking of healths. Towards the charges of renewing the charter, the Bishop of Lincoln gave £20, and Sir Thomas Hussey and three other gentlemen £10 a-piece.
Sir Thomas Hussey died 19th December 1706, and was buried, as his wife and many children who died young had been, in the vault of the Hussey family in Honington Church. There his monument, with his bust in marble, may still be seen; but it is in their house of Doddington that the portraits of himself and Dame Sarah, his wife, and their three surviving daughters have been preserved. The church, too, possesses a memorial of him, in the shape of a handsome silver paten and flagon, bearing his coat-of-arms, and the date 1707. His niece Rhoda, daughter of his sister, Rhoda Hussey, by her marriage with John Amcotts, of Aisthorpe, Esq., had already presented to the church a silver alms-dish in 1671, engraved with the Amcotts arms. As he left no male issue, his baronetcy passed to his cousin, Sir Edward Hussey, of Caythorpe, who already held the baronetcy conferred by Charles II. on his father in 1661.
His three surviving daughters became co-heiresses of his estates. The eldest of these was Rebecca Hussey, who “after a life spent principally in devotion and acts of charity, died unmarried, 21st August 1714.” She took care that her charities should not end with her life. Two at least of these—Rebecca Hussey’s Book Charity, and Rebecca Hussey’s Charity for the Relief of Poor Debtors—have kept her name in remembrance down to the present day. The latter was paid for many years out of the Doddington estate, but is now represented by an invested sum of £3192. The youngest was Elizabeth, who in 1714 married Richard, son and heir of Sir William Ellys, of Nocton, Bart., sometime M.P. for Grantham, but who died childless in 1724, and is commemorated with her mother and sister Rebecca on a monument in Honington Church.
Between these came Sarah, who had been already married at the age of twenty-two, at St. Margaret’s, Westminster, in 1700, during her father’s lifetime, to Robert Apreece, Esq., of Washingley, co. Hunts. In a partition of their father’s estates between her and her sister Elizabeth, in 1717, Honington had fallen to her share, but under her sister’s will in 1724 she became possessed of Doddington also for her life, with remainder to her son and daughter as tenants in common. Her son, Thomas Apreece, inherited Washingley and Honington, and was the father of Sir Thomas Hussey-Apreece, created a baronet in 1782. But Mrs. Sarah Apreece bought up her son’s contingent share of Doddington, and by her will, dated 1747, she settled the whole estate on her daughter Rhoda, the wife of Captain Francis Blake-Delaval, R.N., the owner of the great Northumbrian estates of Seaton-Delaval, Ford Castle, and Dissington. It was evidently her wish to secure the continuance of her father’s name and estate, for she strictly entailed Doddington on the second son of her daughter’s marriage, enjoining that he should take the name and arms of Hussey, and resign Doddington to his next brother, if he should succeed to his father’s estates. We are told that amongst their many seats Captain and Mrs. Blake-Delaval resided chiefly at Seaton-Delaval and at Doddington, and we may well believe that it was to Mrs. Delaval’s affection for her family, and her desire to perpetuate their memory in the house that was her own inheritance, that we owe the many family groups of her children, which seem to have been designed for the places they occupy on its walls.
