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.