File:Landscape at Longshaw near Sheffield, Yorkshire, with 'The Fox House' inn RMG PZ0953.tiff

No. 65 of 73 (PAI0889 - PAI0961)

Inscribed in the upper right corner '------- and Fox House – Longshaw/10 Sepr 1862.'

‘The Fox House’ inn, built circa 1773, was famous as a calling place for carrier carts and stagecoaches. Originally called ‘The Travellers Rest’ it was later re-named after the Fox family of Callow near Hathersage. Schetky’s friend, the 5th Duke of Rutland had extensive estates in the area and in the 1840s he extended the building. Schetky was a frequent guest at the nearby Longshaw Lodge, the Duke’s shooting box. His daughter, SFL Schetky, describes (pp.202-3) the long friendship between the 5th Duke and Schetky:

‘The year 1844 was marked first by his official appointment as Marine Painter in Ordinary to her Majesty the Queen, and secondly by the commencement of a friendship with the late Duke of Rutland, which became one of the greatest happinesses of his after-life. He used to tell how, walking on the beach at Cowes with Lord Hardwicke, they met two friends of the Earl, both dukes, to whom with his accustomed hearty kindness he introduced my father. The one bowed courteously and continued his conversation with Lord Hardwicke; the other looked the artist in the face for a moment, and then held out his hand. It was as it were “love at first sight” between the two men, each then in his sixty-seventh year; and no friendship formed in the first enthusiasm of youth ever proved more strong and lasting – perhaps few so equal. And here I must guard against any imputation of presumption to my father. I know many will be ready to endorse my words when I say, that he never forgot the distinction of rank between himself and those noblemen who were willing to call him friend; but the equality to which I allude was that of his faithful affection which grew up between him and the much-honoured Duke of Rutland, and which was afterwards extended to him and accepted from him with no less generous grace by the present noble wearer of the title.

An invitation to visit the Duke at Longshaw Lodge, Derbyshire, in the following September, to meet the Earl and Countess of Harwicke, through whom it was conveyed, was the commencement of a long series of vacation visits, paid sometimes at Belvoir Castle, sometimes again in Derbyshire – most often, perhaps, on board the beloved schooner-yacht Resolution, - periods of happy intercourse of which John Schetky always wrote and spoke most gratefully. And when, in the later years of his long life, his thoughts would often naturally turn to the land of renewed youth and of resumed and strengthened friendships, he would dwell with vivid delight upon the reunion with “my old friend, the best of dukes!” and would describe in graphic terms the picture of that meeting, conjured up by his fertile imagination.’

The drawing continues to the right with the right hand section of sheet PAI0952.