1) After a long sleep, I ended up having breakfast at the hotel just as a matter of convenience. I had learned yesterday where the bus station was. The man at the information booth was very helpful — “Platform 3B, pay on the bus,” and so I was off on my only bit of business here, a visit to the greatest Stately Home Run as an Attraction, Chatsworth.
2) The 218 Peakline bus takes an hour winding through Sheffield and the countryside to get to Chatsworth, where it actually pulls up in the parking lot by the entrance. I had brought Queen James to read on the bus, but I ended up absorbed in the view instead. At one point we drove by a hillside field of a couple dozen black-and-white cows, and I thought “It’s real! It’s not just a Ben and Jerry’s logo, it’s real!”
2a) Also sheep, sheep everywhere.
3) I was early by design (please, contain your surprise at this development) so that I could see the gardens before touring the house. Almost the first thing I saw in the Temple of Flora was two trunks of enormous old camellias, long since dead; a sign explained that cuttings were elsewhere in the greenhouses. I had to wonder if it was these trees that were stripped of their blooms for Debo and Andrew’s wedding in 1941, after the Blitz blew out the windows and draperies in the Mitford’s London house.
3a) Greenhouses, gardens, rare plants, tributes to the great Sir Joseph Paxton, sculpture in various states of pulchritude. I was enjoying every bit of it, but . . . somehow, I felt a bit queasy. Could it be breakfast? I returned to where I had entered, and the men’s room I’d seen there.
A poor photo of the Blanche Memorial Urn.
3b) Refreshed, I ventured further, passing the Cascade to see the Emperor Fountain and the Memorial Urn to the Sixth Duke’s niece Blanche. My curiosity led me up a path to discover a tall bust in a green enclosure, enormous rhododendrons, and the former site of the Great Conservatory (demolished in 1920, very sad). But who knew, Andrew and Debo had installed a maze! But since I was continuing to feel, um, unsettled, and my entry time was approaching, I refrained from going in and started to head back to the entrance of the house.
The approach to the maze.
3c) Sounds of middle-aged laughter came from inside the maze, followed later by the laughter of children, and I wondered idly if going through the maze we could all regress to the happy parts of our childhood. Why not?
3d) Before my second foray into the garden I saw a couple people arrive in Victorian hunting gear with a small wagon on wheels. Turns out it was a hand-cranked calliope, and soon I could hear tunes of my grandmother’s day like “Come and Make Eyes at Me Down at the Old Bull and Bush,” “The Sidewalks of New York,” and such like. It was completely charming, and made me wish American ice cream trucks would upgrade their audio from that crackly recording of “Turkey in the Straw.”
4) Refreshed, I sat on a bench not too far from the entrance. Then standing, I realized with horror that I had sat in a puddle. Consternation! There was nothing to do but tie my navy blue blazer around my waist and proceed with as much dignity as I could muster to the other nearby restroom, where a man was taking a phone call in a foreign language inside the only stall.
4a) What would you do in this situation?
4b) “Chin up, head back, tummy in! Tonight, Agnes, you are Queen of Rumania!” Also, “Say nothing, act casual.”
This is the face of one grappling between Personal Anguish and Determined Tourism.
5) I bravely moved to the gate, where the nice attendant directed me down an allée of trees to the public entrance. The weather was very changeable, and a staffer noted that they weren’t crowded this day.
5a) Because I had taken the bus, I got a free audioguide for the tour. Please note, the arch connecting the earphones goes behind your head, not above it.
5b) Years ago Dahling had given me Wait for Me! for Christmas, Deborah Devonshire’s wonderful memoir about Growing Up Mitford, marrying a man who wasn’t supposed to be a duke but became one, and bringing Chatsworth back from the dead. So I was prepared to love Chatsworth, and I did. Some of the rooms, like the Painted Hall, were smaller than I expected, but impressive nonetheless.
Look at this charming display from the entrance.
5c) “Gorgeous Nothings” was a special exhibition in all the rooms, celebrating flowers and notable floral representations from Chatsworth’s library and collections. The best part of this was two guest bedrooms hung with gorgeous hand-painted wallpaper from the 18th century, almost by itself. One included a new portrait of Georgiana Duchess.
An unexpected platter of babies.
5d) The State Apartments, prepared for a visit from William and Mary that never happened, would make remarkable museums on their own. I was more delighted to recognized furniture from the Devonshire House ballroom in the Sketch Gallery next door, so very like my beloved Vollmer Suite of furniture for the White House Blue Room.
Debo!
5e) In a small antechamber before the stairs, against a royal blue wall, I turned and found to my delight Annigoni’s portrait of Deborah Duchess. Say what you like about Lucian Freud, but overall I’m not a fan. While his portrait of Debo is acknowledged to be a success, and she did grow old to look just like it, I very much prefer this one. Here she is at the peak of elegance. (And you can also see the star ruby clasp on her pearls, which she mentions in her memoirs.)
The Great Wall of Cavendish. Andrew Duke is second from right in the top row. His father Victor Duke is at far left.
5f) A grand staircase is hung floor to ceiling, wall to wall, and back to front with Cavendishes and others, including George IV. The guide and I had a very pleasant conversation about several of them, a couple of whom I recognized. The room also featured a superb malachite table.
5g) From there I passed by the library (on view, but one could only stand at the door), and majestic red dining room, and finally the sculpture gallery and the shop in the orangery. By this time I was overwhelmed, and I stepped in the garden, bought a bottle of water, returned to the mens room, and eventually headed back to the bus stop.
Endymion (and doggie) by the great Antonio Canova. Thank goodness the Sixth Duke loved pulchritude.
5h) But I was able to put on my jacket again properly, thank goodness.
6) While waiting for the 218 bus, I got to witness a poor little girl wipe out on the pavement as she was running after her sister. I felt for her — I’ve been there! Her parents soon put her to rights, but gosh, that must have hurt.
These sofas were made for the Devonshire House ballroom in the 1890s.
7) Why did I bring Queen James with me? I barely opened it, even on the bus on the way back to Sheffield. The passing scene was too full of interest, though by this time a strained pain in my right shoulder and neck was starting to take it out of me.
8) Back in the city, I made short work of returning to my hotel (an ambulance was just pulling away . . . ) and heading to bed for a NAP. By 5:45 I was able to sally forth for an Italian dinner, succulent lasagna with garlic spinach and a chocolate pistachio tart.
In the red dining room. I love this.
9) By the end of the day I had finished Isabella Stewart Gardner’s biography Chasing Beauty. (Spoiler alert: she dies in the end.) It felt appropriate to end her story, that of a woman who created a new kind of house museum with a discerning collection, after having seen Chatsworth, which is still largely (to me) the creation of the Sixth Duke, the “Bachelor Duke,” who filled an ancestral home already bursting with masterpieces with a discerning collection. And they were able to do so because they’d been born into privilege and had the luxury of being able to indulge their discernment. Comparatively few get to do so on this scale!
9a) At one end of the spectrum you have Joseph Cornell hoarding odd supplies to create his boxes. On the other you have Rita Lydig, “the fabulous Mrs. Lydig,” collecting marvelous expensive paintings, sculpture, textiles, clothing, and calling her fortune “an accident of wealth.” It didn’t stop her from going bankrupt.
10) And then writing, and early to bed. I was exhausted!
Georgiana Duchess in the Sculpture Gallery.