It had been
specially built for the coach traffic by the then Duke of Devonshire,
whose mansion, Chatsworth House, was only a few miles distant. King
George IV stayed at Newhaven on one occasion, and was so pleased with
his entertainment that he granted to the inn a free and perpetual
licence of his own sovereign pleasure, so that no application for
renewal of licence at Brewster Sessions was ever afterwards required; a
fact which accounted in some measure for the noisy company congregated
therein, in defiance of the superintendent of police, who, with five or
six of his officers, was standing in front of the fair. Booths had been
erected by other publicans, but the police had ordered these to be
removed earlier in the day to prevent further disturbances.
We noticed they had quite a number of persons in custody, and when I saw
a policeman looking very critically at the miscellaneous assortment of
luggage my brother was carrying, I thought he was about to be added to
the number; but he was soon satisfied as to the honesty of his
intentions. The "New Haven" must have meant a new haven for passengers,
horses, and coaches when the old haven had been removed, as the word
seemed only to apply to the hotel, which, as it was ten miles both from
Buxton and Ashbourne, and also on the Roman road known as Via Gellia,
must have been built exactly to accommodate the ten-mile run of the
coaches either way.
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