Month: April 2022

History About Warkworth Castle.

Warkworth Castle is a ruined medieval castle in Warkworth in the English county of Northumberland. The village and castle occupy a loop of the River Coquet, less than a mile from England’s north-east coast. When the castle was founded is uncertain: traditionally its construction has been ascribed to Prince Henry of Scotland, Earl of Northumbria, in the mid-12th century, but it may have been built by King Henry II of England when he took control of England’s northern counties. Warkworth Castle was first documented in a charter of 1157–1164 when Henry II granted it to Roger fitz Richard. The timber castle was considered “feeble”, and was left undefended when the Scots invaded in 1173.

Roger’s son Robert inherited and improved the castle. Robert was a favourite of King John, and hosted him at Warkworth Castle in 1213. The castle remained in the family line, with periods of guardianship when heirs were too young to control their estates. King Edward I stayed overnight in 1292 and John de Clavering, descendant of Roger fitz Richard, made the Crown his inheritor. With the outbreak of the Anglo-Scottish Wars, Edward II invested in castles including Warkworth where he funded the strengthening of the garrison in 1319. Twice in 1327 the Scots besieged the castle without success.

John de Clavering died in 1332 and his widow in 1345, at which point The 2nd Baron Percy of Alnwick took control of Warkworth Castle, having been promised Clavering’s property by Edward III. Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland, added the imposing keep overlooking the village of Warkworth in the late 14th century. The fourth earl remodelled the buildings in the bailey and began the construction of a collegiate church within the castle, but work on the latter was abandoned after his death. Although The 10th Earl of Northumberland supported Parliament during the English Civil War, the castle was damaged during the conflict. The last Percy earl died in 1670. In the mid-18th century the castle found its way into the hands of Hugh Smithson, who married the indirect Percy heiress. He adopted the surname “Percy” and founded the dynasty of the Dukes of Northumberland, through whom possession of the castle descended.

In the late 19th century, the dukes refurbished Warkworth Castle and Anthony Salvin was commissioned to restore the keep. The 8th Duke of Northumberland gave custody of the castle to the Office of Works in 1922. Since 1984 English Heritage has cared for the site, which is a Grade I listed building and a Scheduled Ancient Monument. Although the settlement of Warkworth in Northumberland dates back to at least the 8th century, the first castle was not built until after the Norman Conquest.[1] The town and its castle occupied a loop of the River Coquet. The castle was built at the south end of the town, guarding the narrow neck of the loop. A fortified bridge also defended the approach to the town.[2] The surrounding lowland countryside was favourable for agriculture.[3] When the castle was founded and by whom is uncertain, though traditionally Prince Henry of Scotland, Earl of Northumberland, has been thought responsible.[4] With civil war in South West England, King Stephen of England needed to ensure northern England was secure. To this end, the Treaty of Durham in 1139 between Scotland and England ensured peace. Under the treaty Henry of Scotland became Earl of Northumbria in exchange for ceding control of the castles at Bamburgh and Newcastle to the English.[5] Without them Henry would have needed a new seat from which to exercise his authority, and a new castle at Warkworth may have met the requirement. However, charters show that Henry still controlled Bamburgh Castle after the treaty, and as Warkworth was a modest castle by contemporary standards it may be have been founded by someone else.[4] Henry died in 1152 and his son, Malcolm (crowned King of Scotland in 1153), inherited his lands. In 1157 Malcolm travelled to Peveril Castle in Derbyshire, where he paid homage to the new King of England, Henry II.[6] Malcolm surrendered England’s northern counties to Henry, including the castles of Bamburgh, Carlisle, and Newcastle, and probably Appleby, Brough, Wark, and Warkworth,[7] though it is possible that Henry II founded Warkworth Castle in 1157 to secure his lands in Northumberland; other contemporary castles in the area were built for this purpose, for instance the one at Harbottle.

The first mention of Warkworth Castle occurs in a charter of 1157–1164 from Henry II granting the castle and surrounding manor to Roger fitz Richard,[4] a member of a noble Norman family.[9] It has been suggested that this charter may have used the term castle to describe a high-status residence on the site, possibly dating from the Anglo-Saxon period, meaning Roger may have built the castle.[8] He owned lands across a wide area, and Warkworth may have been of little significance in the context of his other holdings. When the Scots invaded Northumberland in 1173, although Roger fitz Richard was in the county Warkworth Castle was not defended by its garrison. Its defences at the time were described as “feeble”.[10] In 1174 Duncan II, Earl of Fife, raided Warkworth. The contemporary record does not mention the castle, and instead notes that Warkworth’s inhabitants sought refuge in the church. When Roger fitz Richard died in 1178 his son and heir, Robert fitz Roger, was still a child. A guardian looked after the family estates until Robert came of age in 1191. He paid the Crown 300 marks in 1199 for confirmation of his ownership of Warkworth, including the castle. Substantial building work at Warkworth Castle is attributed to Robert. A favourite of King John, Robert hosted him at Warkworth Castle in 1213.[10]

