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53-434: The Eglantine Table is a large inlaid table located on the first floor at Hardwick Hall . The inlay depicts an almost complete Morley consort , including inlay depictions of sheet music, a violin with frets, sets of recorders and wind instruments. The table is oak, with walnut and other woods used for the inlays. It is 90 cm (35 in) high, 302 cm (119 in) long and 129 cm (51 in) wide. Like much of

106-542: A depot company, a pre-parachute training company, a battle school, a holding company and an airfield detachment, which was stationed at No.1 Parachute Training School (No.1 PTS), RAF Ringway. During this period, all pre-jump ground training was moved from Hardwick to Ringway. In March 1944, the Battle School closed, and the Holding Unit was moved to nearby Clay Cross , while a new preliminary Battle School

159-586: A hilltop between Chesterfield and Mansfield , overlooking the Derbyshire countryside, Hardwick Hall was designed by Robert Smythson in the late 16th century. Ordered by Bess of Hardwick , Countess of Shrewsbury and ancestress of the Dukes of Devonshire , it was owned by her descendants until the mid-twentieth century. Bess of Hardwick was the richest woman in England after Queen Elizabeth I , and her house

212-423: A more modern way in which life was led within a great house. Hardwick was one of the first English houses where the great hall was built on an axis through the centre of the house, rather than at right angles to the entrance. Each of the three main storeys has a higher ceiling than the one below, the ceiling height being indicative of the importance of the rooms' occupants: least noble at the bottom and grandest at

265-492: A more permanent place to stay. In 1950, the unexpected death of the 10th Duke of Devonshire , with the subsequent death duties (rated at 80%), caused the sale of many of the Devonshire assets and estates. At this time, Hardwick was occupied by Evelyn, Duchess of Devonshire , the widow of the 9th Duke . The decision was taken to hand the house over to HM Treasury in lieu of Estate Duty in 1956. The Treasury transferred

318-447: A room within a single building. From later Saxon times, the standard manorial plan began to emerge - the excavated tenth century hall at Sulgrave (Northamptonshire) has a definite 'high' end with an attached stone chamber wing and 'low' end with a cross-passage, services and detached kitchen. In the late tenth century, first floor stone halls began to be built in both France and England, partly for reasons of security. This form would become

371-686: A similar medieval style, as do the Inns of Court and the Livery Companies in London . The "high table" (often on a small dais or stage at the top of the hall, farthest away from the screens passage) seats dons (at the universities) and Masters of the Bench (at the Inns of Court), whilst students (at the universities) and barristers or students (at the Inns of Court) dine at tables placed at right angles to

424-452: Is of the opinion that the great hall retained vitality into the sixteenth century, with many of the most impressive halls being later, like those of Eltham Palace (1475-80) and Hampton Court Palace (1532-35). The hall would originally have had a central hearth, with the smoke rising through the hall to a vent in the roof, examples can be seen at Stokesay Castle and Ludlow Castle . Later chimneys were added, and it would then have one of

477-580: The Eglantine Table has an inlaid top of interest to musical historians. Hardwick is open to the public. It has a fine garden, including herbaceous borders , a vegetable and herb garden, and an orchard. The extensive grounds also contain Hardwick Old Hall, a slightly earlier house which was used as guest and service accommodation after the new hall was built. The Old Hall is now a ruin. It is administered by English Heritage on behalf of

530-646: The National Trust do not venture to date it. Hardwick Hall Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire is an architecturally significant country house from the Elizabethan era, a leading example of the Elizabethan prodigy house . Built between 1590 and 1597 for Bess of Hardwick , it was designed by the architect Robert Smythson , an exponent of the Renaissance style . Hardwick Hall is one of

583-433: The great chamber and parlours , withdrawing rooms , and later for servants who finally achieved their own servants hall to eat in and servants’ bedrooms in attics or basements). By the late 16th century the great hall was beginning to lose its purpose. Increasing centralization of power in royal hands meant that men of good social standing were less inclined to enter the service of a lord to obtain his protection, and so

