Chatsworth House
Encyclopedia
Stately home
A stately home is a "great country house". It is thus a palatial great house or in some cases an updated castle, located in the British Isles, mostly built between the mid-16th century and the early part of the 20th century, as well as converted abbeys and other church property...
in North Derbyshire, England, 3.5 miles (5.6 km) northeast of Bakewell
Bakewell
Bakewell is a small market town in the Derbyshire Dales district of Derbyshire, England, deriving its name from 'Beadeca's Well'. It is the only town included in the Peak District National Park, and is well known for the local confection Bakewell Pudding...
and 9 miles (14.5 km) west of Chesterfield
Chesterfield
Chesterfield is a market town and a borough of Derbyshire, England. It lies north of Derby, on a confluence of the rivers Rother and Hipper. Its population is 70,260 , making it Derbyshire's largest town...
(GB Grid SK260700). It is the seat of the Duke of Devonshire
Duke of Devonshire
Duke of Devonshire is a title in the peerage of England held by members of the Cavendish family. This branch of the Cavendish family has been one of the richest and most influential aristocratic families in England since the 16th century, and have been rivalled in political influence perhaps only...
, and has been home to his family, the Cavendish
House of Cavendish
Cavendish is the surname of a British noble family, also known as the House of Cavendish, descended from Sir John Cavendish of Cavendish in the county of Suffolk Cavendish is the surname of a British noble family, also known as the House of Cavendish, descended from Sir John Cavendish of Cavendish...
family, since Bess of Hardwick
Bess of Hardwick
Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury (c. 1521 – 13 February 1608, known as Bess of Hardwick, was the daughter of John Hardwick, of Derbyshire and Elizabeth Leeke, daughter of Thomas Leeke and Margaret Fox...
settled at Chatsworth in 1549.
Standing on the east bank of the River Derwent
River Derwent, Derbyshire
The Derwent is a river in the county of Derbyshire, England. It is 66 miles long and is a tributary of the River Trent which it joins south of Derby. For half its course, the river flows through the Peak District....
, Chatsworth looks across to the low hills that divide the Derwent and Wye
River Wye, Derbyshire
The River Wye is a limestone river in the Peak District of Derbyshire, England. It is in length, and is one of the major tributaries of the River Derwent, which flows into the River Trent, and ultimately into the Humber and the North Sea....
valleys. The house is set in expansive parkland, and backed by wooded, rocky
Rock (geology)
In geology, rock or stone is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids.The Earth's outer solid layer, the lithosphere, is made of rock. In general rocks are of three types, namely, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic...
hills rising to heather
Calluna
Calluna vulgaris is the sole species in the genus Calluna in the family Ericaceae. It is a low-growing perennial shrub growing to tall, or rarely to and taller, and is found widely in Europe and Asia Minor on acidic soils in open sunny situations and in moderate shade...
moorland and contains a unique collection of priceless paintings, furniture, Old Master
Old Master
"Old Master" is a term for a European painter of skill who worked before about 1800, or a painting by such an artist. An "old master print" is an original print made by an artist in the same period...
drawings, neoclassical
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
sculptures
Neoclassical sculpture
Neoclassical sculpture was a sculptural style of the 18th and 19th centuries. The neoclassical period was one of the great ages of public sculpture, though its "classical" prototypes were more likely to be Roman copies of Hellenistic sculptures. The neoclassical sculptors paid homage to an idea of...
, books and other artefacts. Chatsworth has been selected as the United Kingdom's favourite country house several times.
Outline of structure of present building
Bess of Hardwick
Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury (c. 1521 – 13 February 1608, known as Bess of Hardwick, was the daughter of John Hardwick, of Derbyshire and Elizabeth Leeke, daughter of Thomas Leeke and Margaret Fox...
's original Tudor mansion. The long north wing was added by the 6th Duke in the early nineteenth century.
There are many structures other than the house on the estate, including two surviving Elizabethan buildings — the Hunting Tower and Queen Mary's Bower. Flora's Temple and the 1st Duke's Greenhouse survive from the 1690s, the Stable block and bridge were built by James Paine in the 1760s and Joseph Paxton's Conservative Wall and other glasshouses date from the 19th century. The 11th Duke and Duchess added the Display Greenhouse in 1970.
Early Chatsworth
The name 'Chatsworth' is a corruption of 'Chetel's-worth' meaning 'the Court of Chetel'. In the reign of Edward the ConfessorEdward the Confessor
Edward the Confessor also known as St. Edward the Confessor , son of Æthelred the Unready and Emma of Normandy, was one of the last Anglo-Saxon kings of England and is usually regarded as the last king of the House of Wessex, ruling from 1042 to 1066....
a man of Norse origin named 'Chetel' held lands jointly with a Saxon named 'Leotnoth' in three townships; Ednesoure to the west of the Derwent, and Langoleie and Chetesuorde to the east. Chetel was deposed after the Norman Conquest and in the Domesday Book
Domesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...
the Manor
Manor house
A manor house is a country house that historically formed the administrative centre of a manor, the lowest unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe. The term is applied to country houses that belonged to the gentry and other grand stately homes...
of Chetesuorde is listed as the property of the Crown in the custody of William de Peverel. Chatsworth ceased to be a large estate, until the 15th century when it was acquired by the Leche family who owned property nearby. They enclosed the first park at Chatsworth and built a house on the high ground in what is now the south-eastern part of the garden. In 1549 they sold all their property in the area to Sir William Cavendish, Treasurer of the King's Chamber and the husband of Bess of Hardwick
Bess of Hardwick
Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury (c. 1521 – 13 February 1608, known as Bess of Hardwick, was the daughter of John Hardwick, of Derbyshire and Elizabeth Leeke, daughter of Thomas Leeke and Margaret Fox...
, who had persuaded him to sell his property in Suffolk and settle in her native county.
Great hall
A great hall is the main room of a royal palace, nobleman's castle or a large manor house in the Middle Ages, and in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries. At that time the word great simply meant big, and had not acquired its modern connotations of excellence...
in the medieval tradition was on the east side of the courtyard, where the Painted Hall remains the focus of the house to this day. Sir William died in 1557, but Bess finished the house in the 1560s and lived there with her fourth husband, George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury
George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury
George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, 6th Earl of Waterford, 12th Baron Talbot, KG, Earl Marshal was a 16th century English statesman.-Life:...
. In 1568 Shrewsbury was entrusted with the custody of Mary, Queen of Scots, and brought his prisoner to Chatsworth several times from 1570 onwards. She lodged in the apartment now known as the Queen of Scots rooms, on the top floor above the great hall, which faces onto the inner courtyard. Bess died in 1608 and Chatsworth was passed to her second son William Cavendish, 1st Earl of Devonshire
William Cavendish, 1st Earl of Devonshire
William Cavendish, 1st Earl of Devonshire was an English politician and courtier.-Life:The second son of Sir William Cavendish and Bess of Hardwick, he was educated with the children of George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, whom his mother married after his father's death. She made him a rich...
.
The 1st Duke's Chatsworth
William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Devonshire
William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Devonshire KG PC was a soldier and Whig statesman, the son of William Cavendish, 3rd Earl of Devonshire and Lady Elizabeth Cecil.-Life:...
, who was to become the 1st Duke in 1694, was an advanced Whig
British Whig Party
The Whigs were a party in the Parliament of England, Parliament of Great Britain, and Parliament of the United Kingdom, who contested power with the rival Tories from the 1680s to the 1850s. The Whigs' origin lay in constitutional monarchism and opposition to absolute rule...
and was forced to retire to Chatsworth during the reign of James II
James II of England
James II & VII was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland...
. This called for a rebuilding of the house, which began in 1687. Cavendish initially planned to reconstruct only the south wing, so he decided to retain the Elizabethan courtyard plan, despite the fact that this layout was becoming increasingly unfashionable.
The south and east fronts were built under the order of William Talman
William Talman (architect)
William Talman was an English architect and landscape designer. A pupil of Sir Christopher Wren, in 1678 he and Thomas Apprice gained the office of King's Waiter in the Port of London...
and were complete by 1696. The 1st Duke's Chatsworth was a key building in the development of English Baroque
English Baroque
English Baroque is a term sometimes used to refer to the developments in English architecture that were parallel to the evolution of Baroque architecture in continental Europe between the Great Fire of London and the Treaty of Utrecht ....
architecture. According to the architectural historian Sir John Summerson
John Summerson
Sir John Newenham Summerson CH CBE was one of the leading British architectural historians of the 20th century....
