England: Land of green fields and bloody narrow roads (Derbyshire Pt 3)

This is a post that I started a long time ago and never got around to finishing. I just found it in the list of unpublished posts, and this is what I'd written:

Following

So I think that leaves plenty of scope to change what I was going to write.

We have already written about the two great houses we saw in Derbyshire, Chatsworth and Lyme Park. But we spent several days in the county, and saw some other things, too.

This was the first time we'd really travelled in England. We have spent varying amounts of time in London, and lots of time in our little corner of the world, mostly Bath and Bristol, but this was the first time we've set out just to visit and look. We saw.

If you are bored by long discussions of road quality, skip over the next... well, quite a bit.

Firstly, England has three types of road. One is called a motorway; anyone who has traveled in Germany will recognise these as Autobahn with speed limits (70 miles per hour). They are wonderful, except when traffic gets heavy and they slow to a crawl. This hasn't happened to us much yet, though. On a side note, traffic authorities here have discovered the curious fact that, when heavy traffic slows a motorway down, lowering the speed limit will improve the average speed of traffic. There is a reason, but this is not the place to explain it.

So. The motorways are excellent. Well maintained, uniformly three lanes wide, fast and if you break down you just sit in your car and wait for the free tow to come along. At the other end are most of the other roads in England. These look like they were widened around the time walking was invented, to cope with the increased traffic, and since then have just been resurfaced (mostly). There are no line markings. There are either hedges (not so bad) or stone walls (terrible) on either side, and there is no verge. They are often barely wide enough to get one car down, with the occasional gateway or similar where two cars can pass. What I hope will be the most terrifying experience of my life was a 5AM taxi ride to Bristol airport after heavy rain; the taxi driver knew his own route through the back lanes to the airport, and we had had over an inch of rain the night before, which created numerous puddles of anything up to thirty feet length covering the entire road to up to a foot deep. Slowing down is a foreign concept, of course.

When I am driving on such roads, forty miles an hour is about the most I do (the limit is sixty), and there are frequent periods of twenty. And I am not noted as a slow, cautious driver (just ask my father).

In between these are the 'A' roads, which are generally one lane in either direction, of good quality but sometimes heavy traffic. Sixty is the limit, and you can usually do it. The main road between Bath and Bristol is one of these; during rush hour it is quicker to walk. We generally avoid the rush times and do OK. But there are not that many of them...

We took the motorway to Derbyshire. We hired some sort of Honda which was nice but a touch on the expensive side. It was a four-door made to look like a two-door.

We first went to Ilam Park (no, I don't know how to pronounce it, either). This is a lovely, big old house, but we could only see the grounds because the house is now... a youth hostel. Honestly, it's like turning the houses of parliament into a refuge for dogs caught in the financial downturn. There is a lovely walk from the house down through the village and along the stream, and this is where we first noted something odd about English tourism. Everywhere you go in England, there are 'foreigners'. 'Foreigner' is a curious English concept which means everyone (a) who doesn't speak English natively, or (b) doesn't look English, or (c) is American. It's not talked about much, but the prejudice against such people runs deep, especially in rural areas. Anyway. Everywhere you go, there they are. Australians don't count as foreigners (apart from the fact I can generally pass myself off as English anyway) nor do South Africans, New Zealanders etc. So, white people of English descent are English, Australians / South Africans / New Zealanders etc are deep down English, and everyone else is a foreigner.

Anyway. What we noticed is this: The people who go walking in the countryside, who go walking in the grounds of the great houses, who visit obscure but lovely places, are almost overwhelmingly English. There are almost no foreigners to be seen; they all visit the famous cities and palaces. Walking along the banks of whatever stream it was in Derbyshire we were surrounded by a pleasant chatter of finely spoken English; everywhere were friendly, English faces; everyone was buying ice creams and not worrying too much about getting their feet wet crossing the stream on the stepping stones. It was very pleasant. I felt like people relaxed and became more English. Not sure how to explain that.

Looking back over my photos, here's the best I've got of the house:

It was not our first introduction to the stunning green of England, but we got some good photos of it:

English people might read that (if any of them read this at all) and think, 'Stunning? He means nice-looking.' But to Australian eyes, the green of England does stun for a fraction of a second. I just look at it and wonder that anywhere can be so green.

We stayed in a pub in the village of Chelmorton. It is tiny; there are perhaps two dozen houses, which is tiny by English standards (hi to anyone from Brentwood, SA, you win). The pub is a lovely old building which has been refurbished very well; all the timberwork has been replaced so it looks exactly like it did when it was first built and otherwise left alone. Not cheap though; £70 per night for a double room + breakfast, nearly three times what we'd pay in a motel in country Australia.