She died in 1759, leaving a numerous and distinguished family of eight sons and four daughters, remarkable for their good looks and talents, which made them of note in the society of the day. Especially was this the case with the eldest son, Sir Francis Blake-Delaval, K.B., who inherited his father’s great estates in Northumberland, and made himself conspicuous in the annals of the time for his wit and gallantry, his reckless extravagance and dissipation. He, however, was not otherwise connected with Doddington than as a visitor to the house, to which he brought his theatrical friend Foote in 1752, and where his own full-length figure, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, may still be seen. We are more concerned with his next brother, on whom Doddington had been entailed. This was John Delaval, born in 1728, who, in accordance with Mrs. Apreece’s will, assumed the name of Hussey on his mother’s death in 1759, and became successively Sir John Hussey-Delaval, Bart., in 1761, Baron Delaval of Redford in the peerage of Ireland in 1783, and Baron Delaval of Seaton-Delaval in the peerage of Great Britain in 1786. He represented Berwick in Parliament from 1754 to his elevation to the British peerage. In 1750 he had married Susannah, widow of John Potter, Esq., Under-Secretary of State for Ireland; she was his first cousin, her mother having been Margaret Delaval, his father’s sister. The young couple at once made Doddington their country residence, John Delaval acting as virtual owner of the mansion and estate, both of which showed signs of energetic management and lavish expenditure. New marble mantelpieces were bought for the more important rooms of the hall in 1760, and to the same date we may ascribe the classic broken architraves with which they and many of the doors are surmounted. The present great staircase was put up in 1761, and the long gallery refloored at a cost of £500, under the direction of Mr. Lumby, the surveyor of Lincoln Cathedral. At the same time the enclosure of the moorlands on the estate was vigorously carried on, many thousand plants of quick being purchased for enclosure, and labourers continuously employed in dyking and fencing and paring sods. Another improvement was the formation of a hop-garden of twenty-six acres in the parish—the only one, it is said, in Lincolnshire. In this Lady Delaval took especial interest, and part of it was known as My Lady’s Acre. In 1770, on the death of his eldest daughter Rhoda at the age of eighteen, he undertook the restoration of the church, adding to it the present south aisle and west tower, and giving it the shape which it retains to-day. He showed his good taste, when church architecture was at its lowest ebb, by copying, though unskilfully, in his additions the fourteenth century work which remained in the older part.
In 1771, however, his eldest brother, Sir F. B. Delaval, died, and Sir John Hussey-Delaval succeeded to the great Northumberland estates. According to the settlement, Doddington ought to have passed from him to his next brother, Edward Hussey-Delaval, Esq., but a compromise was agreed to by which he retained possession of Doddington on condition of paying his brother an annuity of £400. A consideration for this mentioned in the deed is that he found the mansion and offices in a very ruinous and decayed condition, and had laid out upwards of £17,000 in building farm-houses, planting timber, making fences, and draining and enclosing the moors.
Naturally, with his accession to these more important estates, his interest in Doddington declined. The restoration of the church, begun so energetically in 1770, was not completed till 1775. On Sunday, 18th June 1775, the church was reopened in the presence of 800 people, the Sub-dean of Lincoln, the Rev. Robert Dowbiggin, taking the chief part in the ceremony. By that time, however, Sir John’s only son was dying at Bristol, and none of the family were present. In their absence, the rector, the Rev. R. P. Hurton, entertained at dinner at the Hall “thirty gentlemen and ladies of the first fashion in the county, including the Champion of England, both Neviles (i.e. of Thorney and of Wellingore), Mr. Amcotts (of Kettlethorpe), &c.” Refreshments were liberally provided for the other less distinguished guests.
The very first funeral that took place in the newly-opened church was that of Sir John’s only son and heir, John Hussey-Delaval, who died at the Hotwells, Bristol, on 7th July 1775, in the twentieth year of his age. On Sunday, 15th July, his body, in charge of a Bristol undertaker, arrived at Newark, where it was met by Mr. Portes, the Doddington steward. Next morning they left at ten o’clock, and were met between Newark and Collingham by all the servants in black hat-bands and gloves. Within half a mile of Doddington they were met by the labourers, six of whom in black cloaks, hat-bands, and scarves, acted as bearers. On arrival at Doddington at 2 P.M. the body was laid in the White Hall till 5 P.M. Again none of the family were present, but the rector and Mrs. Hurton, with eight others, followed next the body. Then came the tenantry and a large concourse of people. We learn that “there was a very good collation and great plenty of victuals, with a very well furnished table in the Low Paper Parlour, where Mr. Hurton and the other clergymen and several more dined. The tenants dined in the steward’s room: 4 bottles of rum, 4 of brandy, 18 of white and 18 of port wine were consumed, and there was ale enough in the cellar.” The charge of the Bristol undertaker was £203, 8s. 9d., “besides the local bills, some £43 more.” His father began to build a handsome mausoleum in the grounds at Seaton-Delaval, but this was never used, and his body, with that of his sister Sophia, Mrs. Jadis, who died in 1793, still remains in the vault beneath the church, in which the only memorial of him consists of the blackened walls which were so coloured for his funeral.