, "It inaugurates an artistic revolution which is the counterpart of the political revolution in which the Earl was so prominent a leader." The design of the south front was revolutionary for an English house, with no attics or hipped roof, but instead two main stories supported by a rusticated
Rustication (architecture)
thumb|upright|Two different styles of rustication in the [[Palazzo Medici-Riccardi]] in [[Florence]].In classical architecture rustication is an architectural feature that contrasts in texture with the smoothly finished, squared block masonry surfaces called ashlar...
basement. The facade is dramatic and sculptural with ionic
Ionic
Ionic or Ionian may refer to:In ancient Greece:* Ionians, a people, one of the three great divisions of the ancient Greek people* Ionia, an ancient region in western Anatolia, in which the Ionian settlers established some colonies....
pilasters and a heavy entablature
Entablature
An entablature refers to the superstructure of moldings and bands which lie horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and are commonly divided into the architrave , the frieze ,...
and balustrade. The existing heavy and angular stone stairs from the first floor down to the garden are a 19th century replacement of an elegant curved double staircase. The east front is the quietest of the four on the main block. Like the south front it is unusual in that it has an even number of bays and no centrepiece. The emphasis is placed on the end bays, each highlighted by double pairs of pilasters, of which the inner pairs project outwards.
Thomas Archer
Thomas Archer was an English Baroque architect, whose work is somewhat overshadowed by that of his contemporaries Sir John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor. Archer was born at Umberslade Hall in Tanworth-in-Arden in Warwickshire, the youngest son of Thomas Archer, a country gentleman, Parliamentary...
, possibly in collaboration with the Duke himself. The west front has nine wide bays with a central pediment supported by four columns and pilaster
Pilaster
A pilaster is a slightly-projecting column built into or applied to the face of a wall. Most commonly flattened or rectangular in form, pilasters can also take a half-round form or the shape of any type of column, including tortile....
s to the other bays. Due to the slope of the site this front is taller than the south front. It is also large with many other nine bay three storey facades are little more than half as wide and tall. The west front is very lively with much carved stonework, and the window frames are highlighted with gold leaf, which catches the setting sun. The north front was the last to be built. It presented a challenge, as the north end of the west front projected nine feet (3 m) further than the north end of the east front. This problem was overcome by building a slightly curved facade to distract the eye. The north front was altered in the nineteenth century when the long north wing was attached to the north-east corner of the house. The attic windows on this side are the only ones visible on the exterior of the house and are set into the main facade, rather than into a visible roof. Those in the curved section were originally oval, but are now rectangular like those in the end sections.
The facades to the central courtyard were also rebuilt by the 1st Duke. The courtyard was larger than it is now, as there were no corridors on the western side and the northern and southern sides only had enclosed galleries on the first floor (second floor in American English) with open galleries below. In the 19th century new accommodation was built on these three sides on all three levels. The only surviving baroque facade is that on the eastern side, where five bays of the original seven remain, and are largely as built. There are carved trophies by Samuel Watson, a Derbyshire
Derbyshire
Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. A substantial portion of the Peak District National Park lies within Derbyshire. The northern part of Derbyshire overlaps with the Pennines, a famous chain of hills and mountains. The county contains within its boundary of approx...
craftsman who did a lot work at Chatsworth in stone, marble and wood. A richly appointed Baroque suite of state rooms open one from another in an enfilade
Enfilade (architecture)
In architecture, an enfilade is a suite of rooms formally aligned with each other. This was a common feature in grand European architecture from the Baroque period onwards, although there are earlier examples, such as the Vatican stanze...
across the south front. Other surviving interiors from this period include the chapel and the painted hall.
The 6th Duke's Chatsworth
The 6th DukeWilliam Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire
William George Spencer Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire KG, PC , styled Marquess of Hartington until 1811, was a British peer, courtier and Whig politician...
(known as 'the Bachelor Duke') was a passionate traveller, builder, gardener and collector who transformed Chatsworth. In 1811 he inherited the title and eight major estates; Chatsworth and Hardwick Hall
Hardwick Hall
Hardwick Hall , in Derbyshire, is one of the most significant Elizabethan country houses in England. In common with its architect Robert Smythson's other works at both Longleat House and Wollaton Hall, Hardwick Hall is one of the earliest examples of the English interpretation of the Renaissance...
in Derbyshire, Devonshire House
Devonshire House
Devonshire House in Piccadilly was the London residence of the Dukes of Devonshire in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was built for William Cavendish, 3rd Duke of Devonshire in the Palladian style, to designs by William Kent...
, Burlington House
Burlington House
Burlington House is a building on Piccadilly in London. It was originally a private Palladian mansion, and was expanded in the mid 19th century after being purchased by the British government...
and Chiswick House
Chiswick House
Chiswick House is a Palladian villa in Burlington Lane, Chiswick, in the London Borough of Hounslow in England. Set in , the house was completed in 1729 during the reign of George II and designed by Lord Burlington. William Kent , who took a leading role in designing the gardens, created one of the...
in London, Bolton Abbey
Bolton Abbey
Bolton Abbey is the estate within which is located the ruined 12th-century Augustinian Bolton Priory in North Yorkshire, England. It gives its name to the parish of Bolton Abbey.-Bolton Priory:...
and Londesborough Hall
Londesborough Hall
Londesborough Hall was a country house in the village of Londesborough in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, close to the towns of Market Weighton and Pocklington....
in Yorkshire, and Lismore Castle
Lismore Castle
Lismore Castle is located in the town of Lismore, in County Waterford in Ireland. It was largely re-built in the Gothic style during the mid-nineteenth century by William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire.-Early history:...
in Ireland. These estates covered 200000 acres (809.4 km²) of land in England and Ireland.
.jpg)
Victoria of the United Kingdom
Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....
decided that Hampton Court, with its state apartments in the same style, was uninhabitable.
The 6th Duke employed architect Jeffry Wyatville to modernise Chatsworth, meeting 19th century standards of comfort and suiting a less formal lifestyle than that of the 1st Duke's time. This demanded more corridors around the edges of the courtyard, so that rooms could be easily reached from indoors, and more shared living rooms to replace individual guest apartments. The Oak Stairs were built at the northern end of the Painted Hall to improve internal communications. The Duke was a great book collector and had the long gallery
Long gallery
Long gallery is an architectural term given to a long, narrow room, often with a high ceiling. In British architecture, long galleries were popular in Elizabethan and Jacobean houses. They were often located on the upper floor of the great houses of the time, and stretched across the entire...
converted into a library with an elegant white decor embellished with green malachite columns. He soon found that he needed more shelf space, so he had the room stripped bare and installed a new interior with bookcases covering nearly all of the walls and a wooden gallery for access to the higher shelves. Changes to the main baroque interiors were restricted to details such as stamped leather hangings on the walls of the State Music Room and State Bedroom, and a wider and shallower, but less elegant staircase in the Painted Hall, which was itself later replaced.
In the 1st Duke's house the most important service rooms were in the main block. There was also a straggle of service buildings to the north of the house, which was replaced with an unassuming neoclassical service wing in the second half of the 18th century. The 6th Duke and Wyatville built a new North Wing, doubling the size of the house. Most of this wing only has two storeys, compared to the three of the main block's. It is attached to the north-east corner of the house near the library, and is around 400 feet (120 m) long. On the first floor, facing west, were two sets of bachelor bedrooms called 'California' and 'The Birds'. The entire ground floor was occupied by service rooms, including a kitchen, servants' hall, laundry, butler and housekeeper's rooms, and many others.
The main rooms in the new wing face east. The link to the main house is a small library called the Dome Room. The first room beyond this is a dining room, with a music gallery in the serving lobby where the Duke's musicians played. Next is the sculpture gallery, the largest room in the house, and then the orangery. At the end of the North Wing is the North, or Belvedere Tower. This contains a plunge bath and Chatsworth's private Theatre. Above the theatre is the belvedere
Belvedere (structure)
Belvedere is an architectural term adopted from Italian , which refers to any architectural structure sited to take advantage of such a view. A belvedere may be built in the upper part of a building so as to command a fine view...
itself, an open viewing platform below the roof. The Duke built a gatehouse at this end of the house with three gates. The central and largest gate led to the North Entrance, then the main entrance to the house. This is now the entrance used by visitors. The north gate led to the service courtyard, and the matching south gate led to the original front door in the west front, which was relegated to secondary status in the Bachelor Duke's time, but is now the family's private entrance once again.
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
transcription over the fireplace in the painted hall translates as, "William Spencer, Duke of Devonshire, inherited this most beautiful house from his father in the year 1811, which had been begun in the year of English liberty 1688, and completed it in the year of his bereavement 1840". 1688 was the year of the Glorious Revolution
Glorious Revolution
The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, is the overthrow of King James II of England by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau...
, supported by the Whig
British Whig Party
The Whigs were a party in the Parliament of England, Parliament of Great Britain, and Parliament of the United Kingdom, who contested power with the rival Tories from the 1680s to the 1850s. The Whigs' origin lay in constitutional monarchism and opposition to absolute rule...
dynasties including the Cavendishes. The year 1840 saw the death of the Duke's beloved niece Blanche, who was married to his heir, the future 7th Duke
William Cavendish, 7th Duke of Devonshire
William Cavendish, 7th Duke of Devonshire KG, PC , styled as Lord Cavendish of Keighley between 1831 and 1834 and known as The Earl of Burlington between 1834 and 1858, was a British landowner, benefactor and politician.-Background and education:Cavendish was the son of William Cavendish, eldest...