Warkworth Castle continued to descend through the family line when Robert fitz Roger was succeeded by his son John in 1214, who was succeeded by his son Roger in 1240. Roger died in 1249 when his son Robert was one year old, and a guardian was appointed to care for the family’s estates: William de Valence, half-brother of King Henry III. The castle, characterised by this time by the chronicler Matthew Paris as “noble”,[10] remained under the guardianship of Valence until 1268, when it reverted to Robert fitz John.[11] King Edward I of England stayed at Warkworth Castle for a night in 1292. The English king was asked to mediate in a dispute over the Scottish throne and laid his own claim, leading to the Anglo-Scottish Wars. After the Scottish victory at the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297, Robert and his son, John de Clavering, were captured. They were subsequently released and in 1310 John assumed control of the family estates. A year later, John made arrangements so that on his death the king would receive all of his property. Between roughly 1310 and 1330 the English struggled to deal with Scottish raids in northern England. Such was the importance of large castles during the Scottish Wars that the Crown subsidised their maintenance and even construction. In 1319, King Edward II paid for a garrison for the castle of four men-at-arms and eight hobilars to enhance the existing force of twelve men-at-arms.[15] Ralph Neville was the keeper of Warkworth Castle in 1322. As he was married to John’s daughter, Euphemia, Ralph may have hoped to inherit the Clavering estates, but that did not happen. Twice in 1327 Scottish forces besieged the castle without success. Around this time, the Percy family was becoming Northumberland’s most powerful dynasty.[18] Henry de Percy, 2nd Baron Percy, was in the service of Edward III and was paid 500 marks a year in perpetuity in return for leading a company of men-at-arms. In exchange for the annual fee, in 1328 Percy was promised the rights to the Clavering estates. Parliament declared such contracts illegal in 1331, but after initially relinquishing his claim Percy was granted special permission to inherit. John de Clavering died in 1332 and his widow in 1345, at which point the family’s estates became the property of the Percys.[13] While the Percys owned Alnwick Castle, which was considered more prestigious, Warkworth was the family’s preferred home. Under the Percys a park was created nearby for hunting, and within the castle two residential blocks were created, described by historian John Goodall as “of unparalleled quality and sophistication in Northumberland”.[18] The second baron died at Warkworth in 1352. Around this time, the Percy family was becoming Northumberland’s most powerful dynasty.[18] Henry de Percy, 2nd Baron Percy, was in the service of Edward III and was paid 500 marks a year in perpetuity in return for leading a company of men-at-arms. In exchange for the annual fee, in 1328 Percy was promised the rights to the Clavering estates. Parliament declared such contracts illegal in 1331, but after initially relinquishing his claim Percy was granted special permission to inherit. John de Clavering died in 1332 and his widow in 1345, at which point the family’s estates became the property of the Percys.[13] While the Percys owned Alnwick Castle, which was considered more prestigious, Warkworth was the family’s preferred home. Under the Percys a park was created nearby for hunting, and within the castle two residential blocks were created, described by historian John Goodall as “of unparalleled quality and sophistication in Northumberland”.[18] The second baron died at Warkworth in 1352.

In 1377 the fourth Baron Percy, also named Henry, was made the first Earl of Northumberland (becoming the first family from northern England to be granted an earldom)[14] in recognition of his extensive power in the march areas along the Anglo-Scottish border.[19] With a network of contacts and dependencies, the Percys were the pre-eminent family in northern England in the 14th century “for they have the hertes of the people by north and ever had”, in the words of contemporaneous chronicler John Hardyng.[20] Henry Percy commissioned the building of the distinctive keep shortly after he was made Earl of Northumberland. Percy may have enhanced his main castle to compete with John of Gaunt, who rebuilt the nearby Dunstanburgh Castle, or with the House of Neville, a family becoming increasingly powerful in northern England and who undertook a programme of building at the castles of Brancepeth, Raby, Bamburgh, Middleham, and Sheriff Hutton.[19][21] Architectural similarities between Warkworth’s keep, Bolton Castle, and the domestic buildings at Bamburgh Castle suggest that John Lewyn was the master mason responsible for building Warkworth’s keep.[19] Earl Henry helped dethrone Richard II and replace him with Henry IV. The earl and his eldest son Henry “Hotspur” Percy fell out with the new king, and eventually rebelled. After Hotspur was killed at the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403, his father fled to Warkworth.[22] The earl eventually went to York to submit to the king. He was arrested and the king attempted to install his own men at the castles of Alnwick, Langley Castle, Prudhoe, and Warkworth.[23] The earl’s 14-year-old son claimed that he was loyal to the king but was not empowered to formally surrender the castle, and it remained under control of the Percys.[22] Henry was pardoned in 1404.[23]

Earl Henry rebelled again in 1405, this time joining the unsuccessful revolt of Richard Scrope, Archbishop of York. While Henry was fleeing north after the failed rebellion, his castles offered some resistance before submitting to royal forces. Warkworth itself was well-provisioned and the garrison initially refused to surrender. However, according to a letter written by Henry IV from Warkworth after its fall, after just seven shots from his cannon the defenders capitulated.[22] The castle was forfeited to the Crown, and was used by one of the King’s sons, John, Duke of Bedford, who was appointed to rule the area.[24] It remained in the ownership of the Crown until Henry V restored it to the Percy family in 1416, and at the same time made the son of “Hotspur” Henry, another Henry Percy, second Earl of Northumberland. It is known that the second earl resided at Warkworth and undertook building work there, but it is now unclear for which parts he was responsible.