In the cellars of the Hall there is still some ale which was brewed at the time of young John Delaval’s birth, 26th May 1756, and was bottled in order to be drunk at that coming of age which never took place. Some of the bottles bear the Apreece arms; others a stamp with the name of Sir J. H. Delaval, Bart., or the initials J.H.D.
After his son’s death Lord Delaval, as he shortly after became, not being on good terms with Edward Delaval, his brother and next male heir, cut down all the timber at Doddington that would fetch any money. In the engraving of the Hall in Sir Thomas Hussey’s time we may see a row of young elms standing along the churchyard wall. An old man, employed as a carpenter on the estate, who died, aged 95, in 1858, recollected cutting these down. It blew hard at the time, and Lord Delaval looked out of a window of the gate-house, and gave directions how they should fall. They were then very large, beautiful trees, and the wood quite sound and red. He recollected also fine oaks all over the lordship, but all were cut down for bark and “kids.” This is fully confirmed by the estate accounts of 1775 and the following years, and is the reason why there are no very old trees on the estate, those now in the extensive woods having grown up since Lord Delaval’s time.
On June 3, 1780, Lord Delaval’s youngest daughter, Sarah Hussey-Delaval, then only sixteen, was married by special licence at Grosvenor House, her father’s London residence, to George Carpenter, second Earl of Tyrconnel. He is said to have been the handsomest man of his time, while she is spoken of as “the wild and beautiful Countess of Tyrconnel,” and as “the lovely Lady Tyrconnel, who had hair of such luxuriance that when she rode, it floated upon the saddle.” The following month they visited Doddington. “I am delighted,” writes Lord Tyrconnel, “with Doddington; it has an air of grandeur and solitude about it which pleases me extremely; it is a cruel hardship upon it that you should have two other places which you prefer to it. We have this evening been to Lady Delaval’s hop ground. We had such a game of Blindman’s Buff in the Hall: Mr. and Mrs. Hurton and Mrs. Grant were of the party.”
An elder daughter, Frances, had married in 1778 John Fenton-Cawthorne, Esq., of Wyerside, co. Lanc., who represented Lincoln in Parliament from 1784 to 1793. Lord Delaval exerted his interest actively in his favour, and we hear of Lincoln freemen being entertained at dinner at Doddington, while his steward’s letters to his lordship treat frequently of electioneering matters at Lincoln, of Mr. Cawthorne’s visits there at the time of the races, of his dining with the Hunting Club and “at what they call the Lunitick Club,” and with the aldermen on the day of the Mayor’s election, of his distribution of coals among the freemen, and of the three rival candidates in 1790 walking the streets with their colours flying.
Another of Lord Delaval’s daughters, Elizabeth, was married 21st May 1781, to George, Baron Audley. This marriage also was by special licence at her father’s town house, which at this time was in Hanover Square. The rector of Doddington, Mr. Hurton, of whom we have already spoken, went up to London to perform the ceremony. Lady Audley only lived till 11th July 1785.
Lord Delaval himself died at Seaton-Delaval, 17th May 1808, at the age of eighty, being found dead in his chair in the breakfast-room. His remains were conveyed in state from the north, and interred in the family vault which he had made in St. Paul’s Chapel in Westminster Abbey, in which his wife Susannah Lady Delaval had already been buried in 1783, and his favourite daughter, Sarah Hussey, Countess of Tyrconnel, in 1800. The Gentleman’s Magazine of the day makes mention of “the great funeral pomp and splendour” of his interment: this may well have been the case, as the cost of it was no less than £2300. No other monuments, however, than plain flat stones, with short inscriptions and almost obliterated coats-of-arms, mark the place of their burial; while above them hang the tattered banners, begrimed with the London dirt of a hundred years, on which the arms of Delaval, Blake, and Carpenter (Tyrconnel) may still be distinguished. At Doddington his only memorial is the hatchment in the church, which was fixed to the front of the Hall on his death.