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636-629: The lute and the violin are actual size. There is one other inlaid Tudor table of this quality in existence, in the Burrell Collection , Glasgow. Eglantine is a white rose, one of the family emblems and the table was probably a commission for a multiple marriage celebration in 1568, since the inlays include the arms of Hardwick, Talbot, and Cavendish. In that year Bess of Hardwick married her fourth husband, George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury and her son Henry Cavendish and her daughter Mary , married two of his children. Despite this,

689-450: The 1601 inventory. Some of the needlework on display in the house incorporates Bess's monogram "ES", and may have been worked on by Bess herself. There is a large amount of fine tapestry and furniture from the 16th and 17th centuries. A remarkable feature of the house is that much of the present furniture and other contents are listed in an inventory dating from 1601. The Sea Dog Table is an especially important piece from around 1600, and

742-490: The 1st Air Troop Royal Engineers , the first airborne Royal Engineers unit, and a skeleton Royal Signals Squadron. The camp was southwest of the Hall and consisted of a 250-foot (76 m) parachute jump tower , assault courses and trapeze in-flight swing training structures. When pre-jump training was successfully completed, the recruits that passed out were required to speed-march approximately 50 miles (80 km) to join

795-628: The Hall in 2006 as one of his five choices for Britain's Best Buildings , a documentary series made by the BBC for television . Innovative in its own time, it would serve, three centuries later, as a source of inspiration for the enormous Main Exhibition Building at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876. Hardwick Hall was an ideal model for a building which was intended to merge historicism with

848-542: The Middle Ages. A few university colleges, including Merton College, Oxford (1277), Peterhouse, Cambridge (1290), University College, Durham (between 1284 and 1311, originally for the Prince Bishop of Durham ), Trinity Hall, Cambridge (1350), and New College, Oxford (14th century), have medieval halls which are still used as dining rooms on a daily basis; many other colleges have later halls built in

901-633: The National Trust and is also open to the public. Many of the Old Hall's major rooms were decorated with ambitious schemes of plasterwork, notably above the fireplaces. Remarkably, impressive fragments of these are still to be seen (protected by preservative coatings and rain-shields), though most of the building is unroofed. Both Hardwick Hall and the Old Hall are Grade I listed (the highest designation) by Historic England . Dan Cruickshank , an historian specialising in architecture , selected

954-614: The basis for the hall keep . Examples can be seen at Langeais Castle (France), Richmond Castle (England) and Chepstow Castle (Wales), as well as on the Bayeux Tapestry . Many large ground floor aisled halls were built in England following the Norman Conquest , as the key room in the new feudal society . The greatest was that at Westminster Palace , built by William Rufus as a setting for secular royal events. Even ground floor halls were increasingly built of stone as

1007-454: The cooking. Commonly the fireplace would have an elaborate overmantel with stone or wood carvings or plasterwork which might contain coats of arms , heraldic mottoes (usually in Latin), caryatids or another adornment. In the upper halls of French manor houses, the fireplaces were usually very large and elaborate. Typically, the great hall had the finest decorations in it, as well as on

1060-404: The dais end of the hall, and the kitchen, buttery and pantry were on the opposite side of the screens passage. The dais end is generally referred to as the 'upper' end, and the screens end as the 'lower' end. Even royal and noble residences had few living rooms until late in the Middle Ages, and a great hall was a multifunctional room. It was used for receiving guests and it was the place where

1113-520: The earliest examples of the English interpretation of this style, which came into fashion having slowly spread from Florence . Its arrival in Britain coincided with the period when it was no longer necessary or legal to fortify a domestic dwelling. The British Army's 1st Parachute Brigade was formed at Hardwick Hall in 1941. The Airborne Forces Depot and Battle School was located on the grounds of

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1166-459: The early 19th century, the antique atmosphere of Hardwick Hall was consciously preserved. A low, 19th-century service wing is fairly inconspicuous at the rear. In 1844, William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire published a book called Handbook to Chatsworth and Hardwick . It was privately printed and provided a history of the Cavendish family's two estates. On 31 August 1941, the decision