The Rising of the North in 1569 saw Catholic nobles in northern England rebel against the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I. The Catholic Thomas Percy joined the rebellion[30] and supporters congregated at the castles of Alnwick and Warkworth. Sir John Forster, Warden of the March, ordered those inside to leave[29] and the castles were surrendered to his control.[31] During the conflict that followed, Warkworth remained under royal control.[29] Forster pillaged the castle, stripping it of its timbers and furnishings. The keep at least did not share in this fate,[30] but in April 1572 Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon, bemoaned the treatment meted out to the Percy castles, writing to the queen’s chief minister, “It is a great pity to see how Alnwick Castle and Warkworth are spoiled by him … I am creditably informed that he means utterly to deface them both.”[32] An attainder was issued against Thomas Percy so that when he came into English custody he was executed without trial on 22 August.[31] As a result, Percy’s son was passed over,[32] but under the terms of the attainder his brother was allowed to inherit.[31] In 1574, Elizabeth granted Henry Percy permission to inherit the family’s property and assume the title of 8th Earl of Northumberland.[32]

The castle formed the backdrop for several scenes in William Shakespeare‘s Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2. Another Henry Percy inherited the family estates in 1585 and assumed the title of 9th Earl of Northumberland. After the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605, the earl was imprisoned for his connection with Thomas Percy, one of the plotters. Shortly before he was sentenced (he was fined £30,000 and held in the Tower of London), the earl leased Warkworth Castle to Sir Ralph Gray, who owned Chillingham Castle in Northumberland. Gray neglected the earl’s building and allowed it to fall further into disrepair. The lead from the buildings in the bailey was sold in 1607 to alleviate the earl’s financial problems. When James I visited in 1617 en route to Scotland, his entourage was angered by the sorry state of the castle.[33] With the unification of England and Scotland under a single ruler, the earls of Northumberland had no need for two great castles near the Anglo-Scottish border; they maintained Alnwick at the expense of Warkworth. In the first quarter of the 17th century, the keep was used to hold manor courts and for the laying out of oats.[34]

The details surrounding Warkworth Castle’s role in the English Civil War are unclear, but the conflict resulted in further damage to the structure. Initially held by Royalist forces, the castle was still important enough that when the Scots invaded in 1644 they forced its surrender.[35] Algernon Percy, 10th Earl of Northumberland, supported Parliament, which may have prevented the Scots from doing much damage to the castle.[34] Parliamentarian forces took over the castle in 1648; when they withdrew they removed the castle’s doors and iron so that it could not be reused by the enemy. They may also have partially demolished some of the castle, and may be responsible for its present state. Algernon Percy unsuccessfully applied for compensation in 1649 for the damage.

The Percys supported the House of Lancaster during the Wars of the Roses, and the second earl and his successor – Henry Percy, 3rd Earl of Northumberland – were killed at the battles of St Albans in 1455 and Towton in 1461 respectively.[25] The new king, Edward IV, issued an attainder against the family and their property was confiscated.[26] On 1 August 1464, as a result of suppressing Lancastrian rebellions in the north for the previous three years, the title of Earl of Northumberland was given to The 1st Marquess of Montagu, a Yorkist, and with it, the castle. During his tenure, he constructed a twenty-five-foot tall rectangular tower, built for defence, “with [arrow] slits in the three outer walls;” this is known as ‘Montagu’s Tower’ to this day.[27] His brother, The 16th Earl of Warwick, used Warkworth as a base from which the Lancastrian-held castles of Northumberland – Alnwick, Bamburgh, and Dunstanburgh – were attacked and their sieges co-ordinated. In 1470 Edward IV returned the Percys’ estates to the eldest son of the third earl, who was also called Henry Percy. A year later Henry was granted the earldom of Northumberland.[25] Some time after 1472 Henry remodelled the building of the bailey. He also planned to build a collegiate church within the castle, but the work was abandoned after his death. When the fourth earl was murdered in 1489, his son, Henry Algernon, inherited and maintained the castle. In the early 16th century Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland, was responsible for clearing the collegiate church founded by his grandfather, but left incomplete by the fifth earl. Thomas Percy, brother of the sixth earl, was executed for his role in the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536. When Henry Percy died the next year without any sons, the family’s property passed to the Crown.

In 1543 Sir William Parr, as warden of the Scottish marches decided to live at Warkworth and carried out repairs.[28] Although royal officers still used the castle, by 1550 it had fallen into disrepair. In 1557 the Percy estates were restored to the descendants of Thomas, and the nephew of the sixth earl, another Thomas Percy, was given the earldom. He began a programme of repairs at the castle, and in the process dismantled “the hall and other houses of office”.

The History About Seaton Delaval Hall In Seaton Delaval.

Seaton Delaval Hall is a Grade I listed country house in Northumberland, England, near the coast just north of Newcastle upon Tyne. Located between Seaton Sluice and Seaton Delaval, it was designed by Sir John Vanbrugh in 1718 for Admiral George Delaval; it is now owned by the National Trust.

Since completion of the house in 1728, it has had an unfortunate history. Neither architect nor patron lived to see its completion; it then passed through a succession of heirs, being lived in only intermittently. Most damaging of all, in 1822 the central block was gutted by fire, and has remained an empty shell ever since.

