Peak Experience

Picture of Chatsworth from the air  Picture of Edensor

 

One of England’s most magnificent country estates, the house was enlarged many times between the 1600s and 1800s to reflect changing fashions.  The famous landscape gardener Capability Brown designed the rolling parkland in the 1760s.  The gardens were remodelled in Victorian times.  They include the Emperor Fountain, created to outreach the jet of a visiting foreign aristocrat’s prized fountain. 

 

Edensor village (pronounced Ensor) is set within the park and has a bizarre assortment of architectural styles from Swiss chalet to Italian villa.

 

Chatsworth is 2 km south of Baslow.  Entry to the park is free.  Charges for house and gardens, with visitor facilities for adults and children, including a restaurant, gift and farm shops, adventure playground and farmyard. There are plenty of picnic spots and gentle footpaths along the banks of the River Derwent.  Edensor village is just off the road that runs through the park.  A regular shuttle bus runs between Baslow, Chatsworth, Edensor, Calton Lees and Pilsley.

 

There has been a house at Chatsworth since medieval times.  But the country house you see today is the result of grand building projects beginning at the end of the 1600s and only ending in the 1800s.  Each phase not only reflected architectural fashion of the time, but also displayed the wealth and status of the family.

 

The Cavendish family has lived at Chatsworth since 1549.  Sir William Cavendish bought the estate after marrying Bess of Hardwick.  Their marriage laid the foundations for the house and the social elevation of the family to a dukedom.

 

Many of the sumptuously decorated rooms are open to visitors, including the Painted Hall, State Rooms, Great Dining Room, Library and Sculpture Gallery.

 

Joseph Paxton was responsible for much of today’s garden.  He built the Victorian rock garden on a mountainous scale.  His glass conservatory was the inspiration for the Crystal Palace.  Sadly, it is no longer standing.  Take a wander around the Cascade, Emperor Fountain and hedged maze – and keep an eye out for the many sculptures.

 

The house is set in the wooded Derwent Valley, with the River Derwent coursing in front.  This may seem like a natural landscape, but it was actually designed to look this way.  Capability Brown designed the park to be seen from the house – with trees, deer and sheep all adding to the rural scene.  Brown swept away outbuildings, kitchen gardens, fields, the medieval deer park and parts of the formal gardens to create this ideal of nature.

 

Chatsworth was reputedly an inspiration for Jane Austen when she wrote Pride and Prejudice.  Film crews returned to Chatsworth to shoot Keira Knightley in the 2005 blockbuster.

 

You can still find many traces of the landscape that existed before the park, if you know how to look for them. Some ornate buildings were left to become parkland follies, such as a hunting tower and a moated garden known as Queen Mary’s Bower.  Older still are the curving ridges that once divided a medieval open field into strips for the people of old Edensor village to farm.

 

Little survives of the medieval village opposite the house.  Edensor was almost totally rebuilt in the 1800s.  The duke wanted a new village to further improve his view across the parkland.  Unable to choose between the architect’s different designs, he asked for a bit of everything.  That is why there are Norman towers, Elizabethan manor houses, Swiss chalets and Italian villas.  It’s not to be missed!