. In 1844 he published a book called Handbook to Chatsworth and Hardwick.
In October 1832, Princess Victoria (later Queen Victoria) and her mother, the Duchess of Kent, visited Chatsworth. The 6th Duke had another opportunity to welcome Victoria in 1843 when the Queen and Prince Albert returned to be entertained by a large array of illuminated fountains.
Early 20th-century Chatsworth
In the early 20th century social change and taxes began to affect the Devonshires' lifestyle. When the 8th Duke died in 1908 over £500,000 of death duties became due. This was a small charge compared to what followed forty-two years later, but the estate was already burdened with debt from the 6th Duke's extravagances, the failure of the 7th Duke's business ventures at Barrow-in-FurnessBarrow-in-Furness
Barrow-in-Furness is an industrial town and seaport which forms about half the territory of the wider Borough of Barrow-in-Furness in the county of Cumbria, England. It lies north of Liverpool, northwest of Manchester and southwest from the county town of Carlisle...
, and the depression in British agriculture that had been apparent since the 1870s. In 1912 the family sold twenty-five books printed by William Caxton
William Caxton
William Caxton was an English merchant, diplomat, writer and printer. As far as is known, he was the first English person to work as a printer and the first to introduce a printing press into England...
and a collection of 1,347 volumes of plays acquired by the 6th Duke, including four Shakespeare folios and thirty-nine Shakespeare quarto
Quarto
Quarto could refer to:* Quarto, a size or format of a book in which four leaves of a book are created from a standard size sheet of paper* For specific information about quarto texts of William Shakespeare's works, see:...
s, to the Huntington Library in California. Tens of thousands of acres of land in Somerset
Somerset
The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...
, Sussex
Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
and Derbyshire were also sold during, and immediately after, World War I. In 1920 the family's London mansion, Devonshire House, which occupied a 3 acres (12,140.6 m²) site on Piccadilly
Piccadilly
Piccadilly is a major street in central London, running from Hyde Park Corner in the west to Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is completely within the city of Westminster. The street is part of the A4 road, London's second most important western artery. St...
, was sold to developers and demolished. Much of the contents of Devonshire House was moved to Chatsworth and a much smaller house at 2 Carlton Gardens near The Mall
The Mall (London)
The Mall in central London is the road running from Buckingham Palace at its western end to Admiralty Arch and on to Trafalgar Square at its eastern end. It then crosses Spring Gardens, which was where the Metropolitan Board of Works and, for a number of years, the London County Council were...
was acquired. The Great Conservatory in the garden at Chatsworth was demolished as it needed ten men to run it, huge quantities of coal to heat it, and all the plants had died during the war when no coal had been available for non-essential purposes. To further reduce running costs, there was also talk of pulling down the 6th Duke's north wing, which was then regarded as having no aesthetic or historical value, but nothing came of it. Chiswick House—the celebrated Palladian villa in the suburbs of West London that the Devonshires inherited when the 4th Duke
William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire
William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire, KG, PC , styled Lord Cavendish before 1729 and Marquess of Hartington between 1729 and 1755, was a British Whig statesman who was briefly nominal Prime Minister of Great Britain...
married Lord Burlington's daughter—was sold to Brentford
Brentford
Brentford is a suburban town in west London, England, and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It is located at the confluence of the River Thames and the River Brent, west-southwest of Charing Cross. Its former ceremonial county was Middlesex.-Toponymy:...
Council in 1929.
Nonetheless, life at Chatsworth continued much as before. The household was run by a comptroller
Comptroller
A comptroller is a management level position responsible for supervising the quality of accounting and financial reporting of an organization.In British government, the Comptroller General or Comptroller and Auditor General is in most countries the external auditor of the budget execution of the...
and domestic staff were still available, although more so in the country than in the cities. The staff at Chatsworth at this time consisted of a butler, under butler, groom of the chambers, valet, three footmen, a housekeeper, the Duchess's maid, eleven housemaids, two sewing women, a cook, two kitchen maids, a vegetable maid, two or three scullery maids, two stillroom maids, a dairy maid, six laundry maids and the Duchess's secretary. All of these thirty-eight or thirty-nine people lived in the house. Daily staff included the odd man, upholsterer, scullery-maid, two scrubbing women, laundry porter, steam boiler man, coal man, two porter's lodge attendants, two night firemen, night porter, two window cleaners, and a team of joiners, plumbers and electricians. The Clerk of Works supervised the maintenance of the house and other properties on the estate. There were also grooms, chauffeurs and gamekeepers. The number of garden staff was somewhere between the eighty of the 6th Duke's time and the twenty or so of the early 21st century. There was also a librarian, Francis Thompson, who wrote the first book-length account of Chatsworth since the 6th Duke's handbook.
Most of the UK's country houses were put to institutional use during World War II. Some of those used as barracks were badly damaged, but the 10th Duke
Edward Cavendish, 10th Duke of Devonshire
Edward William Spencer Cavendish, 10th Duke of Devonshire, KG, MBE, TD , known as Marquess of Hartington , was the head of the Devonshire branch of the Cavendish family...
, anticipating that schoolgirls would make better tenants than soldiers, arranged for Chatsworth to be occupied by Penrhos College, a girls' public school
Public School (UK)
A public school, in common British usage, is a school that is neither administered nor financed by the state or from taxpayer contributions, and is instead funded by a combination of endowments, tuition fees and charitable contributions, usually existing as a non profit-making charitable trust...
in Colwyn Bay
Colwyn Bay
- Demography :Prior to local government reorganisation on 1 April 1974 Colwyn Bay was a municipal borough with a population of c.25,000, but in 1974 this designation disappeared leaving five separate parishes, known as communities in Wales, of which the one bearing the name Colwyn Bay encompassed...
, Wales. The school later merged with Rydal School to become Rydal Penrhos
Rydal Penrhos
Rydal Penrhos is a private co-educational boarding school in Colwyn Bay, North Wales. It is located on multiple sites around the town including a site in the neighbouring village of Rhos-on-Sea where it keeps its watersports equipment for easy access to the beach.The school, as it exists today,...
a co-educational private school. The contents of the house were packed away in eleven days and 300 girls and their teachers moved in for a six-year stay. The whole of the house was used, including the state rooms, which were turned into dormitories. Condensation from the breath of the sleeping girls caused fungus to grow behind some of the pictures. The house was not very comfortable for so many people, with a shortage of hot water, but there were compensations, such as skating on the Canal Pond. The girls grew vegetables in the garden as a contribution to the war effort.
In 1944 Kathleen Kennedy, sister of John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
, married William Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington
William John Robert Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington
William John Robert Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington was the eldest son of Edward Cavendish, 10th Duke of Devonshire and Mary Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire. He was the husband of Kathleen Agnes Kennedy, sister of future U.S. President John F. Kennedy.-Politics:Lord Hartington was a member of...
, the elder son of the 10th Duke of Devonshire
Edward Cavendish, 10th Duke of Devonshire
Edward William Spencer Cavendish, 10th Duke of Devonshire, KG, MBE, TD , known as Marquess of Hartington , was the head of the Devonshire branch of the Cavendish family...
. However, he was killed in action in Belgium later in 1944, and Kathleen died in a plane crash in 1948. His younger brother Andrew became the 11th Duke
Andrew Cavendish, 11th Duke of Devonshire
Andrew Robert Buxton Cavendish, 11th Duke of Devonshire KG, MC, PC , styled Lord Andrew Cavendish until 1944 and Marquess of Hartington from 1944 to 1950, was a British Conservative politician...
in 1950. He was married to Deborah Mitford, one of the Mitford girls
Mitford family
The Mitford family is a minor aristocratic English family that traces its origins in Northumberland back to the time of the Norman conquest. In the Middle Ages they had been Border Reivers based in Redesdale. The main family line had seats at Mitford Castle, Mitford Old Manor House and from 1828...
and sister to Nancy Mitford
Nancy Mitford
Nancy Freeman-Mitford, CBE , styled The Hon. Nancy Mitford before her marriage and The Hon. Mrs Peter Rodd thereafter, was an English novelist and biographer, one of the Bright Young People on the London social scene in the inter-war years...
, Diana Mitford
Diana Mitford
Diana Mitford, Lady Mosley , was one of Britain's noted Mitford sisters. She was married first to Bryan Walter Guinness, heir to the barony of Moyne, and secondly to Sir Oswald Mosley, 6th Baronet, of Ancoats, leader of the British Union of Fascists; her second marriage, in 1936, took place at the...
, Pamela Mitford, Unity Mitford
Unity Mitford
Unity Valkyrie Mitford was a member of the aristocratic Mitford family, tracing its origins in Northumberland back to the 11th century Norman settlement of England. Unity Mitford's sister Diana was married to Oswald Mosley, leader of British Union of Fascists...
and Jessica Mitford
Jessica Mitford
Jessica Lucy Freeman-Mitford was an English author, journalist and political campaigner, who was one of the Mitford sisters...