The 18th-century gardens of the hall are Grade II* listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.

The Delaval family had owned the estate since the time of the Norman conquest. Admiral George Delaval bought the estate from an impoverished kinsman, Sir John Delaval in 1717. George Delaval had made his fortune from capturing prize ships while in the Navy, and had also served as a British envoy during the reign of Queen Anne. In 1718, he called on architect Sir John Vanbrugh to advise him on how to modernise and enhance the existing mansion. Upon viewing the site, Vanbrugh felt he could do nothing, and advised complete demolition of all except the ancient chapel near to the mansion, which is now the parish church of Our Lady.

His advice was taken and the construction work was completed in 1728, two years after the death of the Admiral. The resulting new mansion was the last country house Vanbrugh designed, and it is regarded as one of his finest works. On completion, the Admiral’s nephew Francis Blake Delaval (the elder) inherited the property, and moved in immediately.

Unsigned painting of the south front of Seaton Delaval Hall, probably by William Bell. The southwest wing at left may never have been built; the southeast wing at right was destroyed by fire in 1822.

In 1775, the Newcastle portrait artist William Bell made two paintings of the Hall, depicting the north and south fronts. Bell also painted portraits of many of the residents of the house at the time, earning him the patronage of Lord Delaval, a younger son of the above-mentioned Francis Blake Delaval.[3] These paintings can normally still be seen in the Hall, but not during the current building work.

In 1822, the central block was gutted by a fire said to have been caused by jackdaws nesting in the chimneys of the section of the south-east wing closest to the main house. This wing was subsequently demolished, and various openings can still be seen, now glazed, showing where it joined the central block.

The house was partially restored by the architect John Dobson in 1862–63, when the central block was re-roofed, although it remained a shell internally. The effects of the fire remain clearly visible in the great hall, originally 30 feet (9.1 m) high but now open to the roof, with blackened walls and muse statues.

During the Second World War the Hall was used to house German prisoners-of-war, who worked as labourers on neighbouring farms.

More modern times.

Further restoration was completed in 1959 and the early 1960s, including replacement of windows in the central block, restoration of the upstairs gallery in the main hall, and paving of the floors on the piano nobile.

From 1968 to 1984 “medieval banquets” were held in the original kitchen of the hall.

However, the house was to remain unoccupied until the 1980s when, after a period of 160 years, Edward Delaval Henry Astley, 22nd Baron Hastings moved into the west wing. It became his permanent home until his death in 2007.

Subsequently the new 23rd Baron Hastings, Delaval Astley, wishing to preserve the future of the Hall and encourage greater public access, began discussions with the National Trust. On 1 September 2008 the National Trust launched an appeal for £6.3m to bring the hall, with its gardens and grounds, into the Trust’s custody.[6] In December 2009, the Trust announced that its appeal had been successful,[7] and the purchase having gone through, the Hall opened to visitors again on 1 May 2010.

In October 2021, Seaton Delaval Hall was one of 142 sites across England to receive part of a £35-million injection into the government’s Culture Recovery Fund, specifically for its sea-walk walls and corbels.

The style of architecture is known as English Baroque, based on the Palladian style introduced into the UK by Inigo Jones. Vanbrugh developed the style from the more decorated and architecturally lighter continental baroque popular in Europe.

The design is of a centre block portico, or corps de logis, containing the state and principal rooms, between two flanking wings. The wings have a centre projection of three bays, crowned by a pediment, either side of which are 7 bays of sash windows above a ground floor arcade.

The west wing originally housed secondary and service accommodation. Damaged in an earlier fire but restored to the original plan, it is distinguished by a great colonnade and boasted a lofty vaulted kitchen, now a salon. The east wing contains the stables, a sixty-foot chamber of palatial design, with stalls and mangers of stone fit. They were reportedly inspired by the stables at Hopetoun House near Edinburgh, designed by Robert Adam. In 1768 Sir Francis Blake Delaval wrote thus to his brother: “I am putting up the grand stable on a plan we saw at Lord Hoptoun’s when we were in Scotland, with stone divisions of the stalls.” So pleased was he with the results that Sir Francis held a dinner party in the new stables.

Between the two wings is a cour d’honneur, a great open courtyard 180 feet (55 m) long and 152.5 feet (46.5 m) broad.

While the exterior is still a perfect example of English baroque at its finest, the interiors of the state rooms remain unrestored from the fire.

John Delaval, the last male heir of the Delavals, who died young. Painted aged thirteen or fourteen by William Bell.

Also in the 400 acres (160 ha) estate park is a stone mausoleum, about half a mile east of the hall, which once had a majestic dome, now gone, but which retains a portico resting on huge monolithic columns. The mausoleum is surrounded by a circular ha-ha, a stone-faced ditch. It was erected by Lord Delaval to his only son, John, who died in 1775 aged 19, “as a result of having been kicked in a vital organ by a laundry maid to whom he was paying his addresses”. No-one was ever buried in the mausoleum, which was never consecrated, and the unfortunate John Delaval was buried in St Peter’s Doddington, Lincolnshire.