He bequeathed Ford Castle to his granddaughter, Lady Susannah Hussey Carpenter, the only surviving child of his favourite daughter Sarah, Lady Tyrconnel, whose marriage in 1805 to Henry de la Poer Beresford, 2nd Marquis of Waterford, brought it to that family, in whose possession it has continued nearly to the present day. Doddington, however, with Seaton-Delaval and other entailed estates, descended to his next brother, Edward Hussey-Delaval, the only survivor of that band of eight brothers on whom Doddington had been successively settled, and not one of whom left a son to succeed him. As a young man he had been a Fellow-Commoner, and afterwards a Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge. Here he was a contemporary and friend of the poet Gray, who makes frequent mention of him in his letters. Later he established himself in a house which he had built for himself on his own plan and designs on a piece of ground leased to him by the Crown in Parliament Place. Its site is now covered by the Houses of Parliament, but two views of it taken from opposite points, painted by his friend G. Arnold, A.R.A., now hang in the Library at Doddington, and show its gardens running down to the river-side, with Westminster Bridge in the near distance. Here he devoted himself to philosophical and chemical pursuits, being a Fellow of the Royal and other learned societies, both home and foreign, and gaining their gold medals and other honours by his various papers and treatises published in their Transactions, or as independent works. Late in life he had married, and had an only daughter.
He was in his eightieth year when he succeeded to the family estates, and seems to have concentrated all his care and interest on Doddington, buying up, as far as possible, the reversionary interests of his sisters in it, so as to leave it to his wife and daughter. During the years 1809-12 the whole of the mullioned windows of the Hall were repaired by him, new stonework and glass being inserted where required. The Great Fishpond was laid out and its banks planted in 1811, and all the detached buildings in the Hall yard—laundry and brew-house, stable and coach-house—were rebuilt in 1814 and 1815. An expert was employed by him to survey and restore the woods, which Lord Delaval had so devastated that no timber could be supplied from the estate. Various articles of furniture, pictures, and ornaments were brought here from Seaton-Delaval. A survey and valuation of the estate made in 1812 states that the mansion-house and buildings are in excellent repair.
After six years’ ownership Mr. Delaval died, at the age of eighty-five, the last legitimate male heir of his ancient family. His death took place at his house in Parliament Place, 14th August 1814, and he too was buried in Westminster Abbey, not in the family vault, but in the nave among the philosophers, the place being simply marked by the name E. H. Delaval, cut on one of the stones of the pavement. In Doddington Church, which was repaired at his expense in 1810, his hatchment hangs side by side with that of his brother. Many portraits of him remain at the Hall representing him either in the family groups, or as a young man in his gold-tufted college cap, or seated with a greyhound by his side, or in middle age with the artificial jewels of his making, or as a white-haired old man of eighty-five sitting at the window of his house overlooking the Thames.
Seaton-Delaval and his other entailed estates devolved on his nephew, Sir Jacob Astley, Bart., son of his eldest sister Rhoda, by whose descendants they are still possessed. But he had bought up the greater part of the reversionary interests in Doddington, so as to settle them on his wife and daughter. The latter had married in 1805 James Gunman, Esq., who was possessed of considerable property in the neighbourhood of Dover and Coventry, and who was the last of a family singularly devoted to the sea, which had produced a succession of noted naval captains. The fact that he died without issue, leaving all his property to his wife, and the subsequent destruction of his Dover mansion owing to the extension of the town, has added a fresh strain of interest to the Elizabethan Hall, by the removal to it of the journals and other memorials of several of these seamen, including the portrait of Captain Christopher Gunman, the first of the line, who was captain of the yacht of the Duke of York, afterwards James II., as well as pictures of the yacht itself, and of the sea-fights with the Dutch in which he was engaged.
By the wills of Mrs. Gunman, who died in 1825, and of her mother, Mrs. Hussey-Delaval, who survived till 1829, all their property was left to their friend, Lieut.-Colonel George Ralph Payne Jarvis, who had served in the Peninsular War and in the expedition to Walcheren. He came into residence at the Hall in 1829, and bought up the remaining portions of the estate, which is now in the possession of his grandson, George Eden Jarvis, Esq., J.P. and D.L.