Modern Chatsworth
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...
of the North
Northern England
Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North or the North Country, is a cultural region of England. It is not an official government region, but rather an informal amalgamation of counties. The southern extent of the region is roughly the River Trent, while the North is bordered...
; instead, the Duke decided to retain his family's home if he could. He sold tens of thousands of acres of land, transferred Hardwick Hall to the National Trust in lieu of tax, and sold some major works of art from Chatsworth. The family's Sussex house, Compton Place was lent to a school. The effect of the death duties was mitigated to some extent by the historically low value of art during the post-war years and the increase in land values, subsequent to 1950, during the post-war agricultural revival, and, on the face of it, the losses were considerably less than 80% in terms of physical assets. In Derbyshire 35000 acres (141.6 km²) were retained out of 83000 acres (335.9 km²). The Bolton Abbey estate in Yorkshire and the Lismore Castle estate in Ireland remained in the family. Nonetheless, it took seventeen years to complete negotiations with the Inland Revenue
Inland Revenue
The Inland Revenue was, until April 2005, a department of the British Government responsible for the collection of direct taxation, including income tax, national insurance contributions, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, corporation tax, petroleum revenue tax and stamp duty...
, interest being due in the meantime. The Chatsworth Estate is now managed by the Trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement, which was established in 1946.
The 10th Duke was pessimistic about the future of houses like Chatsworth, and made no plans to move back in after the war. After Penrhos College left in 1945 the only people who slept in the house were two housemaids, but over the winter of 1948–49 the house was cleaned and tidied for reopening to the public by two Hungarian women who had been Kathleen Kennedy's cook and housemaid in London and a team of their compatriots.
In the mid-1950s, the 11th Duke
Andrew Cavendish, 11th Duke of Devonshire
Andrew Robert Buxton Cavendish, 11th Duke of Devonshire KG, MC, PC , styled Lord Andrew Cavendish until 1944 and Marquess of Hartington from 1944 to 1950, was a British Conservative politician...
and Duchess began to think about moving into the house. The pre-war house had relied entirely on a large staff for its comforts, and lacked modern facilities. The building was rewired, the plumbing and heating were overhauled, and six self-contained staff flats were created to replace the small staff bedrooms and communal servants' hall. Including those in the staff flats, seventeen bathrooms were added to the existing handful. The 6th Duke's cavernous kitchen was abandoned and a new one was created closer to the family dining room. The family rooms were repainted, carpets were brought out of store, and curtains were repaired or replaced. The Duke and Duchess and their three children moved across the park from Edensor House in 1959.
The 11th Duke died in 2004 and was succeeded by his son, the current Duke, Peregrine Cavendish, 12th Duke of Devonshire
Peregrine Cavendish, 12th Duke of Devonshire
Peregrine Andrew Morny Cavendish, 12th Duke of Devonshire, KCVO, CBE , is a British peer. He is the only surviving son of the 11th Duke of Devonshire and his wife, the former Deborah Mitford. He succeeded to the dukedom following the death of his father on 3 May 2004...
. The 11th Duke's widow, the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, is very active in promoting the estate and increasing its visitor income. She has been responsible for many additions to the gardens, including the maze, the kitchen, the cottage gardens and several commissions of modern sculpture. She has also written seven books about different aspects of Chatsworth and its estate.
Interiors
The 1st and 6th Dukes both inherited an old house and tried to adapt in to the lifestyle of their time without changing the fundamentals of its layout making the Chatsworth's layout unique and full of irregularities and the interiors are a collection of different styles. Many of the rooms are recognisably of one main period but, in nearly every case, they have been altered more often than might be supposed at first glance.18th-century alterations
In the 1760s the 4th Duke had the old kitchen in the centre of the north front made into an entrance hall. The upper part was made into bedrooms, which are rather oddly shaped due to the curve in the facade. Improbably for one of the major houses in England in this age of elegance, the main entrance was through a converted kitchen, back outside to the open colonnade in the courtyard, through a passage past the cook's bedroom and the back stairs and into the painted hall. The Duke's grandson later improved the access by enclosing the colonnade to make a corridor and furnishing it with a multicoloured marble floor. The cook's bedroom and the back stairs made way for the present Oak Staircase. The 5th Duke had some of the family's private rooms redecorated and some partition walls were moved, but there are few traces of the mid and late 18th century in the public rooms.Private rooms
Chatsworth has 126 rooms, with nearly 100 of them closed to visitors. The house is well-adapted to allow the family to live privately in their apartments while the house is open to the public. Deborah, Dowager Duchess of DevonshireDeborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire
Deborah Vivien Cavendish, Dowager Duchess of Devonshire DCVO , née The Hon. Deborah Freeman-Mitford is the youngest and last surviving of the six noted Mitford sisters whose political affiliations and marriages were a prominent feature of English culture in the 1930s and 1940s...
describes the family rooms in detail in her book Chatsworth: The House. She now lives at Edensor
Edensor
Edensor is a village in Derbyshire, England. It is the closest village to Chatsworth House and much of it belongs to the Dukes of Devonshire. Originally the village was close to the River Derwent immediately below Chatsworth, but the Dukes had it moved out of sight over a hill, apart from one...
, and the present (12th) Duke and Duchess have moved in to Chatsworth. The family occupies rooms on the ground and first floors of the south front, all three floors of the west front, and the upper two floors of the north front. Staircases in the north-east corner of the main block and in a turret in the east front enable them to move about without crossing the public route.
The main family living rooms are on the first floor of the south front. The family dining room is in the south-east corner and has the same dimensions as the State Dining Room directly above. This has been the usual location of the family dining room; the Bachelor Duke's dining room in the north wing took over that role for an interlude of little more than a hundred years. Both Bess of Hardwick's house and the 1st Duke's house had a hierarchy of three dining rooms in this corner, each taller and more lavishly decorated than the one below. A common parlour on the ground floor was used by the gentlemen of the household, and later for informal family meals. Above it was the main family dining room, and at the top the Great Chamber
Great chamber
The great chamber was the second most important room in a medieval or Tudor English castle, palace, mansion or manor house after the great hall. Medieval great halls were the ceremonial centre of household and were not private at all; the gentlemen attendants and the servants would come and go all...
, which was reserved for royalty, although the Bachelor Duke wrote that, to his knowledge, it had never been used.
The family's best drawing room, called the yellow drawing room, is next to the dining room and directly underneath the State Drawing Room. The Dowager Duchess has written that the house is so solidly built that the crowds passing above are imperceptible. The trio of reception rooms here is completed by the blue drawing room, which is below the State Music Room. This was created in the 18th century by knocking together the 1st Duke's bedroom and dressing room, and has a door to his private gallery at the upper level of the chapel. It has also served as a billiard room and as a school room. Charity events are sometimes held in this part of the house. Both drawing rooms have access to the garden through the South Front's external staircase.
Three corridors called 'the Tapestry Gallery','the Burlington Corridor' and 'the Book Passage' are wrapped around the south, west and north passages at this level, and give access to family bedrooms. There is a sitting room in the north-west corner — one of the few rooms in the house with view in two directions. There are more family bedrooms on the second floor facing west and north. The Scots and Leicester bedrooms in the east wing are still used when there is a large house party, which is the reason why sometimes they are available as a separately charged optional extra in the tour of the house and sometimes they are not. This suite of rooms now contains the 11th Duke's Exhibition. Visitors bypass the first floor on their way down the West Stairs from the state rooms to the Chapel.
The private north stairs lead down to more private rooms on the ground floor of the West Front. In the centre is the West Entrance Hall, which is, once again, the family entrance. To the right, on entering, is a passage room known as the mineral room, which leads through to a study. To the left there is the Leather Room; with walls of leather and a great many books this is one of at least six libraries in the house. The next room is the Duke's Study, which has two windows, many more books and floral decoration painted for the Bachelor Duke by, in his own words, "three bearded artists in blouses imported from Paris." The corner room on the ground floor is the former 'little dining room'. These rooms are all very high as the ground level in the west wing is lower than that of the Painted Hall and the ground floor corridors around the courtyard. Steps from the West Entrance Hall lead up to the west corridor.
The other family living rooms are in the eastern half of the ground floor of the South Front and can be reached through the Chapel Corridor on the public route, or the turret staircase from the dining room. The room in the south-east corner was once the Ducal bathroom, until the Bachelor Duke built his new plunge bath in the North Wing, and is now the pantry where the family china is kept. This connects to the modern kitchen, which is under the library and was made out of the steward's room and the linen room. Next to the pantry in the south front are offices.