One thing English pubs know how to do very well is breakfast. Breakfast here consited of cereal followed by eggs, bacon, sausages, fried mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, toast, fried bread and... black pudding. Yes, the very same with which Bill Oddie thwacked people over the head. It is made thus: Take a big pot of blood, boil and add a little flour, let it cool and congeal and then put it in a sausage skin. Boil or fry as you see fit.

The publican (lovely youngish Derbyshire chap called Justin) came around the tables to take orders for breakfast. At the first table he asked if the man of the family wanted black pudding with his breakfast. "Oh yes, I love it!" he responded. "Orrh yerrs, sorrts out the men frrrom the boyrrrs, that doers," drawls the publican. Then he came to our table, at which point I dare not refuse it. Actually, it is quite tasty, if you can forget what it is you are eating. Possibly the English learned this principle of food from the French, or vice versa, or something.

All in all, a lovely place to stay. Chelmorton's main claim to fame is that its surrounding fields look pretty much exactly as they did >1000 years ago; they are divided into long, thin, terraced strips with un-mortared stone walls around them. This satellite picture shows it up nicely. Idylic and rural.

We also went for a general drive around the Peak District. It is nice scenery, without any really devastatingly breathtaking scenery. Very English. I have possibly used this photo before, but it rather took my fancy:

Scenic, non? We found, and climbed, Mam Tor, where some earthworks from an iron-age hill fort can still be seen. For those who, like me, aren't sure if the iron age ended last Thursday or Wednesday, in Britain it started around 800 BC and lasted until the Roman invasion, or around 500AD in bits the Romans forgot to vici, but only venied and vedied. The Tor sits on the end of a ridge that stretches for some miles (I don't know how far, we walked about a mile along it but it went much further). Very sound militarily, and scenic, too. The ridge-top has a lovely paved path that looks ancientish but was laid after 1970. After walking a mile along the ridge-top we took a small, earth footpath down the side of the ridge and back to the car. It was both steep and muddy, and I slipped and fell, with Elizabeth strapped to my front. I managed to catch us and prevent any serious injury, but my trousers were not the same afterwards.

One last adventure in Derbyshire to relate. We have purchased a TomTom (a small satellite navigation computer, not a new nicname), despite not owning a car. It is generally very useful; we say, "Take me to Horsington!" and it will tell you how to get there (nb. we have not been to Horsington). It failed us though; we said, "Take me to Lyme Park!" and forgot to specify, "...by a road that doesn't drag our gearbox along a row of sharp stones." We ended up flying quite fast off a bitumen road and onto a deeply rutted track that did indeed scrape our transmission along a row of stones. It made a frightful noise, and even worse backing out again. We turned the TomTom off and followed our noses, which led us, by complete chance, directly to the front gate of Lyme Park. We have Learned Our Lesson.

Milkies

This morning our milk deliveries started. I have been almost childishly excited about this for some reason. Not only can you get milk delivered, but we also have an order in for bacon and eggs to turn up on our doorstep each Saturday. Bliss.

Except that, displaying exactly the efficiency, thoroughness and dedication to service for which the English are noted throughout the world, the delivery didn't turn up. Sigh. No breakfast for me.

Derbyshire Pt 2: Chatsworth House

You might recall Kylie telling you that the Legh family (later to become the Lords Newton, now extinct) of Lyme Park were granted their land because of heroism in cutting off the arms of Frenchmen in historically significant battles (Crecy was about as significant as Agincourt, but not as well known).

Not so the Dukes of Devonshire. In the 16th century, one of their ancestors had a spare £10,000 lying around (at a rough estimate, this is about £400 million today) and said, "Well, I could buy that house in France, but the title Earl of Devonshire is up for sale. I think that has a nice ring to it; what do you think, dear?"

This seems to have been the last imaginative spark in the family tree, as the first four Earls of Devonshire and the seven Dukes of Devonshire who followed them were all called William Cavendish. Either that, or the same man impersonated his own offspring for a long time.

In 1688, King James II was a rather unpopular fellow on account of not believing in the Book of Common Prayer or Parliament, so a bunch of nobles, including William Cavendish, the fourth Earl of Devonshire, invited his daughter, Mary, and her husband, William, to come and put together a little coup d'etat, er, I mean, Glorious Revolution.

This was, of course, technically treason, but it turns out that treason is only illegal when it doesn't work. In that case, you get hung until only moderately uncomfortable, cut down, castrated, disemboweled and cut in pieces - without anesthetic! Imagine the risk of gangrene! If the treason works, though, you get promoted from Earl of Devonshire to Duke of Devonshire, which presumably gets you a better quality cream on your Devonshire Tea.

