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Chatsworth House
Hello everyone, hope this blog finds you well, sorry it’s
been so long but been busy, busy ,busy!
Remember way back in June when when we got rediverted from
M62 and Lauren wanted to go to Chatsworth House because she found a picture of
it in the map book? Well we finally made it.
We hired a car from Oxford, which
was an adventure in itself. We had to get a bus to the outskirts of town, so we
asked the nice people at the Information Office where to catch it from and
which number to get on. We could get on a 1,2,3,4 or 7 and the bus stop was in
the centre of town, sounds simple enough. We got to the bus stop and waited,
and waited and waited. We saw every bus number go past except the one we
wanted. After about 40 minutes we decided if the bus did not appear either in
the next 10 minutes or by the third bus to pass us, we were going to hail a
taxi.
Would you credit it! The third
bus was a number One, so on we hopped and headed off to get the hire car.
A quick stop at Tescos for a few
essentials (chocolate, crisps and pop) and we were on the road!
I love a good road trip, radio
blasting, windows open, laughing, getting lost, going round and round and round
the roundabouts till you manage to get the right exit, it’s all good fun.
We eventually arrived in
Derbyshire at 15.30 and went for a hike. The start of the walk was that well
worn, with tracks all over we got confused and followed the wrong track, a bit
of a false start, but by 16.00 we were on track and on our way.
We went through fields full of
scary looking cows, which reminded me of something from Village of the Damned.
The cows just stopped mid chew and eyeballed us as we walked past. Trying to
stay calm and not run when realised the bull was also in the field was a real
test of nerves, but we passed.
The scenery was fantastic, clouds
that had been threatening rain all afternoon, turned out bright and sunny and
the cows left us alone.
We decided to take a photo of
both of us hiking using the timer button, we worked on the theory that we tried
it on both mine and Laurens camera, we might get one decent picture between us.
Might is very much the case. After 3 pictures with neither of us in, one of my
foot, one with us both looking at the camera very bewildered and one with
Lauren and my left arm in, we gave up. But we did laugh a lot.
We finished the walk and headed
off to Hathersage where we were booked into a Youth Hostel. After a quick stop
at Morrisons we were armed with roast chicken, salad and cous cous for supper.
The youth hostel was basic, but
clean and easy to find, and we were both delighted to find it had a living room
with squishy sofas and a TV! (OMG squishy is a real word! Spell check did not reject it!) so after
supper we crashed on the sofa and watched some telly, we were made up, funny
how your priorities can change.
Saturday morning we headed to
Chatsworth house. I don’t know if you have ever been, but it is quite
spectacular, the approach gives stunning views and as it was September, the
autumn colours were beginning to show on the trees adding to the splendour.
We hired the earphones with the
audio tour so we knew what we were looking at and headed off round the house.
Four poster beds, sumptuous curtains, amazing staircases, gliittering chandeliers,
antiques galore, original rembrant paintings, tromp l’oeul , secret passages
and hidden doors, all built by a Duke of Devonshire who wanted the king to come
and visit, but he never did!
We learnt about Bess of Hardwick
and her four husbands, Georgiana, duchess of Devonshire, the Mitford sisters
and the current Dowerger Duchess, Deborah, interestingly, all the women of the
house in what had been a male dominated world. The blokes apparently did not do
much of interest!!
There was an art exhibition in
the gardens, I’m not a great fan of modern art and most of it I don’t get,
although I did recognise the table tennis table in polished steel for what is
was, before I read the description and I quite liked the giant head with
butterflies for hair.
Although the ladies have the most
interesting stories in the house, the gardens are ruled by the blokes, but not
the nobility. The head gardener won the competition to design Crystal Palace
for the Great Exhibition in eighteen something or another (1856 rings a bell
but I could be way off) and the Emperor fountain was designed in an age when
electricity had never been heard of, let alone electric water pumps, and yet it
is one of the highest spurts at about 200 feet, all done by clever engineering
and water pressure.
And even though we were on a weekend
away and wanted nothing to do with canals, there was a grand canal water
feature! We just can’t get away from it.
I would definitely recommend
Chatsworth for a day out.
That night we went back to the
hostel, had a pub meal out and then crashed on the sofa and watched X factor!
We had a great weekend, and
ticked another thing off Laurens to do list.