Trompe l'oeil
The State Music Room features a very convincing trompe l'oeilTrompe l'oeil
Trompe-l'œil, which can also be spelled without the hyphen in English as trompe l'oeil, is an art technique involving extremely realistic imagery in order to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects appear in three dimensions.-History in painting:Although the phrase has its origin in...
of a violin and bow "hanging" on a silver knob on a door, painted around 1723 by Jan van der Vaart.
Chatsworth's garden
Chatsworth's garden attracts around 300,000 visitors a year. It has a complex blend of different features from six different centuries and covers 105 acre (0.4249203 km²). The garden is surrounded by a wall 1.75 miles (2.8 km) long. It sits on the eastern side of the valley of the Derwent RiverRiver Derwent, Derbyshire
The Derwent is a river in the county of Derbyshire, England. It is 66 miles long and is a tributary of the River Trent which it joins south of Derby. For half its course, the river flows through the Peak District....
and blends into the landscape of the surrounding park, which covers 1000 acres (4 km²). The woods on the moors to the east of the valley form a backdrop to the garden. There is a staff of approximately 20 full-time gardeners. The average rainfall is around 33.7 inches (855 mm) a year, and there are an average of 1,160 sunshine hours a year. Most of the principal features of the garden were created in five main phases of development.
Elizabethan garden
The house and garden were first constructed by Sir William Cavendish and Bess of Hardwick in 1555. The Elizabethan garden was much smaller than the modern garden is now. There were terraces to the east of the house where the main lawn is now, ponds and fountains to the south, and fishponds to the west by the river. The main visual remnant of this time is a squat stone tower known as Queen Mary's Bower on account of a legend that Mary, Queen of Scots, was allowed to take the air there while she was a prisoner at Chatsworth. The bower is now outside the garden wall in the park. Some of the retaining walls of the West Garden also date to this era, but they were reconstructed and extended later.1st Duke's garden (1684–1707)
At the same time as he was rebuilding the house, the 1st Duke also created baroqueBaroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
gardens. It featured numerous parterre
Parterre
A parterre is a formal garden construction on a level surface consisting of planting beds, edged in stone or tightly clipped hedging, and gravel paths arranged to form a pleasing, usually symmetrical pattern. Parterres need not have any flowers at all...
s cut into the slopes above the house, and many fountains, garden buildings and classical sculptures. The principal surviving features from this time are:
- The Cascade and Cascade House is a set of stone steps over which water flows from a set of fountains at the top. It was built in 1696 and rebuilt on a grander scale in 1701. In 1703 a grand baroque Temple or Cascade House designed by Thomas ArcherThomas ArcherThomas Archer was an English Baroque architect, whose work is somewhat overshadowed by that of his contemporaries Sir John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor. Archer was born at Umberslade Hall in Tanworth-in-Arden in Warwickshire, the youngest son of Thomas Archer, a country gentleman, Parliamentary...
was added at the top. A major restoration of both the Cascade and the Cascade House in 1994–1996 took 10,000 man-hours of work. In 2004 the Cascade was voted the best water feature in England by a panel of 45 garden experts organised by Country LifeCountry Life (magazine)Country Life is a British weekly magazine, based in London at 110 Southwark Street, and owned by IPC Media, a Time Warner subsidiary.- Topics :The magazine covers the pleasures and joys of rural life, as well as the concerns of rural people...
. It has 24 cut steps, each slightly different and with a variety of textures so that each gives a different sound when water runs over and down them. - The Canal Pond, dug in 1702, is a 314 yards (287.1 m)-long rectangular lake to the south of the house.
- The Seahorse Fountain is a sculptural fountain in a circular pond on the lawn between the house and the Canal Pond. Originally, it was the centrepiece of the main parterre.
- The Willow Tree Fountain is an imitation tree that squirts water on the unsuspecting from its branches. The writer Celia FiennesCelia FiennesCelia Fiennes was an English traveller. Born in Wiltshire, she was the daughter of an English Civil War Parliamentarian Colonel, who was in turn the second son of the William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele. Celia Fiennes died in Hackney in 1741.-Pioneering Female Traveller:Fiennes never married...
wrote in her diary: "There... in the middle of ye grove stands a fine willow tree, the leaves, barke and all looks very naturall, ye roote is full of rubbish or great stones to appearance and all on a sudden by ye turning of a sluice it rains from each leafe and from the branches like a shower, it being made of brass and pipes to each leafe, but in appearance is exactly like any willow." The tree has been replaced twice and then restored in 1983. - The First Duke's greenhouse is a long, low building with ten arched windows and a temple-like centrepiece. It has been moved from its original site overlooking the 1st Duke's bowling green to the northern edge of the main lawn and is now fronted by a rose garden.
- Flora's Temple is a classical temple built in 1695 and moved to its present site at the northern end of the broad walk in 1760. It contains a statue of the goddess Flora by Caius Gabriel CibberCaius Gabriel CibberCaius Gabriel Cibber was a Danish sculptor, who enjoyed great success in England, and was the father of the actor, author and poet laureate Colley Cibber. He was appointed "carver to the king's closet" by William III....
. - The West Garden—now the family's private garden with modern planting in a three-section formal structure—is mainly a creation of the 1st Duke's time, but the layout is not original.
4th Duke's garden (1755–1764)
6th Duke's garden (1826–1858)
Joseph Paxton
Sir Joseph Paxton was an English gardener and architect, best known for designing The Crystal Palace.-Early life:...
, who had been trained at Kew Gardens, was appointed head gardener at Chatsworth. The 6th Duke had inherited Chatsworth fifteen years earlier and had previously shown little interest in improving the neglected garden, but he soon formed a productive and extravagantly funded partnership with Paxton, who proved to be the most innovative garden designer of his era, and remains the greatest single influence on Chatsworth's garden. Features that survive from that time include:
- The Rockeries and The Strid: In 1842 Paxton began work on a rockery of a gargantuan scale, piling rocks weighing several tons one on top of another. One of them was described thus by Lord Desart in the 1860s: "In one place a sort of miniature MatterhornMatterhornThe Matterhorn , Monte Cervino or Mont Cervin , is a mountain in the Pennine Alps on the border between Switzerland and Italy. Its summit is 4,478 metres high, making it one of the highest peaks in the Alps. The four steep faces, rising above the surrounding glaciers, face the four compass points...
apparently blocked the path but with the touch of the finger it revolved on a metal axis and made a way to pass." It is now locked in place to comply with health and safety regulations. Another rock is so balanced that it can be swayed with little pressure. Two rocks are named for the Queen and Prince Albert, and another for the Duke of Wellington, all of whom visited Chatsworth in the 6th Duke's time. The Wellington Rock, a construction of several rocks piled on top of each other, is 45 feet (14 m) high and a small waterfall drips over it into a pond. Sometimes in the winter the water freezes creating icicles. The water flows into a pond created by Paxton called 'The Strid', which is named after a stretch of the River WharfeRiver WharfeThe River Wharfe is a river in Yorkshire, England. For much of its length it is the county boundary between West Yorkshire and North Yorkshire. The name Wharfe is Celtic and means "twisting, winding".The valley of the River Wharfe is known as Wharfedale...
on the Devonshires' Bolton AbbeyBolton AbbeyBolton Abbey is the estate within which is located the ruined 12th-century Augustinian Bolton Priory in North Yorkshire, England. It gives its name to the parish of Bolton Abbey.-Bolton Priory:...
estate, where the river is compressed into a turbulent chasm just a yard wide. Chatworth's Strid is a placid stretch of water fringed with rocks and luxuriant vegetation and crossed by a rustic bridge. - The Arboretum and Pinetum: The 6th Duke's time was an age of plant hunting expeditions, with major new species readily discovered by intrepid botanists, and the Duke was one of the most generous sponsors of the plant-hunting exhibitions. In 1829 he took an additional eight acres (32,000 m²) of the park into the garden to create a pinetum, and in 1835 Paxton began work on an arboretumArboretumAn arboretum in a narrow sense is a collection of trees only. Related collections include a fruticetum , and a viticetum, a collection of vines. More commonly, today, an arboretum is a botanical garden containing living collections of woody plants intended at least partly for scientific study...
