m)t Castle of m Icalt, anti tf)c pipe iaoUs.* 



Bv VV. H. St. John Hope, M.A , 

 Assislcmi Secretary to the Society of Antiquaries. 



HE Castle of the Peak, as it was anciently called, is 



familiar to most people, at least in name, ftom Sir 



Walter Scott's novel, Peveril of the Peak. But alas 



for the truth of the romance ! the novelist's castle is not 



the well-nigh impregnable fortress that kept guard over the 



" Peaclond," but the charming medieval house that we know as 



Haddon Hall. 



According to Domesday Survey, where the earliest mention of 

 the Peak Castle occurs, at the time of the Norman Conquest, 

 Gernebern and Hundinc held the land of William Peverel's Castle 

 in Pechefers.t Who Gernebern and Hundinc were does not 

 concern us now, neither need we enter into the difficult question 

 of the parentage of William Peverel. Mr. Freeman is content to 

 describe him as " a Norman adventurer of unknown origin, who 

 became one of the greatest landowners in Nottinghamshire and 

 Derbyshire." Whoever he was, he certainly stood high in the 

 favour of William the Conqueror, for after the submission of 

 Nottingham in 1068, in the course of the conquest of the North, 

 the king " wrought a castle " there, and it was to Peverel's hand 

 that the command of so important a stronghold was entrusted. 



* Abstract of a paper reail to the members of the Derbyshire Archaeological 

 Society, at the Castle of the Peak, on August 13th, 1887. 



+ Terram castelli in pechefers Willelmi Peurel tenuerunt Gernebern et 

 Hundinc. 



