A Stately Day

Strong clear sunshine greeted us this morning, a great start for our first full day in England.  I had to plan each  day's activities for this part of our vacation as it was necessary to pre-book our accommodation (high season), so today's itinerary involves touring the stately homes of Chatsworth and Haddon Hall, both a stone's throw from our base in Baslow in the Peak District. 

Chatsworth House is the home of the Duke & Duchess of Devonshire; one of the most visited estates in England; and, most importantly, the movie home of Mr. Darcy in "Pride and Prejudice"!  We wanted to walk a bit so we parked in Baslow's main lot and walked the 2kms through the estate's parklands to the main house and gardens.

One of the memorable scenes in the movie is when Lizzie approaches Pemberley and past the elegant fountain, at the far end of a long reflecting pool, she sees the magnificent mansion.  She then realizes that just perhaps she was a bit of a step-down for Mr. Darcy.  I so wanted to take a picture of that same view so I rushed Sheila thru the garden only to find I was foiled in my photographic efforts by restoration scaffolding completely enclosing the whole front facade!  Drat, how could they?!  So I took a picture of a postcard instead...

Other scenes in the movie shot here include Lizzie's entrance into the grand staircase hall and her viewing the sculpture gallery but another house stood in for most of Pemberley's 'interior'.  So we had to settle for learning about the kings, queens, lords and important 'real' people who stayed here.

We ended up racing thru the rooms as we only put 3hrs on the parking meter but we had enough time to stop and gawk at the priceless silver service and Van Dyke paintings in the dining room.  It looked like a museum display but the family actually used the room for a celebration dinner just a few weeks ago!  Cozy, eh?

We rescued the car with 10 mins to spare and then Portia took us on a little hunt for ice to refresh our mini-bar, so we had a breather before hitting our 2nd stately home of the day: Haddon Hall.  HH is rather unique in that it's a medieval home that's almost perfectly preserved so we see it pretty much as it was 600 years ago.  It's been in the same family since 1567 but they never lived there until the 1920's, the family preferring their other much grander estate, so it never went through the many renovations that successive generations seem to do to a house.  We loved it. 

Used as the Lambton Inn in P&P