, which was planned as a systematic succession of trees in accordance with botanical classification. Chatsworth has some of the oldest specimens of species such as Douglas fir and Giant Sequoia in the UK. Also in this part of the garden is the Grotto Pond, which was originally a fishpond, breeding fish for Chatsworth's table. The 6th Duke's mother had had the rustic grotto built at the end of the 18th century. The area around the pond is now planted for autumn colour. - The Azalea Dell and the Ravine: RhododendronRhododendronRhododendron is a genus of over 1 000 species of woody plants in the heath family, most with showy flowers...
s and AzaleaAzaleaAzaleas are flowering shrubs comprising two of the eight subgenera of the genus Rhododendron, Pentanthera and Tsutsuji . Azaleas bloom in spring, their flowers often lasting several weeks...
s grow well at Chatsworth as the soil suits them well, and a section of the southern end of the garden is devoted to them. This is the most rugged part of the garden with steep serpentine paths and a stream running down a small valley known as The Ravine. In 1997 a waterfall was created out of old drinking troughs gathered from fields on the estate. There is also a bambooBambooBamboo is a group of perennial evergreens in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family....
walk there. - The Emperor Fountain: In 1843 Tsar Nicholas I of RussiaNicholas I of RussiaNicholas I , was the Emperor of Russia from 1825 until 1855, known as one of the most reactionary of the Russian monarchs. On the eve of his death, the Russian Empire reached its historical zenith spanning over 20 million square kilometers...
informed the Duke, that he was likely to visit Chatsworth the following year. In anticipation of this Imperial visit, the Duke decided to construct the world's highest fountain, and set Paxton to work to build it. An eight-acre (32,000 m²) lake was dug on the moors 350 feet (110 m) above the house to supply the natural water pressure. The work was finished in just six months, continuing at night by the light of flares, and the resulting water jet is on record as reaching a height of 296 feet (90 m). However, the Tsar died in 1855 and never saw the fountain. Due to the limited supply of water the fountain usually runs on partial power and only reaches half its full height, but occasionally it is switched to maximum flow. The water power found a practical use generating Chatsworth's electricity from 1893 to 1936. The house was then connected to the mains, and a new turbine was installed in 1988 that produces about a third of the electricity the house needs. - The Conservative Wall is a set of greenhouses that run up the slope from Flora's Temple to the stables against the north wall of the garden. A tall central section is flanked by ten smaller sections. They are used to grow fruit and camelliaCamelliaCamellia, the camellias, is a genus of flowering plants in the family Theaceae. They are found in eastern and southern Asia, from the Himalaya east to Korea and Indonesia. There are 100–250 described species, with some controversy over the exact number...
s. Two camellia reticula 'Captain Rawes' planted in 1850 survive. Chatworth's camellias have won many prizes. The name of the building has no political connotations; the Dukes of Devonshire were WhigsBritish Whig PartyThe Whigs were a party in the Parliament of England, Parliament of Great Britain, and Parliament of the United Kingdom, who contested power with the rival Tories from the 1680s to the 1850s. The Whigs' origin lay in constitutional monarchism and opposition to absolute rule...
and later LiberalsLiberal Party (UK)The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
.
Decimus Burton
Decimus Burton was a prolific English architect and garden designer, He is particularly associated with projects in the classical style in London parks, including buildings at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and London Zoo, and with the layout and architecture of the seaside towns of Fleetwood and...
, for Chatsworth's Great Conservatory, which began construction in 1836 and was completed in 1841. It was 277 feet (84 m) long, 123 feet (37 m) wide and 61 feet (19 m) high making it the largest glass house in the world at that time and cost £33,099. A carriage drive ran the length of the building between lush tropical vegetation. One W. Adam called it "A mountain of glass... an unexampled structure... like a sea of glass when the waves are settling and smoothing down after a storm." The King of Saxony compared it to "A tropical scene with a glass sky." The Great Conservatory was demolished after World War I as all the plants had died as it had not been heated during the war, and the cost of running became too much. Another large glasshouse at Barbrook, on the edge of the park, was devoted to cultivation of the giant Amazon water lily, Victoria amazonica
Victoria amazonica
Victoria amazonica is a species of flowering plant, the largest of the Nymphaeaceae family of water lilies.-Description:The species has very large leaves, up to 3 m in diameter, that float on the water's surface on a submerged stalk, 7–8 m in length. The species was once called Victoria...
, which flowered in captivity there for the first time. This Lily House has also been lost.
Modern garden (1950–present)
Alan Titchmarsh
Alan Fred Titchmarsh, MBE DL is an English gardener, broadcaster and novelist. After working as a professional gardener and a garden journalist, he established himself as a media personality through appearances on gardening programmes...
wrote in 2003: "Chatsworth's greatest strength is that its owners have refused to let the garden rest on its Victorian laurels. It continues to grow and develop, and that is what makes it one of the best and most vibrant gardens in Britain." Many of the historical features have been restored to an immaculate condition, and unusually for an English country house garden in modern times, numerous important new features have been added including:
- The South Lawn limes are double rows of pleachedEspalierEspalier is the horticultural and ancient agricultural practice of controlling woody plant growth by pruning and tying branches so that they grow into a flat plane, frequently in formal patterns, against a structure such as a wall, fence, or trellis, and also plants which have been shaped in this...
red twigged limes on either side of the South Lawn, which were planted in 1952. - The Serpentine Hedge is a wavy hedged yew corridor that leads from the Ring Pond to the bust of the 6th Duke. It was planted in 1953.
- The Maze was planted with 1,209 yews in the centre of the site of the former Great Conservatory in 1962. Two flower gardens occupy the rest of the site.
- The Display Greenhouse (1970) is in a modern style, but is unobtrusively sited behind the First Duke's greenhouse. It has three climate zones, tropical, Mediterranean and temperate. Public access is limited but groups may book tours and there are first-come-first-served tours on a few days each season.
- The Cottage Garden was inspired by an exhibit at the 1988 Chelsea Flower ShowChelsea Flower ShowThe RHS Chelsea Flower Show, formally known as the Great Spring Show, is a garden show held for five days in May by the Royal Horticultural Society in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea in Chelsea, London...
. A front garden of flower beds bordered by box leads to the "kitchen/dining" room with furniture covered with plants. There is a bedroom in the same style on the upper level. - The Kitchen Garden is a productive fruit and vegetable garden with decorative features. It was created behind the stables in the early 1990s. Chatsworth's original kitchen garden covered 11.5 acres (47,000 m²) and was by the river in the park.
- Revelation is a sculptural fountain designed by the sculptor Angela ConnerAngela ConnerAngela Conner FRBS is a British Sculptor living and working in London. She has exhibited in many countries and has large scale sculptures in public and private collections around the world....
and installed in 1999. This was the only modern water feature to make the top ten of the Country Life poll mentioned above. - Modern sculpture includes various pieces, such as War Horse and Walking Madonna by Dame Elizabeth Frink.
- The Sensory Garden is fully accessible to the disabled and features many fragrant plants. It was opened in 2004 by the then Home SecretaryHome SecretaryThe Secretary of State for the Home Department, commonly known as the Home Secretary, is the minister in charge of the Home Office of the United Kingdom, and one of the country's four Great Offices of State...
David BlunkettDavid BlunkettDavid Blunkett is a British Labour Party politician and the Member of Parliament for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough, having represented Sheffield Brightside from 1987 to 2010...
. - Quebec is a 4 acres (16,187.4 m²) part of the garden to the south and west of the canal pond that was, until 2006, a neglected and dank area covered with Ponticum Rhododendrons. This is now an extension to the Arboretum walk with a path that runs along the top of the steep bank. The new walk gives views out in to the south park, across the river Derwent and up the hill towards New Piece wood. An 18th century Cascade was discovered during the clearance.
Stables
The stable block at Chatsworth is prominently situated on the rising ground to the north-east of the house. Its entrance gate features four Doric columns with rusticated banding, a pediment containing a huge carving of the family coat of arms, two life-size stags in embellished with real antlers, and a clock tower topped by a cupolaCupola
In architecture, a cupola is a small, most-often dome-like, structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome....
. The building was designed by James Paine for the 4th Duke and was built in around 1760. It is approximately 190 feet (57.9 m) square and is two storeys tall. There are low towers in the corners in addition to the one over the entrance gate. The stables originally had stalls for 80 horses, and all necessary equine facilities including a blacksmith
Blacksmith
A blacksmith is a person who creates objects from wrought iron or steel by forging the metal; that is, by using tools to hammer, bend, and cut...
s shop. The first floor was occupied by granaries and accommodation for the many stable staff. According to the Dowager Duchess in her book, Chatsworth: The House, one room still has "Third Postillion" painted on the door. The 6th Duke added a carriage house behind the stables in the 1830s.
The last horses left the stables in 1939 and the building was then used as a store and garage. The grooms' accommodation was converted into flats for Chatsworth employees and pensioners and their families. When the house reopened to the public after the war, "catering" was limited to an outdoor tap, which has since been relabelled "water for dogs". In 1975 a tea bar was established with an investment of £120. The first attempt at a café opened in 1979. It seated 90 in some old horse stalls in the stables and was not satisfactory; either to the customers or from a commercial point of view. In 1987 the Duke and Duchess's private chef, a Frenchman named Jean-Pierre Béraud who was also a leading light in the success of the Chatsworth Farm Shop and Chatsworth Foods, took charge of the catering. After a failed attempt to obtain planning permission for a new building incorporating the old ice house in the park, a 250-seat restaurant was created in the carriage house. The nineteenth-century coach used by the Dowager Duchess and the late Duke at the Queen's Coronation is on display there. Other facilities include Jean-Pierre's Bar, which also serves food, a shop that complements the main shop in the house, and three rooms that may be hired for private events. The stables cater for thirty thousand people a month during the visitor season.