All this while, the Earls and Dukes of Devonshire must have been rather confused. Not only do they not live in Devonshire, but rather a similar-sounding place called Derbyshire, when they get around to looking into it, it turns out that there is no such place as Devonshire, as any resident of Devon will tell you. It all makes you wonder if they originally bought the title from one of those online Colleges of Heraldry. One day an email popped up; "Congratulations! You have been referred to us as someone of specially noble countenance and, after a careful review of your CV, we can confirm that you qualify for the title of Earl of Devonshire. All you need to do to secure this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity is to send £10,000 to the address below..."

Anyhow, apart from organised treason, what the Lords of Devonshire have spent most of their time on for four hundred years is their house, Chatsworth, and it shows. The place is huge, ornate and, well, huge. After the Glorious Coup, William was so grateful he promised to come and stay with the now-Dukes of Devonshire, so they had an enormous set of rooms constructed for him to stay in. Either the weather didn't suit, or there was a Catholic conspiracy to crush, or something, because he never came, and the rooms were not used until George V came to stay - in 1930.

It is mostly these state rooms that you tour through when you visit as a tourist, or 'bloody poor person' as they are known in the stately home trade. And really you couldn't take much more in; they are astonishing. For Australians, it is hard to get your head around the idea that this is someone's house. For starters, as I think I have already said, it is huge. Lyme Park, while no doubt a worthy Pemberley, is positively poky by comparison. And, while the Lords Newton donated Lyme Park to the National Trust a long time ago, consigning it to years of 'preservation in its original state,' ie. deterioration, Chatsworth is still owned by the Devonshire/Cavendish family and maintained by them. Think the biggest Australian art gallery you've ever seen, then a bit bigger and with better artworks.

We spent three hours in the gardens and two in the house; most of the house you don't get to see, just the state rooms. Walking around, you realise that it would be impossible for someone to construct something like this today. It takes four hundred years of building, buying and collecting to produce something of this sort. Each new Duke must have dreaded assuming the title; "Oh, blast, Dad added the North wing to the house; what am I going to do to top that?" It didn't stop them trying. Consider this:

You might look at this image and think, "Hmmm, nice house; I like the neo-classical lines in particular." You would be wrong, though; this is the stables. The Dukes are enormous patrons of the arts, and the gardens have a large collection of sculpture, including this rather impressive unit:

It just sits there, powered by the water flowing out the top, opening and shutting. It is about eight feet high, and is one of those pointless but beautiful things that make life interesting. There is also this slightly odd specimen:

The gardens are just full of amazing things. There is the Grand Cascade, clearly visible on Google Maps (the dark brown thing running east-west in the bottom right):

Also clearly visible on the satellite view is the replacement great conservatory, which we didn't actually see (yes, the garden is that big), which brings me to a rather nice story connected with the house. In the mid-19th century, one of the Dukes of Devonshire was terribly worried about how he was going to beat his father in the household renovation stakes. He looked out of his window in his London residence, Devonshire House, and noticed that the gardens next door had a certain flair to them. He sent one of his flunkies to find out who it was with all these great gardening ideas, and promptly head-hunted him; his name was Joseph Paxton. For a number of years, Paxton was given a blank cheque, to, "I dunno, build some nice stuff in my garden," and most of the more ambitious bits of the garden, ie. most of the garden, were designed by Paxton. Eventually this culminated in the great conservatory, which I haven't a photo of because it isn't there any more. Wiki has a photo of it. Just after this was finished, Queen Victoria dropped in for tea and took a turn about the garden. She asked who had built that rather fetching conservatory, and promptly head-hunted him. He went on the design the Crystal Palace, which also isn't there any more. For this effort he was knighted, and became a member of parliament. Not bad for a gardener. The conservatory was coal-heated, requiring 300 tons of coal a year to produce a tropical climate for growing, I dunno, flowers and stuff.

The first Duke had a more indoorsy bent, and was responsible for the state rooms. The first of these that you see is, surprisingly enough, the entrance hall. Once again, they found an artist and said, "Look, we kind of like the Sistine Chapel, but we don't want to be quite so grand with the subject. How about... I dunno, scenes from the life of Julius Caesar? Perhaps with a ceiling showing him being made a god or something. Let yourself go." Here's an attempt at showing the result:

It hasn't turned out terribly well (the ceiling is actually rectangular, as was the fashion then) but taking photographs of large murals painted on the ceiling is harder than it looks. This is only one of six scenes from the "life" of Caesar depicted, though somehow they didn't think to make his murder one of them. Perhaps it would be too depressing for the guests; the weather does that well enough already.

I walked into this entrance hall and though, "Wow! I've got to get photos of this; surely the best of the house." Terribly naive, I'm afraid. As you walk from room to room, you become rather numb. All of the state rooms have ceilings by the same artist. Sometimes they seem to be really digging for ideas; one Duke grabbed his interior designer and said, "Look, I don't like that door. Do something to it, like, I dunno, stick a violin on it or something."

