Chatsworth House
A Derbyshire country house once hid a 296-foot fountain, a Tudor queen's prisoner and a duke's glasshouse so big that carriages drove through it.
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Quick Facts
- Location
- Near Bakewell, Derbyshire, in the Peak District, beside the River Derwent
- Built
- Begun in 1687 by the 1st Duke of Devonshire (then Earl); replaced an Elizabethan house begun in 1553
- Family
- Home of the Cavendish family and the Dukes of Devonshire for over 450 years
- Emperor Fountain
- Built in 1844, it once reached about 296 feet (around 90 metres), the tallest gravity-fed fountain in the world
- Garden size
- About 105 acres of garden within a much larger estate of parkland and moor
- Great Conservatory
- Designed by Joseph Paxton and completed in 1840; demolished in the 1920s
- Art collection
- Around 30,000 objects, including Old Master drawings and sculptures
- Screen fame
- Played Pemberley in the 2005 film of Pride and Prejudice
The fountain that outdid a king's
The headline act at Chatsworth is not the house but a jet of water. In 1844 the 6th Duke of Devonshire had the Emperor Fountain built, hoping to impress the visiting Tsar Nicholas I. The Tsar never turned up, but the fountain did its job anyway. It was designed by Joseph Paxton and fed by gravity alone, with water running down from a specially dug lake high on the moor above the house. No pumps, no engines. At its peak it shot up roughly 296 feet, making it the tallest of its kind in the world. It still plays today, and it is still a thrill to watch.
A house built twice, and a queen kept under guard
The first Chatsworth was begun in 1553 by Sir William Cavendish and his formidable wife, Bess of Hardwick. Bess was one of the richest women in Elizabethan England and married four times, and Chatsworth was largely her project. Later, Mary, Queen of Scots was held here several times in the 1570s, in the custody of Bess's fourth husband, the Earl of Shrewsbury. A tower in the gardens is still known as Queen Mary's Bower, though the story that she walked there is better established than the details. The house you see now came later. From 1687 the 1st Duke of Devonshire, then still an earl, began rebuilding in grand Baroque style. He had been a leading figure in the plot to bring William of Orange to the throne in 1688, and the new house was in part an expression of a family at the top of the political tree.
The gardener who built the Crystal Palace
In 1826 the 6th Duke hired a 22-year-old head gardener named Joseph Paxton. It was one of the great appointments in British history. Paxton drained, planted and landscaped, but his greatest feat was glass. His Great Conservatory, finished in 1840, was around 300 feet long and heated by coal-fired boilers, with tunnels beneath for the stokers. Carriages are said to have been able to drive through the interior. Queen Victoria visited in 1843 and was impressed. Paxton then built a special glasshouse at Chatsworth for the giant Victoria water lily. That experience fed directly into his design for the Crystal Palace, the centrepiece of the Great Exhibition of 1851. The Great Conservatory itself did not survive: after the First World War, the cost of heating it proved too much and it was blown up in the 1920s.
Pemberley, and other star turns
Chatsworth is one of Britain's most recognisable screen locations. In the 2005 film of Pride and Prejudice it stood in for Darcy's Pemberley, and the sculpture gallery appeared in a memorable scene. Many readers of Jane Austen have long believed that Chatsworth inspired the novel's Pemberley, though Austen never said so. The house also featured in the 2008 film The Duchess, about Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, the celebrated and notorious society figure of the 1770s and 1780s who once lived here.
Saved by a very large tax bill
The 20th century nearly finished Chatsworth. When the 10th Duke died in 1950, death duties of around 80 per cent hit the estate. The 11th Duke and his wife Deborah, the youngest of the Mitford sisters, spent years paying off the bill, selling land, paintings and a vast amount of property. Deborah did more than anyone to turn the house into the destination it is today. She opened it to the public more widely, set up a farm shop and developed the estate's food offering. Chatsworth became a model for how stately homes could pay for themselves.
What to look for when you visit
Start with the Painted Hall, with its dramatic ceiling scenes of the life of Julius Caesar by Louis Laguerre. Look for the Sculpture Gallery, filled with marble figures collected by the 6th Duke, and the library, one of the great private collections in England. Outside, seek out the Cascade, a staircase of water running downhill, which dates from the 1690s. Then find the Emperor Fountain and the Rock Garden. Beyond the formal gardens lies Capability Brown's parkland, laid out in the 1760s, which is free to walk around and gives some of the best views of the house across the Derwent.
Notable people
- Bess of Hardwick
- Sir William Cavendish
- 1st Duke of Devonshire
- 6th Duke of Devonshire
- Joseph Paxton
- Capability Brown
- Mary, Queen of Scots
- Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire
- Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire
Test yourself
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The Peak District
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Britain's first national park was won by trespassers in 1932, and today it sits within an hour's drive of around 16 million people.