The Peacock Hotel was built as a private house in 1652 for John Stevenson who was agent to Grace, Lady Manners of the Dukes of Rutland's Family of Haddon Hall. It was used as a dower house and was built in a Jacobean style with symmetrical gables on the front facade, and gardens which reached to the River Derwent. The hotel takes its name from the stone peacock over the front entrance, but the hotel was also famous for a large ceramic Minton peacock which stood in an alcove in the entrance hall, and which was recently sold at Sotheby's. The Peacock Hotel has been a hotel since 1820.