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The Good Gardens Guide to Chatsworth
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Chatsworth (Derbyshire)- Historic Garden Grade I
- Bakewell DE45 1PP. Tel: (01246) 582204; www.chatsworth.org
- 4m E of Bakewell, 10m W of Chesterfield on B6012, off A619 and A6
- House open
- Gardens open mid-March to mid-Dec, daily, 11am-6pm
- Entrance: £6, OAP's and students £4.50, children £2.75, family £14.50 (2006 prices). Parking charge for cars only £1.50
One of Britain’s greatest gardens. The 105 acres of garden have developed over 400 years and still reflect the fashions of each century.
The seventeenth-century gardens of London and Wise remain only as the cascade, the canal pond to the south and the copper ‘willow tree’ with water pouring from its branches.
During the eighteenth century ‘Capability’ Brown destroyed much of the formal gardens to create a landscaped woodland park; notable is the vista he created from the Salisbury Lawn to the horizon, which remains unchanged, as does the lawn itself since no liming or fertilisers are used, allowing many varieties of wild flowers, grasses, moss and sedges to thrive.
Paxton’s work still gives pleasure, including some rare conifers and the magnificent 84-metre water jet from the Emperor Fountain. Although his Great Conservatory was a casualty of the 1914–18 war (metre-wide stone walls in the old conservatory garden are all that remain to give an idea of its size), damaged areas of Paxton’s giant rockeries were rebuilt in 2003.
From the twentieth century come the orange and blue-and-white borders, the terrace, the display greenhouse, the rose garden, the old conservatory garden with its lupin, dahlia and Michaelmas daisy beds, and a yew maze planted in 1963.
In the arboretum and pinetum the suffocating rhododendrons, laurels and sycamores have been removed and many new trees planted. The double rows of pleached red-twigged limes and serpentine beech hedge, both planted in the 1950s, are now rewarding features.
The epitome of a cottage garden has two striking neighbours: a flight of yew stairs leading to a 'bedroom' where the four-poster is of ivy and the dressing-table of privet, and a sensory garden.
The kitchen garden has been resited and redesigned – it has been called 'indelibly British'. The first major piece of garden statuary to be placed in the garden for 150 years, 'War Horse' by Dame Elisabeth Frink, is sited at the south end of the canal, and her 'Walking Madonna' is a new and important presence.
The Garden at Chatsworth by The Duchess of Devonshire, with photographs by Gary Rogers, was published by Frances Lincoln in 1999.
View more photos of Chatsworth on the Good Gardens Guide database
This article was created: 1 March 2007.
This article was last edited: 26 June 2007.
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