Chatsworth

Introduction

My brother and sister-in-law invited R and me to stay with them for a weekend. They live in a very pretty part of Derbyshire, and on the Saturday they took us to see Chatsworth House, a nearby stately home. I’ve not been there since I was a child.

House

My brother’s family have seen the house before, so R and I went around on our own. Even as stately homes go, it’s a bit on the grand side. It’s owned by the Duke of Devonshire, who presumably has a rather long commute.

Garden wall near the house entrance, with a small sphinx (obviously).
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Inner courtyard with fountain sculpture.
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The seasonal exhibition was some kind of historical fashion display arranged through the rooms, which mostly wasn’t all that interesting.

But some of the display cases had these foot-stands.
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And sometimes the mannequins did add to the atmosphere.
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Anyway you could still walk around as normal, see the various rooms, and read about their history.

Sculpture (and other art) by the stairs.
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Light in a very large empty vase.
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Chair with teasels.
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Light gallery above.
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Electrical control panel. It looks rather like a puzzle in a Resident Evil game, although the reflected photographer is hopefully not a zombie.
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Part of the fashion exhibition I definitely do approve of was a room at the end with lots of silly hats you could try on. The idea was that you could take pictures and post them on social media. The hashtag? #hatsworth. Ho ho! Not posting any pictures from that, though.

One of a pair of lovely lion statues.
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Gardens

We met back up with the family for a very nice picnic, and then explored some of the gardens together.

Damp tunnel underneath the cascade.
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Raining tree sculpture. (Yes I ran around it.)
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Chatsworth has a very oversized rock-garden, which is fun: one of my nieces likes climbing over rocks (this is probably a bad habit acquired from her dad), and so do I.

R, however, does not.
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Waterfall.
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Face.
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There is also a maze, which we solved after quite some effort - where effort is defined as trying to keep up with a seven-year-old running in random directions.

Maze from above.
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Random sculpture.
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Anyway it was a really nice day out.

Tamworth

The pictures above are a bit on the upper-class side, so as an antidote here are four from Tamworth station, where we had to wait 45 minutes to change train on the way back.

Steps from lower to higher level platforms.
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Cone.
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Warm light over the main line as the sun came out.
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Part of the higher level platform.
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All images © Samuel Marshall. All rights reserved.