Haddon Hall Chapel
Haddon Hall Chapel
Set within the rolling hills of the Peak District and beside the River Wye, Haddon Hall was built as the seat of the Dukes of Rutland by the Vernon family. Nick Cox Architects have been advising on repair and conservation works at Haddon for over 25 years.
Stolen history
Haddon Hall’s Chapel, like the rest of this extraordinary house, bears the marks of centuries-old use and repurposing. Although parts of the Hall remain from the twelfth century, much of the Chapel is thirteenth-century with later alterations. As in many churches, the ideological demands of the Reformation prompted decorative remodelling: the nave’s beautiful late medieval ‘grisailles’ wall paintings remained hidden under whitewash until the twentieth century.
The Chapel’s stained glass has been marked by a more brutal and unusual form of historical damage. Attributed to John Thornton of Coventry (c. 1427-30), the extant glass is of exceptional quality. However, in 1828, much of it was cut out of the windows by persons unknown; most was never recovered. But a surprise reversal of the Chapel’s fortunes came in 1858, when the majority of the East window glass was returned. As all the glass had not survived unscathed, Victorian stakeholders decided to replace it in a new arrangement with infill plain quarries to account for missing areas.
Cherished, lost, and regained: the window visually records the life of the Hall and is of great personal significance to Lord Edward’s family. Its restoration was therefore a priority within the ongoing conservation of Haddon Hall. We aimed to clean and rearrange the stained glass in a way that respected medieval, Victorian, and modern sensibilities.
How perished is the day that’s past, The present how unsteady.
Etched window graffiti, Haddon Hall, attr. Katherine Philips, the ‘Matchless Orinda’ (d. 1664).
Interpreting the past
Archival research and contributions from academics underpinned the restoration of the panels of the east window to their original hierarchy. Cleaning of the glass revealed the finely painted faces of key figures, which were moved from obscurity behind structural bars to new positions within the window informed by research.
Painted lines were introduced where there was reliable contextual evidence from neighbouring glass to interpret what the historic window would have looked like. Importantly, no historic glass was cut or lost during the process and all glass quarries with graffiti or interesting features were retained in their original position.
Restoration for the future
The nineteenth-century glass was retained in the outer lights as a key part of the story of the window. ‘Seaweeds’ (four-way floral motifs) were introduced to create a decorative design linking old and new.
Stolen, returned, and restored to its rightful position of prominence within the Chapel: the window now promotes a new appreciation of the life of the Hall and the family in the fifteenth century.