Having thus sketched the history of its successive owners, let us enter the house itself. We shall find it still peopled with their memories, their portraits looking down on the rooms in which so much of their lives was passed. Passing through the triple-gabled gate-house which forms the main entrance, we find ourselves in the east garden or fore court, now well-nigh filled with four stately cedars of Lebanon. These might seem coëval with the house itself, but in fact they are coëval only with the latest family of its owners, having been planted here about 1829. Fronting us is the central porch on which more elaboration has been bestowed than on any other part of the building. This admits us directly into the hall, a room 53 feet in length by 22 feet in breadth, filling up the whole width of the body of the house. Originally its floor was plaster, and from this and the general whiteness of its walls and furniture it was known as the White Hall. But in 1861 it was refloored with oak grown on the estate, and furnished with more regard to comfort and suitableness as a general sitting-room for the family. At one end hangs a fine picture by Guido of the Angel appearing to Hagar and Ishmael in the wilderness, its purchase and presence here being due to Mr. Edward Hussey-Delaval’s artistic tastes. The marble mantelpiece is one of those bought by Lord Delaval in 1761, and over it are ranged steel caps and helmets; and among these an iron branks or scold’s bridle, with a projecting spike before the mouth, used as a punishment for scolding women. Near it is another grim relic of the past—the headpiece of the irons in which a man, commonly known as Tom Otter, was gibbeted on Saxilby Moor in 1806 for the murder of his wife. Here, too, we may see several of the oak carvings, framed as pictures, and remarkable for their depth of cutting and multiplicity of figures, that were executed by Colonel Jarvis in his later life.
Passing out of the hall into the northern wing, we enter on the left the dining-room, panelled in oak, now freed from the white paint with which it was formerly coated. Over the marble mantelpiece is a portrait of the late owner of the house, G. K. Jarvis, Esq., painted by Lutyens in 1868. Opposite are the portraits of Mr. Edward Hussey-Delaval with the artificial gems of which we have already spoken, and of his daughter Sarah, afterwards Mrs. Gunman, the latter painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence. Amongst other pictures hanging here are a three-quarter length likeness of James I. in a quaint drab suit; and a small one of Prince Henry, his eldest son. At the end of the room the square mirror with deeply carved gilt frame was brought from the residence of the Gunman family at Dover, and hung formerly in the Anne, the royal yacht of the Duke of York, by whom it was presented to Captain Christopher Gunman in 1671. Near it is a portrait on panel of the Infanta Donna Maria, “ætatis suæ 19, 1617,” daughter of Philip III., the Princess on whose account Charles I. made his adventurous expedition to Spain. The massive oak table below was originally a plain table in the servants’ hall, but was fashioned by Colonel Jarvis’s skill in carving into a handsome side-board. It shows the size of the oaks that grew on the estate before Lord Delaval cut them down.
Opposite the dining-room, at the east end of the wing, is the Library, formerly known as the Green Parlour. Here may be seen an oil painting of the Duke of York’s yacht, which Captain Gunman commanded from 1670 to 1675. Here, too, hang the pair of landscapes representing views up and down the Thames, taken from Mr. Delaval’s house in Parliament Place. They were painted by his friend G. Arnold, A.R.A., the figures of Mr. Delaval seated in the one, and of Mrs. Delaval and their daughter in the other, being put in by G. F. Joseph, A.R.A., who painted the full-length picture of Mrs. Delaval in a similar red velvet dress, which is now in the Long Gallery.
The Long Gallery, Doddington Hall.
Between these two rooms the main staircase is carried in a projection of the house on the north, a broad flight to the first landing, returning in narrower flights on either side to the first floor. Its plain banisters and heavy mahogany rail show that it is of later date than the house, and, in fact, it was put up by Lord Delaval in 1761. On the landing on either side are portraits of Mr. Edward Hussey-Delaval, and of his daughter, Mrs. Gunman. The former, taken in 1813, represents him at the age of eighty-five as a white-haired old man, seated at the window of his house in Parliament Place, looking out on the Thames, with St. Paul’s in the distance, and on the table before him many of his scientific works, including his report on the best means of preserving St. Paul’s from lightning, and its translation into Italian in 1779, which was done by the order and at the expense of the Emperor Joseph II. Following the returns of the staircase, we have on the one side portraits of Rhoda Apreece, the heiress of Doddington, as a girl with a goldfinch, and in later life as Mrs. Rhoda Blake-Delaval. Next beyond is the seated figure of her aunt Elizabeth, youngest daughter of Sir Thomas Hussey, and wife of Richard Ellys, Esq. of Nocton (died 1724), painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, probably the picture of her “sister Betty,” bequeathed by Rebecca Hussey to her niece, Rhoda Apreece, in 1714. On the opposite flight of stairs are ranged portraits of Colonel G. R. P. Jarvis, to whom Mrs. Gunman left the Doddington estate in 1825; of George Eden Jarvis, Esq., his grandson, and its present owner; of Martha Lowth (b. 1710, d. 1796), sister of Bishop Lowth, as a girl, and of her future husband, Dr. Robert Eden (b. 1702, d. 1759), Archdeacon of Winchester.