Park, woods and farmyard
Edensor
Edensor is a village in Derbyshire, England. It is the closest village to Chatsworth House and much of it belongs to the Dukes of Devonshire. Originally the village was close to the River Derwent immediately below Chatsworth, but the Dukes had it moved out of sight over a hill, apart from one...
, which was by the river in full sight of the house.
Capability Brown did at least as much work in the park as he did in the garden. The open, tree-flecked landscape that is admired today is man-made. Brown straightened the river, and there is a network of drainage channels under the grass. The park is fertilised with manure from the estates farms and managed to keep weeds and scrub under control. Brown filled in most of the fishponds and extended the park to the west of the river. At the same time James Paine designed the new bridge to the north of the house, which was set at an angle of 40 degrees to command the best view of the West Front of the house. Most of the houses in Edensor were demolished, and the village was rebuilt out of sight of the house. The hedges between the fields on the west bank of the river were grubbed up to create open parkland, and woods were planted on the horizon. These were arranged in triangular clumps so that the screen of trees could be maintained when each planting had to be felled. Brown's plantings reached their peak in the mid-20th century and are gradually being replaced. The 5th Duke had an elegant red-brick inn built at Edensor to accommodate the increasing numbers of well-to-do travellers who were coming to see Chatsworth. It is now the estate office.
Duke of Rutland
Earl of Rutland and Duke of Rutland are titles in the peerage of England, derived from Rutland, a county in the East Midlands of England. The Earl of Rutland was elevated to the status of Duke in 1703 and the titles were merged....
's land around Baslow
Baslow
Baslow is a village in Derbyshire, England, in the Peak District, lying between Sheffield and Bakewell. It is situated on the River Derwent just north of Chatsworth House. A seventeenth century bridge spans the river in the village, alongside which is a contemporary toll house...
to the north of Chatsworth in exchange for some land elsewhere. He extended the park around half a mile (800 m) north to its present boundary. He also had the remaining cottages from the old Edensor inside the park demolished apart from the home of one old man who did not wish to move, which still stands in isolation in the park today. The houses in Edensor were rebuilt in picturesque pattern-book styles. In the 1860s the 7th Duke
William Cavendish, 7th Duke of Devonshire
William Cavendish, 7th Duke of Devonshire KG, PC , styled as Lord Cavendish of Keighley between 1831 and 1834 and known as The Earl of Burlington between 1834 and 1858, was a British landowner, benefactor and politician.-Background and education:Cavendish was the son of William Cavendish, eldest...
had St Peter's Church in Edensor enlarged by Sir George Gilbert Scott
George Gilbert Scott
Sir George Gilbert Scott was an English architect of the Victorian Age, chiefly associated with the design, building and renovation of churches, cathedrals and workhouses...
. The church's spire embellishes the views from the house, garden and park, and inside there is a remarkable monument to Bess of Hardwick's sons Henry Cavendish and William, 1st Earl of Devonshire. St Peter's in Edensor is also where the 6th
William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire
William George Spencer Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire KG, PC , styled Marquess of Hartington until 1811, was a British peer, courtier and Whig politician...
, 7th
William Cavendish, 7th Duke of Devonshire
William Cavendish, 7th Duke of Devonshire KG, PC , styled as Lord Cavendish of Keighley between 1831 and 1834 and known as The Earl of Burlington between 1834 and 1858, was a British landowner, benefactor and politician.-Background and education:Cavendish was the son of William Cavendish, eldest...
, 8th
Spencer Cavendish, 8th Duke of Devonshire
Spencer Compton Cavendish, 8th Duke of Devonshire KG, GCVO, PC, PC , styled Lord Cavendish of Keighley between 1834 and 1858 and Marquess of Hartington between 1858 and 1891, was a British statesman...
, 9th
Victor Cavendish, 9th Duke of Devonshire
Victor Christian William Cavendish, 9th Duke of Devonshire , known as Victor Cavendish until 1908, was a British politician who served as Governor General of Canada, the 11th since Canadian Confederation....
, 10th
Edward Cavendish, 10th Duke of Devonshire
Edward William Spencer Cavendish, 10th Duke of Devonshire, KG, MBE, TD , known as Marquess of Hartington , was the head of the Devonshire branch of the Cavendish family...
and 11th
Andrew Cavendish, 11th Duke of Devonshire
Andrew Robert Buxton Cavendish, 11th Duke of Devonshire KG, MC, PC , styled Lord Andrew Cavendish until 1944 and Marquess of Hartington from 1944 to 1950, was a British Conservative politician...
Duke of Devonshire and their wives are buried. Their remains are not entombed in a vault inside the church but lie, marked by simple headstones, in individual graves in the Cavendish family plot overlooking the churchyard.
On the hills of the eastern side of the park there is Stand Wood, which is named after Stand Tower. At the top of Stand Wood there is a plateau covering several square miles by lakes, woods and moorland. There are public paths through the area and Chatsworth offers guided tours with commentary in a 28-seater trailer pulled by a tractor. This area is the source of the water for all the gravity-fed waterworks in the garden. The Swiss Lake feeds the Cascade and the Emperor Lake feeds the Emperor Fountain. The Bachelor Duke had an aqueduct built, over which water tumbles on its way to the cascade.
The present Dowager Duchess is a keen advocate of rural life, and in 1973 the Chatsworth Farmyard exhibit was opened in the old building yard above the stables. The aim is to explain to those unfamiliar with rural life how food is produced. There are milking demonstrations and displays of rare breeds. An adventure playground was added in 1983, and a venue for talks and exhibitions called Oak Barn was opened by television gardener Alan Titchmarsh
Alan Titchmarsh
Alan Fred Titchmarsh, MBE DL is an English gardener, broadcaster and novelist. After working as a professional gardener and a garden journalist, he established himself as a media personality through appearances on gardening programmes...
in 2005. Chatsworth also runs two annual rural-skills weeks during which demonstrations of agricultural and forestry are given to groups of schoolchildren on the estate farms and woods.
Estate
Chatsworth is the hub of a 35000 acres (141.6 km²) agricultural estate. The Chatsworth estate, together with 30000 acres (121.4 km²) around Bolton AbbeyBolton Abbey
Bolton Abbey is the estate within which is located the ruined 12th-century Augustinian Bolton Priory in North Yorkshire, England. It gives its name to the parish of Bolton Abbey.-Bolton Priory:...
in Yorkshire (mostly moorland) and some land in Eastbourne
Eastbourne
Eastbourne is a large town and borough in East Sussex, on the south coast of England between Brighton and Hastings. The town is situated at the eastern end of the chalk South Downs alongside the high cliff at Beachy Head...
, belongs to The Trustees of Chatsworth Settlement, a family trust established in 1946. The Duke and other members of the family are entitled to the income. The family's 8000 acres (32.4 km²) Lismore Castle
Lismore Castle
Lismore Castle is located in the town of Lismore, in County Waterford in Ireland. It was largely re-built in the Gothic style during the mid-nineteenth century by William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire.-Early history:...
estate in Ireland is held in a separate trust. The estate includes dozens of tenanted farms and over 450 houses and flats. There are five sub-estates scattered across Derbyshire:
- The Main Estate is a compact block of 12,310 acres (50 km²) around the house, including the park and many properties in the villages of Baslow, Pilsley, Edensor, Beeley, and Calton Lees.
- The West Estate is 6498 acres (26.3 km²) of scattered high ground, mostly in the Peak DistrictPeak DistrictThe Peak District is an upland area in central and northern England, lying mainly in northern Derbyshire, but also covering parts of Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Staffordshire, and South and West Yorkshire....
and partly in StaffordshireStaffordshireStaffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...
. HartingtonHartingtonHartington is a village in the Derbyshire Peak District, England, lying on the River Dove close to the Staffordshire border. According to the 2001 census, the parish of Hartington Town Quarter, which also includes Pilsbury, had a population of 345...
, from which the family takes its secondary title is nearby. - The Shottle Estate is 3519 acres (14.2 km²) in and around ShottleShottleShottle is a village roughly west of Belper, Derbyshire England.In Norman times, the manor of Shottle, referred to as "Sothille" in the Domesday Survey, belonged to the Ferrers family.In 1086, the book notes that...
, which is around 15 miles (24 km) south of Chatsworth. This is low-lying land and is home to most of the dairy farms on the estate, and also has some arable farms. - The Staveley Estate is 3400 acres (13.8 km²) at StaveleyStaveleyStaveley could refer to several places:*Staveley, Cumbria*Staveley-in-Cartmel*Staveley, Derbyshire*Staveley, North Yorkshire*Staveley, New Zealand, a locality in the Ashburton District-Surname:...
near ChesterfieldChesterfieldChesterfield is a market town and a borough of Derbyshire, England. It lies north of Derby, on a confluence of the rivers Rother and Hipper. Its population is 70,260 , making it Derbyshire's largest town...
