June 13th blog

Two long days in a row have worn on me. We were supposed to get back from Hardwick and Haddon Hall today before 7, but we accidently took the wrong train almost two hours in the wrong direction, so it is now 11 and we just barley got back to our hotel. Both the halls we went to today were impressive. Hardwick has two halls, old hardwick hall and new hardwick hall. They are next door to one another, but old hardwick hall was abandoned in the sixteenth century because Elizabeth, the owner couldn’t stand her husband, so when she died she took the money and built a new mansion next to the old one. She made a habit of marrying rich then inheriting her husbands money when they died. Even though the old hall was in ruins, parts of it were still intact and the view from the moss covered stones of the fourth floor were incredible.


New Hardwick hall was also impressive, but like so many of these great halls photography wasn’t allowed inside and so I’m afraid I won’t be able to remember much. The Great Hall and Long Gallery were beautiful, perhaps the best examples of Elizabethan architecture and interiors that I’ll ever see. Wonderful tapestries depicting Odysius and Penelope’s lives covered the walls in the great hall, and bookcases and impressive fireplaces and leaded glass windows lined the gallery.

After Hardwick we traveled by bus to Haddon Hall. I wasn’t really looking forward to it, but surprisingly it was one of my favorite sites yet. Small in comparison to some of the other halls (yet immaculate by our standards) parts of the hall date back to the 13th century, and it is a wonderful representation of Tudor design. Many films such as the Princess Bride, Jane Eyre, and select scenes in the most recent version of Pride and Prejudice were filmed at Haddon hall. There is even a famous love story about Dorothy, one of the daughters of the Duke in the sixteenth century who eloped with a gardener that many books and films have been written about.
The Gardens were drenched in roses and climatis flowers, and the pastoral landscape beneath the hill, dotted with flocks of sheep and quaint stone bridges was like something out of a fairy tale.

Its too bad that the day couldn’t have ended on a better note, but at least we’ll have something to laugh about in the future.