On the landing between these flights of stairs is one of the most pleasing pictures in the house, representing a family group of the three youngest sons and three youngest daughters of Francis and Rhoda Blake-Delaval. We may notice that the heads have been painted separately and inserted in the canvas. These were painted by the eldest sister, Rhoda, who married Edward, afterwards Sir Edward Astley, Bart., while the background and figures and draperies were added by Van Hacken, a celebrated painter of the day. The seated figure of the boy with portfolio is George, and the two with musical instruments are Henry and Ralph, who were twins, and so alike as scarcely to be known apart. These three died young, Henry only surviving till 1760, when he was killed in India. Of the daughters, the standing figure is Ann, afterwards the wife of Sir William Stanhope, K.B.; the next Elizabeth, who died young; and the least Sarah, afterwards Countess of Mexborough, who died the last survivor of her generation of the family, at the age of eighty, in 1821.
From this landing we enter the drawing-room, which is on the first floor, above the hall and of the same dimensions with it, with windows opening to the east and west. Here on all sides are portraits of the Delaval family. Over the mantel itself is the portrait of Mrs. Rhoda Blake-Delaval, with a corresponding one of her husband, Captain Francis Blake-Delaval, opposite. Another picture of her at full length, seated, painted by Arthur Pond, occupies the south part of the eastern wall, while the two ends of the room are filled with groups by the same artist, one of four, the other of seven figures of her sons and daughters; the taller lady in the centre is said to have been a cousin. Similar pictures exist also at Seaton-Delaval. On either side of the fireplace are full-length seated figures, also painted by Pond, of the second of these sons, John Hussey-Delaval, Lord Delaval, who inherited Doddington from his mother in 1759, and died in 1808, and of his wife Susannah, Lady Delaval, who died in 1783. The remaining space on the east wall is occupied by the likeness of the eldest son, Sir Francis Blake-Delaval, K.B., by Sir Joshua Reynolds, who has represented him in his red Volunteer uniform, standing musket in hand on the French coast, with villages burning in the background. Similar portraits of him are found at Seaton-Delaval, and Methley Park, Yorkshire, and at Ford Castle, and it has been engraved in a series of portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds, published in 1865. Over the doorways are four smaller portraits, one representing Edward Hussey-Delaval, in his tufted college cap; and a second, the eldest sister, Rhoda, Mrs. Astley; whilst a third, if it is rightly said to represent Lady Tyrconnel, is the only one of Lord Delaval’s children now at Doddington.
Beyond the drawing-room on the south is a bedroom which still retains its ancient tapestry. On it are depicted scenes from the Trojan War, but with its former bright colours sadly faded. To the picture of a dog over the door the following story is attached. It belonged to Mr. Henry Stone, of the adjoining parish of Skellingthorpe, and it is said to have pulled his master three times away from a tree under which he had taken shelter from a thunderstorm. At the third time the tree was struck by lightning, and a pheasant pictured on it was killed. Mr. Stone died in 1693, leaving his estate at Skellingthorpe of more than 3000 acres to Christ’s Hospital, London. He was buried just inside the churchyard at Skellingthorpe, and his dog, it is said, close to him, just outside the consecrated ground.
