Welcome to the Chatsworth Blog

How can we improve our website for you? posted by James Dyson

2008-06-26T16:00:00.005+01:00

Thank you for visiting our website and blog.

We are continually trying to improve our website, to try and make it as useful to you as possible. Please let us know if you have any suggestions on how we can improve?

We are interested in knowing your experiences; if the menu of items on our home page makes sense to you? If you could find the information you were looking for? Or what additional information or features you would like to see included?

We look forward to hearing your ideas.

James Dyson, Chatsworth

The Drummer has found a new home: posted by The Duke of Devonshire

2008-06-16T14:25:00.004+01:00

I am delighted to say that at long last one of our favourite sculptures has found a home. I acquired The Drummer by Barry Flanagan in 2005 from “The New Art Centre” at Roche Court in Wiltshire, (have a look at the website, better still go and have a look round, it is the best commercial outdoor sculpture gallery in the UK) as a welcome to Chatsworth present for my wife with the proceeds of a very successful sale of a racehorse that I had bred. Initially Drummer was parked halfway along the Broadwalk, then he had to be moved for the first Sotheby's Beyond Limits exhibition; his next home was outside the Orangery shop , but now he is ensconced beside the Grotto Pond: we chose this site as he can be seen from so many different places... from the east along the Arboretum walk, from the west at Cornus corner, from the south at the Pinetum end of the Grotto Pond and from the north from along the lower arboretum walk. I hope that he makes a walk out to the Grotto pond an even more popular choice for garden visitors; from the garden entrance it takes an easy 20 minutes to get there.

The Duke of Devonshire

What’s your favourite farmyard animal at Chatsworth? posted by Jenny Welch

2008-06-11T10:41:00.003+01:00

We’ve got a smart and comfy café in the farmyard following a refit over the winter, and we’re now working on visuals. We’d love to know what farmyard animal you most associate with Chatsworth, and what your children’s favourite animal is that they always want to see when visiting.

Liam our Retail Manager loves pigs, and I’m voting for goats, but we’d really like to know which animal is your family’s favourite. Do let us know!

Jenny Welch, Chatsworth

Keira Knightley and 'The Duchess': posted by Simon Seligman

2008-05-26T11:27:00.003+01:00

Anticipation is mounting now that we know 'The Duchess', the film based on the life of Georgiana, wife of the 5th Duke, will be released in the UK on 5th September. We are working on a special display about the real Duchess Georgiana, to go on view to visitors in August, together, we hope, with some of the costumes Keira Knightley and Ralph Fiennes wear in the film. Talking to the film's costume designer, it is interesting to hear how he took inspiration from some of the original portraits of Georgiana that will be on display here - fabulous hats, spectacular dresses - all worn with the style that made her famous, and which the film has matched. Once the film does come out, we will also see how much of the complex, controversial and sometimes desperate life Georgiana led, has been captured. Sex, gambling, politics, love, royalty, deception; all the ingredients for a modern gossip magazine, lived out for real in the 18th century.

Simon Seligman, Head of Communications

A Headless Henry VIII: posted by Claire Fowler

2008-05-19T16:48:00.005+01:00

The twists and turns of Chatsworth’s corridors often feel like something out of Harry Potter, leading you past a procession of ever weirder and more wonderful things. Mysterious unfinished paintings, curious Victorian inventions and half-dismantled sculptures merge in the shadows into a storybook backdrop which I think perfectly suits Chatsworth’s magical personality. You never know what to expect. (It’s fantastic that more and more people are able to walk these corridors on the Behind the Scenes tours.)

A headless Henry VIII was among the things I didn’t expect to see on my walk to the office this morning. He is waiting quietly outside the joiner’s shop beside a huge, menacing set of Tudor stocks, before they both take centre-stage at this weekend’s Tudor festival in the garden. I’m preparing myself for more strange sightings as the festival approaches and the garden fills up with terrible Tudors! Everybody who comes to Chatsworth this weekend will see what I mean!

Claire Fowler, Education Officer for The Devonshire Educational Trust

A Giant Water Lily kindly donated by Royal Botanic Garden Kew: posted by Steve Porter

2008-05-02T10:14:00.005+01:00

We have taken delivery of a young Giant Water Lily plant (Victoria amazonica), which has been kindly donated by Royal Botanic Garden Kew.

The plant has been placed in the Display House where it will acclimatise before starting its rapid annual growth, filling the heated pool and hopefully producing flowers later in the year. The Lily is native to South America and is grown as an annual in this country meaning that we have to re-plant at the start of every year.

Victoria amazonica is particularly important to us at Chatsworth as when this plant was first introduced to this country in 1846 it grew strongly at Kew but would not flower. A plant was sent to Chatsworth in 1849 and under the care of Joseph Paxton, Head Gardener to the 6th Duke of Devonshire, the plant flourished in a specially built Lily House. This plant was the first to flower in the country and was presented by Joseph Paxton to Queen Victoria after which it is named.

Due to narrow paths and heat loss this glass house is not accessible to the public but please peer in to see the Lily grow, and do visit the newly opened 1st Dukes Glass house.

Steve Porter, Assistant Head of Gardens

Feeding Foals: posted by Cheryl Burfield

2008-04-16T17:38:00.004+01:00

Last week end we had a huge panic when someone, not realising that foals, just like human babies, start life drinking milk, fed the Shetland foal. He started to choke and one of my colleagues ran to the rescue. Luckily he was none the worse for his ordeal and the vet was called to give him a check up. Since then we’ve pulled wood shavings and straw out of his mouth. Once you ask a visitor ‘Would you like to eat your duvet and pillow’? they quickly learn the first steps of animal care!

