Even so late as
November, 1878, a Nottingham newspaper correspondent, on visiting
Welbeck, was impressed with its appearance as that of the premises of
"some great contractor who had an order for the building of a big
village." There was the buzz of machinery, large areas were covered with
bricklayers', masons' and joiners' sheds, wherein any new mechanical
contrivance was put to the test. For more than eighteen years the
vicinity of the house resembled a builder's yard, in the centre of which
the Duke lived and moved and had his being, enjoying, in his way, the
piles of bricks and mortar surrounding him. After he had decided upon
the erection of a new building he had a model of it made for his
inspection, and if approved of, it was proceeded with.
Any tramp or wayfarer who applied for work at Welbeck was put on the
staff, and the market value of his labour paid. The Duke seemed to find
grim pleasure in the society of the casuals who made their way to his
stone-yards.
The wing built by the Countess of Oxford in a former generation had a
new storey put to it, with a magnificent suite of 14 new rooms furnished
in Louis XIV.
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