1219-641: The estate from 1942–1946. After ownership for centuries by the Cavendish family and the line of the Earl of Devonshire and the Duke of Devonshire , ownership of the house was transferred to the Treasury in 1956 and then to the National Trust in 1959. The building was approaching ruin and required stabilisation and restoration. The Hall is fully open to the public and received 298,283 visitors in 2019. Sited on

1272-487: The exterior scenes and some interior scenes of Malfoy Manor in the 2010 film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 . Great hall A typical great hall was a rectangular room between one and a half and three times as long as it was wide, and also higher than it was wide. It was entered through a screens passage at one end, and had windows on the long sides, often including a large bay window. There

1325-404: The function of the hall began to narrow to solely a dining and circulation space, and architectural developments reflected that, with the rise of the wall fireplace and bay window (also known as an oriel) creating a more pleasant and specialised chamber. It was formerly considered that the decline of the hall began with the decline of feudalism in the 14th century. More recent scholarship, however,

1378-530: The furniture at Hardwick, it is recorded in an inventory of the house made in 1601. The table is discussed by John Playford . The frets may have been used so as to play dance music with an entirely open string sound rather than for accuracy. In addition there are depicted playing cards from the Tudor Period and other means of amusement such as backgammon , and floral decoration. All the objects seem to be close to actual size; it seems very credible that

1431-417: The hanging chandelier, often called the 'hart-horn' made of antler; ornamental weapons, commonly a halberd ; and the cloth and napery used for dining. Occasionally the great hall would have an early listening device system, allowing conversations to be heard in the lord's bedroom above. In Scotland, these devices are called a laird 's lug. In many French manor houses, there are small peep-holes from which

1484-444: The high table and running down the body of the hall, thus maintaining the hierarchical arrangement of the medieval domestic, monastic or collegiate household. Numerous more recently founded schools and institutions have halls and dining halls based on medieval great halls or monastic refectories. From the 15th century onwards, halls lost most of their traditional functions to more specialised rooms, first for family members and guests to

1537-446: The highest social levels at the palaces of Yeavering (Northumberland) and Cheddar (Somerset). The halls at both palaces were 120 feet (37m) long, that at Yeavering being seventh century and that at Cheddar (the first of several) being ninth century. Saxon halls were routinely aisled and occasionally had side walls that were bowed out in plan. At this point the hall was merely the largest of several detached structures, rather than being

1590-404: The house to the National Trust in 1959. The Duchess remained in occupation of the house until her death in 1960. Having done much, personally, to conserve the textiles in the house as well as reinstating the traditional rush matting, she was to be its last occupant. Hardwick Hall contains a large collection of embroideries , mostly dating from the late 16th century, many of which are listed in

1643-518: The house, and for large scale entertaining, as at Christmas, for dancing, or when a touring company of actors performed. With the arrival of ballrooms and dedicated music rooms in the largest houses by the late 17th century, these functions too were lost. Where large halls survived, it was usually due to continuing institutional use, especially as a courtroom. This change of use preserved the halls of Winchester , Oakham and Leicester Castles. Other halls, like that at Eltham Palace, remained standing in

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1696-620: The household would dine together, including the lord of the house, his gentleman attendants and at least some of the servants. At night some members of the household might sleep on the floor of the great hall. From the fall of the Roman Empire to the Renaissance the hall was at the heart of residential complexes. Early examples were timber built and have vanished, only being known from documentary sources like Beowulf , and excavations. Archaeologists have uncovered Anglo-Saxon halls from

1749-420: The large expanses of glass that had become de rigueur for the main exhibition halls at international expositions and fairs in the wake of the success of The Crystal Palace constructed for the 1851 London Exhibition . In March 2012, a £6.5m restoration was completed; this included the addition of a large restaurant. In December 2020, three years of additional restoration had been completed and further work