The mausoleum is now ruinous and its lead roof has gone. Also to the east in the walled garden is a south-facing orangery, designed by the architect William Etty, who collaborated with Vanbrugh. It has five glazed arches separated by Doric demi-columns. The statue in the forecourt in front of the house is a lead figure of David, with empty sling, lightly poised above the crouching form of Goliath, who has his thumbs doubled inside his palms. This is an 18th-century copy, possibly by John Cheere, of a 16th-century Italian marble by either Baccio Bandinelli or a follower of Giambologna. The statue has been repositioned from one of the corner bastions of the garden.

A large obelisk commands the fields to the south of the hall; the stub of a second can be found on the north side of the road running past the hall, next to the turning for New Hartley. This second obelisk marked the site where Admiral George Delaval was killed in a fall from his horse in 1723, before his new hall had been completed. Only the pedestal of the obelisk survives, half-hidden by trees; it is uninscribed.

From the steps of the house on a clear day, The Cheviot and Hedgehope Hill can be clearly seen on the northern horizon, some forty miles away on the Scottish border. Also visible to the northwest are the Simonside Hills.

The History Of The Sage In Gateshead.

Sage Gateshead was developed by Foster and Partners following an architectural design competition launched in 1997 and managed by RIBA Competitions. Over 100 architects registered their interest and 12 – a mixture of local, national and international talent – were invited to prepare concept designs.

Sage Gateshead is a concert venue and also a centre for musical education, located in Gateshead on the south bank of the River Tyne, in North East England. It opened in 2004 and is occupied by North Music Trust.

The venue is part of the Gateshead Quays development, which also includes the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art and the Gateshead Millennium Bridge.

Planning for the centre began in the early 1990s, when the orchestra of Sage Gateshead, Royal Northern Sinfonia, with encouragement from Northern Arts, began working on plans for a new concert hall. They were soon joined by regional folk music development agency Folkworks,[2] which ensured that the needs of the region’s traditional music were taken into consideration and represented in Sage Gateshead’s programme of concerts, alongside Rock, Pop, Dance, Hip Hop, classical, jazz, acoustic, indie, country and world, Practice spaces for professional musicians, students and amateurs were an important part of the provision.

The planning and construction process cost over £70 million, which was raised primarily through National Lottery grants. The contractor was Laing O’Rourke. The centre has a range of patrons, notably Sage Group which contributed a large sum of money to have the building named after it. Sage plc has helped support the charitable activities of Sage Gateshead since its conception. The venue opened over the weekend 17–19 December 2004.

Sage Gateshead was developed by Foster and Partners following an architectural design competition launched in 1997 and managed by RIBA Competitions. Over 100 architects registered their interest and 12 – a mixture of local, national and international talent – were invited to prepare concept designs. A shortlist of six was then interviewed with Foster and Partners unanimously selected as the winner. The Design has gone on to win a number of awards: the RIBA Inclusive Design Award, Civic Trust Award and The Journal North East Landmark of the Year Award.

As a conference venue, the building hosted the Labour Party’s Spring conference in February 2005 and the Liberal Democrat Party conference in March 2012. On 18 August 2009, Sage Gateshead was selected to host the 2010 and 2011 National Union of Students annual conference. The 2010 Annual Conference took place 13–15 April 2010.

The centre occupies a curved glass and stainless steel building designed by Foster and Partners, Buro Happold (structural engineering), Mott MacDonald (engineering consultants) and Arup (acoustics), with views of Newcastle and Gateshead Quaysides, the Tyne Bridge and the Gateshead Millennium Bridge.

Sage Gateshead contains three performance spaces; a 1,700-seater, a 450-seater, and a smaller rehearsal and performance hall, the Northern Rock Foundation Hall. The rest of the building was designed around these three spaces to allow for maximum attention to detail in their acoustic properties. Structurally it is three separate buildings, insulated from each other to prevent noise and vibration travelling between them. The gaps between them may be seen as one walks around inside. A special ‘spongy’ concrete mix was used in the construction, with a higher-than-usual air capacity to improve the acoustic. These three buildings are enclosed (but not touched) by the now-famous glass and steel shell. Sage One was intended as an acoustically perfect space, modelled on the Musikverein in Vienna. Its ceiling panels may be raised and lowered and curtains drawn across the ribbed wooden side walls, changing the sound profile of the room to suit any type of music. Sage Two is a smaller venue, possibly the world’s only ten-sided performance space.

The building is open to the public throughout the day.

The History Of Ingram Valley.

The Breamish Valley contains an amazing concentration of prehistoric hillforts. These enclosures, made of earth and stone ramparts around a central area, were built by ancient Britons 2,300 years ago. They were built in a landscape already rich in the monuments of the people who had lived here before. Each hillfort seems to sit in its own territory, separated from its neighbour. In many of the hillforts, including Brough Law, Middle Dean and Wether Hill, you can see faint circles on the ground that are the remains of their timber roundhouses. The surrounding hillsides are covered in cultivation terraces on which our ancestors grew crops, and also scattered over the hills are burial cairns that date to the Bronze Age (4,000 years ago). Surprisingly there had been very few archaeological excavations here before the 1990s when Northumberland National Park Authority set up the Breamish Valley Archaeological Project.

The History Of Chatsworth House In The Peak District.