The Shetland and Shire foals both seem destined to be ‘horses with no names’. Our visitors have been great in coming up with suggestions, and have provided us with plenty of food for thought, from a selection of coffee types inspired by the café culture, i.e mocha and latte, to flapjack, toffee and fudge. We’ve had everything from historical figureheads down to good solid ‘Sid’. Hula Hoop is fine until we split them up and need to call them in. This will not be an easy decision. Lets hope we feel more inspired by next week, and the foals start to characterise one of the suggested names.

Cheryl Burfield, The Chatsworth Farmyard & Adventure Playground

Art, religion and divorce: posted by Simon Seligman

2008-04-16T17:36:00.001+01:00

I have just been having another look at Henry VIII's rosary, one of the new displays for our visitors this year. Although I have seen it before, this time I got a real buzz from the sense of connection with Henry as a real person, rather than a fictional character on TV. He must have held this fantastic object, with its unbelievably delicate carvings, in his hand, in fact probably commissioned it directly himself, and it has both his initials and those of his first wife on it. And that is its true symbolic significance; when he tired of Catherine, as she did not produce a son, he divorced her and ruptured his kingdom's relationship with the Catholic church in Rome, with historic results that remain with us today. I would guess that he never used this very personal object again, and it was later owned by various people, before eventually (in the 19th century) it was bought as an amazing work of art by the 6th Duke of Devonshire. One of the hidden joys of working here is the opportunity, again and again, to spend time with unique (and real) objects that have extraordinary stories attached to them, and the rosary is just one example.

Simon Seligman, Head of Communications

From the mouths of babes: posted by Liam Bergin

2008-04-16T17:23:00.003+01:00

When you are looking to open new shops, you try and take into account a myriad of factors, logistics, staffing, present trends and fashions. So when we revamped the Farmyard Café and shop this year, and launched an entirely new Interiors shop, I thought we had taken into account most factors, but no, I should have also consulted a horde of marauding children.

I’m a parent myself, with 3 children under 5 , so I did a little research, and we carefully put together some new food options in the Farmyard Café, with healthy options , fruit, new smoothies, some fun jam butties, and a self service children’s ice cream machine, all of which have been received well. But ... because at certain times of the year the shop downstairs is closed, I also had some shelves built for the Café, so we can put a few pocket money toys on sale, and also for the convenience of people who don’t want to go downstairs to pick up a bucket and spade for the sand pit in the playground. But instead of solving a problem, I have created one, with frustrated parents being pestered by their kids in the café for the toys that they can see. So I need to come up with something else to put there; suggestions for what should be there would be fabulous.

In the stables, we converted an old storeroom into a new Interiors shop. It is a cracking space, where the original 18th century stable's features can be seen in their majestic glory. The original horse stalls gave us a superb opportunity to create a different style of room in each stall, to give a story to the shop. A kitchen, a boudoir, a study, a boy’s room and a girl's room are all laid out where the Dobbin and friends used to munch their hay. The high ceiling gives us ample opportunity to hang grand chandeliers and majestic mirrors above. Imagine our satisfaction when a young girl peered into the shop, and ran off to get her Mum. “ Mum, you should see what they’ve done in here.” she cried. We were delighted to have aroused such excitement. “They have turned all the little prisons into little shops” she continued. Oh well. We don’t all see the same thing in the same way, but I hope it doesn’t stop us continuing to look.

Liam Bergin, Retail Operations manager for Chatsworth House and Bolton Abbey

WEBSITE ACCOLADE: posted by Simon Seligman

2008-04-10T15:15:00.004+01:00

It's funny to get a compliment from a source you never expect. The Duke's mother, the Dowager Duchess, wrote a piece for the Spectator magazine last week bemoaning the closure of her village post office, and the damage such closures do to rural communities. David Aaronovitch, a leading columnist in The Times, has responded in his column, in what I would call complete but respectful disagreement, and he ends by saying '…the Devonshires mourn the loss of the era of the telegram, and run one of the best websites I have ever seen.' James, our website manager, always thinks the site can be better, but even he looked pleased!

Simon Seligman, Head of Communications

QUEBEC OPENING: posted by The Duke of Devonshire

2008-03-31T11:52:00.001+01:00

After two years of talking and planning and some very hard work by the gardens team Quebec is at last a reality. Quebec is a 4 acre part of the garden to the south and west of the canal pond, till now a neglected and dank area which was covered with Ponticum Rhododendrons. These were cleared in 2006 as I thought it would make an interesting extension to the Arboretum walk, the path that runs along the top of the steep bank which is the main feature of Quebec. Trees planted at the bottom of the bank will be viewable from above, along the old Arboretum Walk, and from their base, from the new path created where the ponticum had dominated. As soon as these pestilential shrubs had been removed two other exciting advantages became obvious. One was that we had rediscovered an 18th century Cascade: the water had always been heard but the cascade itself never properly seen by at least this generation of gardeners. The other was that the new walk gives you wonderful views out in to the south park, across the river Derwent and up the hill towards New Piece wood. These views give superb insights into Capability Brown's landscape genius, his creation better viewed from Quebec than anywhere else in the garden

The Quebec project has been very exciting and rewarding and now we are just waiting for Allen Jones to come and finish the installation of his big red sculpture at the end [or the beginning] of the walk. He will be back as soon as there is no more danger of frost, which means the end of May.

As well as the views and the new Cascade, we have started to plant the 'new' garden with trees and shrubs, mostly indigenous to North America as we wanted to continue the Quebec connection. This planting will continue next winter and if you have any suggestions of trees or shrubs that would suit this area please let me know.

The Duke of Devonshire