1802-405: The largest fireplaces of the palace, manor house or castle, frequently large enough to walk and stand inside. Where there was a wall fireplace, it was generally at the dais end of the hall with the bay window, as at Raglan Castle, so the lord could get the most heat and light. The hearth was used for heating and also for some of the cooking, although most houses had a dedicated kitchen for the bulk of

1855-590: The late 17th century the halls of many new houses were simply vestibules , passed through to get to somewhere else, but not lived in. Several great halls like that at Great Hall in Lancashire were downsized to create two rooms. From the 16th century onwards it was common to insert a floor into the smaller halls to create a lower entrance hall and a commodious first floor chamber. The halls of late 17th, 18th and 19th-century country houses and palaces usually functioned almost entirely as impressive entrance points to

1908-1086: The latter was used only for public events, never used as a great hall here described). Penshurst Place in Kent , England , has a little-altered 14th century example, and Great Chalfield Manor has a similarly intact 15th century one. At the scale of yeoman housing, a restored 15th century hall can be seen in Bayleaf Farmhouse, now at the Weald and Downland Living Museum . Surviving 16th and early 17th century specimens in Britain are numerous, for example those at Eltham Palace (England), Longleat (England), Deene Park (England), Burghley House (England), Bodysgallen Hall (Wales), Darnaway Castle (Scotland), Muchalls Castle (Scotland) and Crathes Castle (Scotland). There are numerous ruined examples, notably at Linlithgow Palace (Scotland), Kenilworth Castle (England) and Raglan Castle (Wales). The domestic and monastic model applied also to collegiate institutions during

1961-418: The lord and his high-ranking guests was moved up to the first-floor level. This was called the salle haute or upper hall (or "high room"). In some of the larger three-storey manor houses, the upper hall was as high as second storey roof. The smaller ground-floor hall or salle basse remained but was for receiving guests of any social order. It is very common to find these two halls superimposed, one on top of

2014-719: The lord could observe what was happening in the hall. This type of hidden peep-hole is called a judas in French. In England, such an opening is referred to as a squint - there are two connecting the hall and great chamber in Stokesay Castle . Many great halls survive. Three very large surviving royal halls are Westminster Hall , Ridderzaal in Binnenhof and the Vladislav Hall in Prague Castle (although

2067-440: The material became more widely available, though in thickly forested areas timber remained the material of choice. From the 13th century improved carpentry techniques meant that roofs could span greater distances, eliminating the need for aisles, and by c. 1300 the standard hall plan with the dais and great chamber at the upper end and the entrance, screens passage and services at the lower end had become commonplace. After this time

2120-476: The other, in larger manor houses in Normandy and Brittany. Access from the ground-floor hall to the upper (great) hall was normally via an external staircase tower. The upper hall often contained the lord's bedroom and living quarters off one end. In Scotland, six common furnishings were present in the sixteenth-century hall: the high table and principal seat; side tables for others; the cupboard and silver plate;

2173-471: The panelling of the great chamber. He gilded some details. John's paintwork supplemented and mended the cloth hangings, and he also painted cloth hangings in imitation of tapestry. The architecture was influential, and in March 1608 the Earl of Salisbury , who was planning new buildings at Hatfield House , asked Bess's son-in-law, the Earl of Shrewsbury , for a plan, "any rowgh drawght of Hardwick". Hardwick

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2226-423: The parachute course at RAF Ringway . A tethered barrage balloon was also installed on 1 November 1941 to provide refresher training for qualified parachutists and to supplement descents made from the jump tower. In 1942, when the 1st Parachute Brigade moved from Hardwick to Bulford Garrison , an Airborne Forces Depot was formed at Hardwick from the units left behind. It started as an unofficial establishment but

2279-494: The size of the inner noble household shrank. As the social gap between master and servant grew, the family retreated, usually to the first floor, to private rooms. In fact, servants were not usually allowed to use the same staircases as nobles to access the great hall of larger castles in early times , and servants' staircases are still extant in places such as Muchalls Castle. Other reception and living rooms in country houses became more numerous, specialised and important, and by