Chatsworth House is a stately home in the Derbyshire Dales, 3.5 miles (5.6 km) north-east of Bakewell and 9 miles (14 km) west of Chesterfield, England. The seat of the Duke of Devonshire, it has belonged to the Cavendish family since 1549. It stands on the east bank of the River Derwent, across from hills between the Derwent and Wye valleys, amid parkland backed by wooded hills that rise to heather moorland. The house holds major collections of paintings, furniture, Old Master drawings, neoclassical sculptures and books. Chosen several times as Britain’s favourite country house, it is a Grade I listed property from the 18th century, altered in the 19th.[4][5] In 2011–2012 it underwent a £14-million restoration. The owner is the Chatsworth House Trust, an independent charitable foundation, on behalf of the Cavendish family.

The name ‘Chatsworth’ is a corruption of Chetel’s-worth, meaning “the Court of Chetel”.[7] In the reign of Edward the Confessor, a man of Norse origin named Chetel held lands jointly with a Saxon named Leotnoth in three townships: Ednesoure to the west of the Derwent, and Langoleie and Chetesuorde to the east.[8] Chetel was deposed after the Norman Conquest and in the Domesday Book the Manor of Chetesuorde is listed as the property of the Crown in the custody of William de Peverel.[7] Chatsworth ceased to be a large estate, until the 15th century when it was acquired by the Leche family who owned property nearby. They enclosed the first park at Chatsworth and built a house on the high ground in what is now the south-eastern part of the garden. In 1549 they sold all their property in the area to Sir William Cavendish, Treasurer of the King’s Chamber and the husband of Bess of Hardwick, who had persuaded him to sell his property in Suffolk and settle in her native county.

Bess began to build the new house in 1553. She selected a site near the river, which was drained by digging a series of reservoirs, which doubled as fish ponds. Sir William died in 1557, but Bess finished the house in the 1560s and lived there with her fourth husband, George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury. In 1568 Shrewsbury was entrusted with the custody of Mary, Queen of Scots, and brought his prisoner to Chatsworth several times from 1570 onwards. She lodged in the apartment now known as the Queen of Scots rooms, on the top floor above the great hall, which faces onto the inner courtyard. An accomplished needlewoman, Bess joined Mary at Chatsworth for extended periods in 1569, 1570, and 1571, during which time they worked together on the Oxburgh Hangings.[9] Bess died in 1608 and Chatsworth was passed to her eldest son, Henry. The estate was purchased from Henry by his brother William Cavendish, 1st Earl of Devonshire, for £10,000.

Few changes were made at Chatsworth until the mid-17th century. William Cavendish, 3rd Earl of Devonshire, was a staunch Royalist, expelled from the House of Lords in 1642. He left England for the safety of the continent and his estates were sequestered.[10] Chatsworth was occupied by both sides during the Civil War, and the 3rd Earl did not return to the house until The Restoration of the monarchy. He reconstructed the principal rooms in an attempt to make them more comfortable, but the Elizabethan house was outdated and unsafe.

The famed political philosopher Thomas Hobbes spent the last four or five years of his life at Chatsworth Hall, then owned by William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Devonshire. He had been a friend of the family since 1608, when he first tutored an earlier William Cavendish in 1608.[11] Hobbes died at another Cavendish family estate, Hardwick Hall in December 1679. After his death, many of Hobbes’ manuscripts were found at Chatsworth House.[12]

William Cavendish, 4th Earl of Devonshire, who became the 1st Duke in 1694 for helping to put William of Orange on the English throne, was an advanced Whig. He was forced to retire to Chatsworth during the reign of King James II. This called for rebuilding the house, which began in 1687. Cavendish aimed initially to reconstruct only the south wing with the State Apartments and so decided to retain the Elizabethan courtyard plan, although its layout was becoming increasingly unfashionable. He enjoyed building and reconstructed the East Front, which included the Painted Hall and Long Gallery, followed by the West Front from 1699 to 1702. The North Front was completed in 1707 just before he died. The 1st Duke also had large parterre gardens designed by George London and Henry Wise, who was later appointed by Queen Anne as Royal Gardener at Kensington Palace.

William Cavendish, 2nd Duke of Devonshire, and William Cavendish, 3rd Duke of Devonshire, made no changes to the house or gardens, but both contributed much to the collection found at Chatsworth at the time. Connoisseurs of the arts, they included in the collection paintings, Old Master drawings and prints, ancient coins and carved Greek and Roman sculptures. Palladian furniture designed by William Kent was commissioned by the 3rd Duke when he had Devonshire House in London rebuilt after a fire in 1733. When Devonshire House was sold and demolished in 1924, the furniture was transferred to Chatsworth.

The 4th Duke made great changes to the house and gardens. He decided the approach to the house should be from the west. He had the old stables and offices as well as parts of Edensor village pulled down so they were not visible from the house, and replaced the 1st Duke’s formal gardens with a more natural look, designed by Lancelot “Capability” Brown, which he helped bring into fashion.

In 1748, the 4th Duke married Lady Charlotte Boyle, the sole surviving heiress of Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington. Lord Burlington was an accomplished architect in his own right with many works to his name including Chiswick House. With his death, his important collection of architectural drawings and Inigo Jones masque designs, Old Master paintings and William Kent-designed furniture were transferred to the Dukes of Devonshire. This inheritance also brought many estates to the family.