Returning through the drawing-room to the north wing, we find two other bedrooms with their original tapestry hangings. One is known as the Holly Room, from the great holly tree on which its windows open; the other as the Tiger Room, from the wild beasts depicted on its Flemish tapestry, dating from about 1600. This has retained more of its original bright colouring than the other, which is of English manufacture, made probably at Mortlake, temp. Charles I., in the costume of whose time the figures on it are represented. In the Holly Room the ancient crewel work of the bed hangings deserves attention; while the lofty four-post bedstead in the Tiger Room, upholstered in crimson damask, is said to have been that occupied by Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland, when entertained by Lord Delaval at Seaton-Delaval in 1771. A quaint picture over the mantelpiece represents Nebuchadnezzar in his state of degradation grazing among the beasts.
Mounting thence to the third storey, we find on the uppermost landing another portrait of Mr. Edward Hussey-Delaval, as a young man, seated, with a greyhound by his side—one doubtless of the breed for which Seaton-Delaval was famous in his brother Sir Francis’s time. On either side the bedrooms, above those just described, retain their original plaster floors. In one is the portrait of Admiral Sir Ralph Delaval, “coasting admiral in the time of Charles II.,” painted in armour, with flowing wig, who died in 1691. In the same room a naval picture, brought from the Gunman mansion at Dover, represents the royal yacht, the Anne, Captain Christopher Gunman, passing the Castle of Kronenborg at Elsinore, without striking topsails, and receiving the cannon-fire of the castle, as recorded by Captain Gunman’s log-book under 23rd September 1670. Yet another represents the wreck of Sir Cloudesley Shovel in his flagship, the Association, on the Scilly Isles, on the night of 22nd October 1707. This also was brought from Dover, Captain James Gunman, R.N., having been with the fleet in command of the Weasel sloop, but happily escaping the wreck.
Here we enter the Long Gallery, 96 feet long by 22 feet wide. It has two fireplaces, and windows only on the western side, and fills the whole centre of the house, extending over the drawing-room and two bedrooms beyond. As we enter let us turn, and, beginning at the north-west corner, let us note the more interesting pictures in their order. This white-haired old man, painted on panel, in blue coat and buff sword-belt, is said to represent John, Lord Hussey of Sleaford, beheaded at Lincoln in 1537 for complicity in the Lincolnshire rising. Occupying the centre of this northern end of the gallery is the full-length figure of Captain Christopher Gunman, in a rich costume. In the background is represented the royal yacht, of which he was captain, as well as of several ships of war. We may notice the empty sleeve of his left arm, which he lost in an engagement with the Dutch, while in command of the Orange frigate, 3rd August 1666. A picture of this sea-fight with two Dutch men-of-war is in one of the bedrooms. Higher up on this same wall is the portrait of Thomas Tailor, registrar to the Bishops of Lincoln, who bought Doddington in 1593, and built the hall before his death in 1607. He is characteristically represented as dressed in brown, with wide lawn collar and cuffs, seated at a table with a pen in his hand and an official document before him. On either side, over the doors, are the portraits of Sir Thomas Hussey, the second baronet, who died 1706, and of Sarah (Langham) Lady Hussey, his wife, who died 1697.