2332-562: The top. A wide, winding, stone staircase leads up to the state rooms on the second floor; these rooms include one of the largest long galleries in any English house. There is also a tapestry-hung great chamber with a spectacular plaster frieze illustrating hunting scenes; the room has been little altered. Bess employed a decorator, named as John "Paynter" in her accounts. He used chalk and size made from glovers' offcuts. Pigments including blue bice , verdigris , massicot , and vermilion were bought in 1599. John varnished and coloured

2385-406: The window frame mouldings on the outer wall. Many French manor houses have very beautifully decorated external window frames on the large mullioned windows that light the hall. This decoration clearly marked the window as belonging to the lord's private hall. It was where guests slept. In western France, the early manor houses were centred on a central ground-floor hall. Later, the hall reserved for

2438-462: Was being planned. Hardwick Hall was the setting for the 10-part BBC series Mistress of Hardwick , broadcast in 1972. Hardwick Hall was used in the 1978 Connections TV series to illustrate a long series of changes that occurred in home design as a result of the Little Ice Age . The house was described in the 1985 TV documentary Treasure Houses of Britain . Hardwick Hall was used for

2491-516: Was but one of Bess's many houses. Each of her four marriages had brought her greater wealth. She was born in her father's manor house on the site of the later, now old Hall at Hardwick, which today is a ruin beside the 'new' hall. Following Bess's death in 1608, the house passed to her son William Cavendish, 1st Earl of Devonshire . His great-grandson, William , was created 1st Duke of Devonshire in 1694. The Devonshires made Chatsworth , another of Bess's great houses, their principal seat. Hardwick thus

2544-470: Was conceived to be a conspicuous statement of her wealth and power. The windows are exceptionally large and numerous at a time when glass was a luxury, leading to the saying, "Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall." The Hall's chimneys are built into the internal walls of the structure, in order to give more scope for huge windows without weakening the exterior walls. The house's design also demonstrated new concepts not only in domestic architecture, but also of

2597-479: Was created as a properly organized unit, training and holding recruits before they went to the Parachute Training School, as well as rehabilitating the temporary unfit from injuries. The War Office approved a War Establishment for the depot on 25 December 1942, appointing Lt Col W. Giles MC ( Ox and Bucks ) as its first commanding officer. The depot was given an extended role and consisted of

2650-480: Was made to form the 1st Parachute Brigade under Brigadier Richard Gale at Hardwick. Army Northern Command leased 53 acres of the estate to establish a camp of red-brick huts with training areas. It included a gymnasium, a cookhouse, cinema and medical facility. Hardwick Camp then became the new nucleus for parachute training and physical selection for airborne forces. On 15 December 1941, the 2nd Parachute Battalion and 3rd Parachute Battalion formed at Hardwick with

2703-451: Was often a minstrels' gallery above the screens passage. The screens passage was divided from the hall by a timber screen with two openings. The portion of the screen between these openings could be movable, as survives at Rufford Old Hall . At the other end of the hall was the dais where the high table was situated. The ceiling above the dais was often ornamented to denote its higher status. The lord's family's more private rooms lay beyond

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2756-589: Was relegated to the role of an occasional retreat for hunting and sometime dower house . As a secondary home, it escaped the attention of modernisers and received few alterations after its completion. The famed political philosopher Thomas Hobbes died at the Hall in December 1679. For the previous four or five years, Hobbes had lived at Chatsworth. Hobbes had been a friend of the family since 1608 when he first tutored William Cavendish. After his death, many of Hobbes' manuscripts were found at Chatsworth House. From

2809-636: Was set up at Dore and Totley . The Selection Company and Depot Administrative Unit remained at Hardwick. In April 1946, the Depot moved to Albany Barracks on the Isle of Wight and Airborne Forces activity at Hardwick Hall ceased. When the British Army left their battle school and village after the war, it was turned into a Polish resettlement camp for allied soldiers. Here Polish veterans, and later Hungarian refugees, were homed until they managed to find

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