In 1774, William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire, married Georgiana Spencer famous as a socialite who gathered around her a large circle of literary and political friends. Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds would paint her; the Gainsborough painting would be disposed of by the 5th Duke and be recovered much later, after many vicissitudes. The film The Duchess portrayed their life together. Georgiana was the great-great-great-great aunt of Diana, Princess of Wales; their lives, centuries apart, have been compared in tragedy.

19th century[edit]

The 6th Duke (known as “the Bachelor Duke”) was a passionate traveller, builder, gardener and collector, who transformed Chatsworth. In 1811 he inherited the title and eight major estates: Chatsworth and Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire, Devonshire House, Burlington House and Chiswick House in London, Bolton Abbey and Londesborough Hall in Yorkshire, and Lismore Castle in Ireland. These covered 200,000 acres (810 km2) of land in England and Ireland.

The Duke was a collector especially of sculpture and books. When he built the North Wing to the designs of Sir Jeffry Wyatville, it included a purpose-built Sculpture Gallery to house his collection. He took over several rooms in the house to contain the entire libraries he was purchasing at auction. The 6th Duke loved to entertain, and the early 19th century saw a rise in popularity of country-house parties. In addition to a sculpture gallery, the new north wing housed an orangery, a theatre, a Turkish bath, a dairy, a vast new kitchen and numerous servants rooms. In 1830 the Duke increased the guest accommodation by converting suites of rooms into individual guest bedrooms. People invited to stay at Chatsworth spent their days hunting, riding, reading and playing billiards. In the evening formal dinners would take place, followed by music, charades and billiards or conversation in the smoking room for the men. Women would return to their bedroom many times during the day to change their outfits. The guest bedrooms on the east front at Chatsworth are the most complete set from the period to survive with their original furnishings.[14]: 52  There is much eastern influence in the decoration, including hand-painted Chinese wallpapers and fabrics typical of Regency taste, which developed in the reign of George IV (1762–1830). Those who stayed at Chatsworth included Queen Victoria and Charles Dickens.

A view of Chatsworth from the south-west circa 1880. The stables can be seen behind the house and the Hunting Tower is visible in Stand Wood

In October 1832, Princess Victoria (later Queen Victoria) and her mother, the Duchess of Kent, visited Chatsworth, where the Princess had her first formal adult dinner at the age of 13, in the new dining room. The 6th Duke had another chance to welcome Victoria in 1843, when the Queen and Prince Albert returned to enjoy an array of illumination in the gardens, in the conservatory and on the fountains, forming a scene of “unparalleled display and grandeur”, according to one guest.[15]

The Duke spent 47 years transforming the house and gardens. A Latin inscription over the fireplace in the Painted Hall translates, “William Spencer, Duke of Devonshire, inherited this most beautiful house from his father in the year 1811, which had been begun in the year of English liberty 1688, and completed it in the year of his bereavement 1840.” The year 1688 was that of the Glorious Revolution, supported by the Whig dynasties including the Cavendishes. The year 1840 brought the death of the Duke’s beloved niece Blanche, who was married to his heir, the future 7th Duke.

In 1844, the 6th Duke privately printed and published a book called Handbook to Chatsworth and Hardwick, giving a history of the Cavendish family’s two main estates. It was praised by Charles Dickens.

Social change and taxes in the early 20th century began to affect the Devonshires’ lifestyle. When the 8th Duke died in 1908 over £500,000 of death duties became due. This was a small charge compared with that of 42 years later, but the estate was already burdened with debt from the 6th Duke’s extravagances, the failure of the 7th Duke’s business ventures at Barrow-in-Furness, and the depression in British agriculture apparent since the 1870s. In 1912 the family sold 25 books printed by William Caxton and a collection of 1,347 volumes of plays acquired by the 6th Duke, including four Shakespeare folios and 39 Shakespeare quartos, to the Huntington Library in California. Tens of thousands of acres of land in Somerset, Sussex and Derbyshire were also sold during or just after the First World War.

In December 1904, King Charles I of Portugal and Queen Maria Amélia stayed at Chatsworth House during their visit to Britain. It snowed almost constantly while they were there and the King reportedly started a snowball fight, in which the assembled ladies enthusiastically joined, when he met the Marquis of Soveral, the Portuguese Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of St James’s.[18]

In 1920 the family’s London mansion, Devonshire House, which occupied a 3-acre (12,000 m2) site in Piccadilly, was sold to developers and demolished. Much of its contents went to Chatsworth and a much smaller house at 2 Carlton Gardens near The Mall was acquired. The Great Conservatory in the garden at Chatsworth was demolished, as it needed 10 men to run it, huge quantities of coal to heat it and all the plants had died during the war, when no coal had been available for non-essential purposes. To reduce running costs further, there was talk of pulling down the 6th Duke’s north wing, which was then seen as having no aesthetic or historical value, but nothing came of it. Chiswick House – the celebrated Palladian villa in the suburbs of West London that the Devonshires inherited when the 4th Duke married Lord Burlington‘s daughter – was sold in 1929 for £80,000 to Middlesex County Council and Brentford and Chiswick Urban District Council[19]