, including a 355 acres (1.4 km²) industrial site called Staveley Works, which is let to various tenants, some woodlands, and arable farms. - The ScarcliffeScarcliffeScarcliffe is a small village and civil parish in the Bolsover district of Derbyshire, England. It is sometimes called Scarcliffe with Palterton...
Estate, mostly arable farms, is 9320 acres (37.7 km²) east of Chesterfield.
The Chatsworth Settlement has a wide range of sources of income in addition to agricultural rents. Several thousand acres of the estate, mostly around Chatsworth and on the Staveley estate, are farmed in hand. A number of properties may be rented as holiday cottages, including the Bess of Hardwick's Hunting Tower in the park. Several quarries produce limestone and other minerals.
The 11th Duke and Duchess did not opt for the "theme park" approach to modernising a country estate, but they did throw off the traditional aristocratic reluctance to participate in commerce. The Chatsworth Farm Shop is a very large enterprise in the UK, employing over a hundred people. A 90-seat restaurant opened at the Farm Shop in 2005. From 1999 to 2003 there was also a shop in the exclusive London district of Belgravia
Belgravia
Belgravia is a district of central London in the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Noted for its immensely expensive residential properties, it is one of the wealthiest districts in the world...
, but it was not successful and closed down. The Settlement also runs the four shops and the catering operations at Chatsworth, paying a percentage of turnover to the charitable Chatsworth House Trust in lieu of rent. It also runs the Devonshire Arms Hotel and the Devonshire Fell Hotel & Bistro on the Bolton Abbey estate and owns the Cavendish Hotel at Baslow on the edge of Chatsworth Park, which is let to a tenant. The old kitchen garden at Barbrook on the edge of the park is let to the Caravan Club
Caravan Club
The Caravan Club is an organisation representing caravanners in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. It was founded in 1907 and now represents nearly 1 million members.-History:...
, and a paddock at the southern end of the park where bucks used to be fattened for Chatsworth's table is a tenanted garden centre. In both cases the Settlement receives a percentage of turnover as rent. There is also a line of Chatsworth branded foods, endorsed with the Dowager Duchess's signature, which is available by mail order. The Dowager Duchess has also established Chatsworth Design to exploit intellectual property rights to the Devonshire collections, and a furniture company called Chatsworth Carpenters, but the latter has now been licensed to an American company.
Rights of way
The park is open to the public free of charge, other than parking costs. Public footpaths also pass through the woods above the house. The attitudes of the Dukes regarding wider access rights have changed significantly over the years. Upon his death, in 2004, the Ramblers Association praised the 11th Duke for his enlightened championing of open access, as well as his apologies for the attitude of the 10th Duke, who had restricted access to much estate land. Even during the 11th Duke's tenure, however, disputes arose—when the definitive rights of way were being compiled in the 1960s and 70s, the footpath to the Swiss Cottage (an isolated house by one of the lakes in the woods) was contested, and the matter went to the High CourtHigh Court of Justice
The High Court of Justice is, together with the Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, one of the Senior Courts of England and Wales...
, making Derbyshire one of the last counties to settle its definitive maps.
In popular culture
Chatsworth House appeared in the 2005 film adaptationPride & Prejudice (2005 film)
Pride & Prejudice is a 2005 British romance film directed by Joe Wright. It is a film adaptation of the 1813 novel of the same name by Jane Austen and the second adaption produced by Working Title Films. It was released on September 16, 2005, in the UK and on November 11, 2005, in the...
of Jane Austen
Jane Austen
Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...
's Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice is a novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. The story follows the main character Elizabeth Bennet as she deals with issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education and marriage in the society of the landed gentry of early 19th-century England...
. It represented Pemberley
Pemberley
Pemberley is the fictional country estate owned by Fitzwilliam Darcy, the male protagonist in Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice. It is located near the fictional town of Lambton, and believed by some to be based on Chatsworth House, near Bakewell in Derbyshire.In describing the estate, Austen...
, Mr Darcy
Fitzwilliam Darcy
Fitzwilliam Darcy, generally referred to as Mr Darcy, is one of the two central characters in Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice. He is an archetype of the aloof romantic hero, and a romantic interest of Elizabeth Bennet, the novel's protagonist...
's home. The house itself is named in the novel as one of the estates Elizabeth Bennet
Elizabeth Bennet
Elizabeth Bennet, later Elizabeth Darcy, is the protagonist in the 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. She is often referred to as Eliza or Lizzy by her friends and family...
visits before arriving at Pemberley. The house was also used in The Duchess
The Duchess (film)
The Duchess is a 2008 British drama film based on Amanda Foreman's biography of the 18th-century English aristocrat Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire. It was released in September 2008 in the UK...
(2008), featuring Keira Knightley
Keira Knightley
Keira Christina Knightley born 26 March 1985) is an English actress and model. She began acting as a child and came to international notice in 2002 after co-starring in the film Bend It Like Beckham...
and Ralph Fiennes
Ralph Fiennes
Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes is an English actor and film director. He has appeared in such films as The English Patient, In Bruges, The Constant Gardener, Strange Days, The Duchess and Schindler's List....
, and The Wolfman (2010), with Benicio del Toro
Benicio del Toro
Benicio Monserrate Rafael del Toro Sánchez is a Puerto Rican and Spanish actor and film producer. He won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a BAFTA Award for his role as Javier Rodríguez in Traffic . He is also known for his roles as Fred Fenster in The Usual...
and Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, KBE , best known as Anthony Hopkins, is a Welsh actor of film, stage and television...
.
An episode of Interceptor
Interceptor (TV series)
Interceptor was a British game show created by Jacques Antoine and produced by Chatsworth Television for Thames Television in 1989, and shown on the ITV network during that summer, with the hosting its last show on 1 January 1990 for a New Year bonanza...
was partially filmed in the grounds of Chatsworth (Derbyshire episode), as the key was hidden on the top of the Cascade waterwork. Griff Rhys Jones
Griff Rhys Jones
Griffith "Griff" Rhys Jones is a Welsh comedian, writer, actor, television presenter and personality. Jones came to national attention in the early 1980s for his work in the BBC television comedy sketch shows Not the Nine O'Clock News and Alas Smith and Jones along with his comedy partner Mel Smith...
was a guest at Chatsworth while making and filming his show "Rivers with Griff Rhys Jones".
See also
- Historic houses in England
- List of historic houses
Other properties owned by the Dukes of Devonshire, currently or in the past, include:
- Bolton AbbeyBolton AbbeyBolton Abbey is the estate within which is located the ruined 12th-century Augustinian Bolton Priory in North Yorkshire, England. It gives its name to the parish of Bolton Abbey.-Bolton Priory:...
- Burlington HouseBurlington HouseBurlington House is a building on Piccadilly in London. It was originally a private Palladian mansion, and was expanded in the mid 19th century after being purchased by the British government...
- Chiswick HouseChiswick HouseChiswick House is a Palladian villa in Burlington Lane, Chiswick, in the London Borough of Hounslow in England. Set in , the house was completed in 1729 during the reign of George II and designed by Lord Burlington. William Kent , who took a leading role in designing the gardens, created one of the...
- Compton PlaceCompton PlaceCompton Place is an English country house in Eastbourne, a town and borough in East Sussex. It was rebuilt for Sir Spencer Compton, to designs by Colen Campbell from 1726, and completed after Campbell's death by William Kent. The Elizabethan-Jacobean house called Bourne Place had Spencer Compton,...
- Devonshire HouseDevonshire HouseDevonshire House in Piccadilly was the London residence of the Dukes of Devonshire in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was built for William Cavendish, 3rd Duke of Devonshire in the Palladian style, to designs by William Kent...
- Hardwick HallHardwick HallHardwick Hall , in Derbyshire, is one of the most significant Elizabethan country houses in England. In common with its architect Robert Smythson's other works at both Longleat House and Wollaton Hall, Hardwick Hall is one of the earliest examples of the English interpretation of the Renaissance...
- Holker HallHolker HallHolker Hall is a country house with a celebrated garden situated on the Cartmel Peninsula, which was historically part of the county of Lancashire, but is now part of the county of Cumbria....
- Lismore CastleLismore CastleLismore Castle is located in the town of Lismore, in County Waterford in Ireland. It was largely re-built in the Gothic style during the mid-nineteenth century by William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire.-Early history:...
- Londesborough HallLondesborough HallLondesborough Hall was a country house in the village of Londesborough in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, close to the towns of Market Weighton and Pocklington....
External links
- Chatsworth House: Official website
- Chatsworth House Trust page from the Charity Commission – includes links to annual reports
- A photo gallery — mainly exterior and garden shots
- Photographs of Chatsworth House taken by John Gay
- Chatsworth entry from The DiCamillo Companion to British & Irish Country Houses
- Another photo page — includes a plan of the gardens
- Chatsworth Derbyshire Quicktime tour
- Flickr images of Chatsworth
- Panoramic photographs and Quicktime movies here and here