20 July 2009: Palaces in the Peaks

I was up early this morning, the sun was shining and the birds were singing and I was wide awake by 6 a.m. A visit to Chatsworth House was order of the day and possibly Hardwick House. Both are located an hour away from here, in the Peak District National Park but with the roof down and the sun shining, the journey was a pleasure from start to finish. I called in at Hardwick Hall first (National Trust House) only to find that it is closed on Mondays so I headed over to Chatsworth House instead. I don’t think Chatsworth ever closes; it is a huge, impressive and palatial house, with extensive gardens and grounds which means big business for the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, who’s family own and run the place. The house is magnificent and has been the backdrop to many period films. The Duchess and Pride and Prejudice were both filmed here and there were plenty of photos of Kiera Knightly around the place as a reminder. It really is stunningly beautiful though and teeming with valuable furniture, pictures and ornaments. A place to admire but not somewhere you could live! I could have spent all day there as there are several circular walks throughout the grounds but I wanted to see more of the Peak District. So next I headed into Bakewell with the intention of purchasing a delicious Bakewell Tart. Unfortunately hundreds of other tourists had the same idea and the place was packed (turned out it was also Market Day).
So I drove through Bakewell and as I emerged the other side I came across another Stately Home called Haddon Hall, home of Lord Edward Manners. When I paid for my entrance ticket I told the man in the kiosk that I had just been to Chatsworth House and he responded with “oh you will find this quite different here, it’s more historic”. I thought that an odd thing to say as Chatsworth had a long and distinguished history over the past 400 years but then I realised that Haddon Hall (see photo) is over 800 years old! It feels and looks its age too as country houses in medieval times were very simple and functional. It looks like a romantic castle from the outside and inside it feels like it hasn’t been changed for centuries. Door frames are on a slant, leaded windows are buckling, the beams are potted and scarred and the floors uneven. I loved it! In the ancient church there are tiny bats nesting in the rafters, we couldn’t see them but we could hear them chatting and calling to each other. In one of the bedchambers there were several signatures written on the plastered walls of royal visitors (Charles and Anne dated 1979 and Mary and George dated 1933).
It was about 3.30 p.m. when I left Haddon Hall so I drove over to my last stop for the day at a village called Eyam. Eyam became famous in 1665 when it experienced an outbreak of plague in the village. London had lost over 100,000 people because of the plague and unfortunately one of the villagers, ordered some cloth from a merchant in London and when it arrived it was damp. So the cloth was placed near a fire to dry out and as the cloth dried some dormant fleas in the cloth came to life. They were carrying The Plague. Between September 1665 and the Summer of 1666 over a third of the village died (about 260 people) from the Plague and the village had to be cut off from the rest of the country in order to try and contain it. Complete families were wiped out. Today “the plague houses” as they are now known all have plaques on them saying who lived and died there but in the grave yard there is only one person buried there as most had to be buried in the family’s own gardens to try and prevent the spread of the disease. Such a sad story.