Description: 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.
Information from back of postcard:
This life-sized ceramic peacock, on display in the hotel, was manufactured for Mintons Ltd by Paul Comolera in 1850 and was said to have been recovered from the wreck of the 'Loch Ard' near Moonlight Bay, Australia in 1878.
However, other sources state that although one of Comolera's peacocks was famously washed ashore when a ship carrying an example to exhibitions in Sydney and Melbourne was wrecked in 1878, it stayed in Australia and is currently on display at the Flagstaff Hill Museum, Warnambool.