Turning now to the long eastern wall, and passing pictures of Lady Frances Howard, by Sir Peter Lely, and of Charles XII. of Sweden, perhaps by David Kraft, we come to the full-length figure of Mrs. Sarah Hussey-Delaval, died 1829, the wife of Edward Hussey-Delaval, Esq. It was painted in 1815 by G. F. Joseph, A.R.A., who has represented her in a crimson velvet dress, with a macaw by her side. Next to her is the likeness of Rebecca Hussey, daughter of Sir Thomas Hussey, Bart., painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller. She died unmarried in 1714, but her name is still well known as the foundress of Rebecca Hussey’s Charities. The boy, in a red dress trimmed with silver, is shown by the coat-of-arms to have been a son of Sir John Delaval, of Dissington, who died 1632, by his second wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir George Selby, whom he married in 1612. Passing the central door which opens into the little room in the projection over the entrance porch, we have yet another portrait of Mrs. Rhoda Blake-Delaval, died 1759, a duplicate of which is at Ford Castle. Near her is one of Charles I., and beyond these, as a companion picture to that of Rebecca Hussey, also painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, the full-length likeness of her sister Sarah, daughter of Sir Thomas Hussey, Bart., and wife of Robert Apreece, Esq. She was born at Doddington in 1672, and died 1749, having become the sole heiress of her father’s estates after her sisters’ death. The next picture in all probability represents Mary of Modena, the Queen of James II. Beyond it, the lady in black is Ann Hussey-Delaval, sister of John, Lord Delaval, and of Edward Hussey-Delaval. We have seen her before as a girl in the family groups, but she is here represented in the character of the Fair Penitent, which she acted with other members of the family, and Edward, Duke of York, at their private theatre at Westminster in 1767. She married in 1759, at the age of twenty-two, Sir William Stanhope, next brother to the Earl of Chesterfield, who was fifty-seven; and Horace Walpole writes of the match: “I assure you her face will introduce no plebeian charms into the faces of the Stanhopes.” Naturally the ill-assorted marriage turned out badly, and in 1763 Horace Walpole writes again to his correspondent in Paris: “We sent you Sir William Stanhope and my lady, a fond couple; you have returned them to us very different. When they came to Blackheath, he got out of the chariot to go to his brother, Lord Chesterfield’s, made her a low bow, and said, ‘Madame, I hope I shall never see your face again.’ She replied, ‘Sir, I will take all the pains I can, you never shall.’” She had been brought up by her grandmother, Mrs. Apreece, of Honington and Doddington, and a share of Doddington had been settled upon her, but she sold her reversion of it to her brother Edward in 1810.
Dining-Room, Doddington Hall.
Filling the centre of the south end of the gallery is the striking picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds, in 1762, of Lord and Lady Pollington, later Earl and Countess of Mexborough, in their coronation robes, with their son and heir, John Savile, afterwards second Earl, as a child, between them. She was the youngest of the Delaval family, and is represented as a girl in the family groups below. She married in 1760 John Savile, Lord Pollington, created Earl of Mexborough in 1765, and died in 1821, the last survivor of that generation of her family. The child is represented as reaching up to the coronet which his mother is holding in her hand; and the story is told “that when Reynolds began to paint this picture he tried the effect of setting the coronet on her head, but being dissatisfied with the effect he placed it in her hand. It was shown to the little boy, and he was offered a choice of the crown or an apple. He preferred the former, and within a year inherited it on his father’s death.” In fact, however, his father did not die till 1778, when his son was seventeen, and the anecdote can only be reconciled with dates by supposing it to refer to the child’s succession to the courtesy title of Pollington, when his father became Earl in 1765.
If we pass out at the southern end of the Long Gallery, the well-like back staircase, carried up from the bottom to the top of the house in a projection of the southern wing, will bring us through the southernmost gazebo on to the flat-leaded roof, on which the two other gazeboes open. Here is plainly seen the ground-plan of the house; and by looking over the parapet we may observe the squared leaden spout-heads, most of them bearing the initials and the Ram’s Head crest of Sir John Hussey-Delaval, with the date 1765. A few bear the date 1733, thus going back to the ownership of Mrs. Apreece. Close in front of the Hall, encouraged by its shelter, a broad-leafed magnolia has out-topped the Hall itself, while in the north-west corner stands the great holly, measuring 12 feet round the hole, but with half its massive head now split off by a great storm, 24th March 1895. Tradition says that it once saved the life of a young lady who was pursued to the roof by a too ardent admirer, and who jumped into it from the roof to escape his embraces.
Round the mansion lie its old-fashioned walled gardens, and on the north the orchard with a picturesque group of three gnarled old Spanish chestnuts. Eastward the eye rests on Lincoln, with its houses climbing the steep, crowned by the triple towers of the Minster; and in the nearer foreground are the massive oak-woods of Doddington and Skellingthorpe, the immemorial breeding-place of herons. To the westward the hills of Nottinghamshire rise across the Trent, the hidden course of whose stream is marked only by the clumps of trees at Spalford Bank and Marnham Ferry. Amid such surroundings the great house has stood for full three hundred years, and has sheltered generation after generation of those whose portraits now adorn its walls. Here to all appearance it may stand for three hundred years to come, if only it escapes that doom of fire to which Seaton-Delaval itself and so many other ancient mansions have fallen a prey.