Nonetheless, life at Chatsworth continued much as before. The household was run by a comptroller and domestic staff were still available, although more so in the countryside than the cities. The staff at Chatsworth at the time consisted of a butler, an under-butler, a groom of the chambers, a valet, three footmen, a housekeeper, the Duchess’s maid, 11 housemaids, two sewing women, a cook, two kitchen maids, a vegetable maid, two or three scullery maids, two still-room maids, a dairy maid, six laundry maids and the Duchess’s secretary. All these 38 or 39 people lived in the house. Daily staff included the odd man, an upholsterer, a scullery maid, two scrubbing women, a laundry porter, a steam boiler man, a coal man, two porter’s lodge attendants, two night firemen, a night porter, two window cleaners, and a team of joiners, plumbers and electricians. The Clerk of Works supervised the maintenance of the house and other properties on the estate. There were also grooms, chauffeurs and gamekeepers. The number of garden staff was somewhere between 80 in the 6th Duke’s time and the 20 or so in the early 21st century. There was also a librarian, Francis Thompson, who wrote the first book-length account of Chatsworth since the 6th Duke’s handbook.

Most of the UK’s country houses were put to institutional use in the Second World War. Some of those used as barracks were badly damaged, but the 10th Duke, thinking that schoolgirls would make better tenants than soldiers, arranged for Chatsworth to be occupied by Penrhos College, a girls’ public school in Colwyn Bay, Wales. The contents were packed away in 11 days, and in September 1939, 300 girls and their mistresses moved in for a six-year stay. The whole house was used, including the state rooms, which were turned into dormitories. Condensation from the breath of the sleeping girls caused fungus to grow behind some of the pictures. The house was not very comfortable for so many people, with a shortage of hot water, but there were compensations, such as skating on the Canal Pond. The girls grew vegetables in the garden as a contribution to the war effort.

In May 1944 Kathleen Kennedy, sister of John F. Kennedy, married William Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington, elder son of the 10th Duke of Devonshire. However, he was killed in action in Belgium in September 1944 and Kathleen died in a plane crash in 1948. His younger brother Andrew became the 11th Duke in 1950. He was married to Deborah Mitford, one of the Mitford girls, sister to Nancy Mitford, Diana Mitford, Pamela Mitford, Unity Mitford and Jessica Mitford The modern history of Chatsworth begins in 1950. The family had yet to move back after the war. Although the 10th Duke had transferred his assets to his son during his lifetime in the hope of avoiding death duties, the Duke died a few weeks too early for the lifetime exemption to apply and tax was charged at 80 per cent on the estate. The amount due was £7 million (£245 million as of 2020)[20]. Some of the family’s advisors considered the situation irretrievable and there was a proposal to transfer Chatsworth to the nation as a Victoria and Albert Museum of Northern England. Instead, the Duke decided to retain his family’s home if he could. He sold tens of thousands of acres of land, transferred Hardwick Hall to the National Trust in lieu of tax, and sold some major works of art from Chatsworth. The family’s Sussex house, Compton Place was lent to a school. The effect of the death duties was mitigated to an extent by the historically low value of art in the post-war years and the increase in land values after 1950, during the post-war agricultural revival, and so on the face of it the losses were much less than 80 per cent in terms of physical assets. In Derbyshire 35,000 acres (140 km2) were retained out of 83,000 acres (340 km2). The Bolton Abbey estate in Yorkshire and the Lismore Castle estate in Ireland remained in the family. Still, it took 17 years to complete negotiations with the Inland Revenue, interest being due in the meantime. The Chatsworth Estate is now managed by the Trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement, established in 1946.

The 10th Duke was pessimistic about the future of houses like Chatsworth and made no plans to move back in after the war. After Penrhos College left in 1945, the only people who slept in the house were two housemaids, but over the winter of 1948–1949 the house was cleaned and tidied for reopening to the public by two Hungarian women, who had been Kathleen Kennedy’s cook and housemaid in London, and a team of their compatriots. The house was Grade I listed in 1951 after the passage of the Town and Country Planning Act 1947.[1]

In the mid-1950s, the 11th Duke and Duchess began to think about moving in. The pre-war house had relied wholly on a large staff for its comforts, and lacked modern facilities. The building was rewired, the plumbing and heating were overhauled, and six self-contained staff flats created to replace the small staff bedrooms and communal servants’ hall. Including those in the staff flats, 17 bathrooms were added to the existing handful. The 6th Duke’s cavernous kitchen was abandoned and a new one was created closer to the family dining room. The family rooms were repainted, carpets were brought out of store and curtains were repaired or replaced. The Duke and Duchess and their three children moved across the park from Edensor House in 1959.

In 1981, the trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement, owners of the house, created a new Chatsworth House Trust. The aim was to preserve the house and its setting for “the benefit of the public”.[21] The new trust was granted a 99-year lease of the house, its main contents, its grounds, its precincts and adjacent forestry, a total of 1,822 acres (7.37 km2). To legalise this, the Chatsworth House Trust pays a token rent of £1 a year. To facilitate the arrangement and build up a sufficient multi-million-pound endowment fund, the trustees sold works of art, mostly old masters’ drawings, which had not been on regular display. The family is represented on the House Trust’s Council of Management, but most of the directors are not family members. The Duke pays a market rent for use of his private apartments in the house. The cost of running the house and grounds is about £4 million a year.

Film of Chatsworth in 1945 is held by the Cinema Museum in London. Ref HM0365.