[Illustration: BOLSOVER CASTLE.]
The noted Bolsover Castle, which Bess also built, though her son
finished it after her death, stands in a magnificent position on a high
plateau not far from Chesterfield, overlooking a wide expanse of
Derbyshire. The present castle replaced an ancient structure that had
fallen into ruin, and was supposed to have been built by "Peveril of the
Peak;" it was fortified during King John's time, and traces of the
fortifications still remain; it was repeatedly besieged and taken by
assault. The present building is a square and lofty mansion of
castellated appearance, with towers at the corners built of brown stone;
in it the Earl of Newcastle, who subsequently inherited it, spent on one
occasion $75,000 in entertaining King Charles I., the entire country
round being invited to come and attend the king: Ben Jonson performed a
play for his amusement. Lord Clarendon speaks of the occasion as "such
an excess of feasting as had scarce ever been known in England before."
It now belongs to the Duke of Portland, and has fallen into partial
decay, with trees growing in some of the deserted apartments and ivy
creeping along the walls. Visitors describe it as a ghostly house, with
long vaulted passages, subterranean chambers, dungeon-like holes in the
towers, and mysterious spaces beneath the vaults whence come weird
noises. When Mr. Jennings visited Bolsover recently he described it as
like a haunted house, and after examining the apartments, in which most
things seemed going to decay, he went down stairs, guided by an old
woman, to the cellars and passages that are said to be the remains of
the original Norman castle. A chamber with a high vaulted roof was used
as a kitchen, and an ancient stone passage connected it with a crypt;
beneath this, she told him, there was a church, never opened since the
days of Peveril. Their voices had a hollow sound, and their footsteps
awakened echoes as if from a large empty space beneath: the servants,
she said, were afraid to come down where they were, excepting by twos
and threes, and she added: "Many people have seen things here besides
me: something bad has been done here, sir, and when they open that
church below they'll find it out. Just where you stand by that door I
have several times seen a lady and gentleman--only for a moment or two,
for they come like a flash; when I have been sitting in the kitchen, not
thinking of any such thing, they stood there--the gentleman with ruffles
on, the lady with a scarf round her waist; I never believed in ghosts,
but I have seen _them_. I am used to it now, and don't mind it, but we
do not like the noises, because they disturb us. Not long ago my
husband, who comes here at night, and I could not sleep at all, and we
thought at last that somebody had got shut up in the castle, for some
children had been here that day; so we lit a candle and went all over
it, but there was nothing, only the noises following us, and keeping on
worse than ever after we left the rooms, though they stopped while we
were in them." The old woman's tale shows the atmosphere there is about
this sombre and ghostly castle of Bolsover.