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.
[Illustration: 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.