Chandeliers are positively common-place:

Kylie gets credit for that photo. Stair-cases are there only partly as a way of getting from one level to another, but mostly as a place to put the works of art that didn't fit anywhere else:

This is one of five libraries in the house:

The formal dining room:
A slightly more successful panorama, though not entirely so. It was just too big to take with the lens I have on my camera. The portraits are, by the way, a selection by Anthony van Dyck and Thomas Gainsborough. So there; where's your Gainsborough on the dining-room wall, then, eh?

It just goes on and on. In the end I felt a bit shell-shocked; it seems obscene that one family should have so much wealth. But then, if they didn't, we wouldn't have this fabulous collection of works of art or this beautiful house to put them in, would we? Of course, a large number of the art works were collected (ie. stolen from people who were too poor to matter) overseas (so they were foreigners, too, serves 'em right), and if they hadn't collected them, where would they be now? stuck in some moldy tomb or temple or museum or something.

For me, the best bit came at the end of the tour; one of the recent dukes, I forget which, thought neo-classical sculpture was nice and bought most of it:

Alright, I don't know what the fan from a jet engine is doing in a gallery of neo-classical sculpture, either.

An Apology

I am about to follow up on Kylie's post about Derbyshire, but first I would like to issue an apology.

The thing is, what with one thing and another, one tends to be slightly busy. And, what with one thing and another, writing long, informative, well-thought-out and interesting blog posts takes time. So I tend to write short, boring posts about everyday things, usually when I am annoyed about something. So I apologise. It's not really fair on you, the reader, as we actually have been doing some interesting things which you might like to read about.

That said, I am annoyed; I got quite substantially wet in a shower on the way home this afternoon. I was walking past a pub when it started, and I thought, "Well, I could nip in for a quick drink and this will probably pass over and then I can get on home." But then I thought, "Ah, it's only light; what's the chance I'll get really wet?" Stupidity comes in many forms, and this is one of them. Moral of the story: Pubs are there to drink in. Get to it.

But Derbyshire has many beauties, has it not?

Hello Everyone! Yes, your eyes do not deceive you. This is not Tom writing but Kylie. After much long-distance arm twisting, I have finally decided to write. I may not be as witty as some people, but I will aim to be slightly more informative.

Last weekend, our family hired a car and drove three hours to Derbyshire to enjoy the last of what summer had to offer. Why Derbyshire? (I hear you ask.) Well, a certain piece of literature described it as the best of all the counties. To quote from the miniseries (which is easily located on the web whereas (alas!) my copy of the book is still in a box in Suffolk):

But Derbyshire has many beauties, has it not?

Indeed. To me Derbyshire is the best of all counties.
You will judge for yourself whether Chatsworth is not the equal of Blenheim.
And surely these southern counties have nothing to compare to the wild and
untamed beauty of the Peaks.

So we went to explore it for ourselves. The photo above is from one of the wild and untamed bits... apparently. Of course, nothing in England is really wild and untamed: there are too many sheep for that. Originally this area (and most of England) would have been woodland, but the land was cleared first for grazing and then cropping (and not to try to curb inflation of the leaf currency, contrary to popular opinion), and sheep ensure that any aspiring trees are mown down in their tracks. Of course, trees would only get in the way of the view, which is deliciously green and... well English. Traipsing around the countryside also appears to be very English - we were conspicuous by our Australian accents. In fact, all weekend we seemed to go places where the majority of people were English families (complete with dog) on a day out. Yes, I know we're in England, but after spending time in Bath (where, if you want to ask directions, you first have to ask someone whether they're local) it is a novelty.

But Derbyshire isn't all countryside. It also has big houses, although this next house was in the neighbouring county of Cheshire. The family weren't at home for the summer but the grounds were delightful.

Does any of this look familiar? I hope so. I got quite excited seeing it. This is actually the rear of the house. There are archways from both the front and rear of the house going into the central courtyard. The 'front' door is actually located on the side of the house, off the courtyard. Which means, of course, that the house isn't quite as big as it seems from the outside as it's hollow in the inside, but it does mean that most rooms do get some natural light.


Alas! No Mr. Darcy! Anyone else for a swim in the lake?

The place is Lyme Park, originally owned by the Legh family but now a National Trust property. So the family really weren't home for the summer. The house was originally Tudor, but was remodelled in the 1720s by some Italian architect and now resembles an Italianate palace. Apart from starring as Pemberley (or, at least, the outside of it), it does have an interesting history. The original grant of land from the crown came about because of services rendered to the Black Prince (Prince Edward, 1330-1376) during the Hundred Years War. The Black Prince was young and leading one of his early campaigns when his standard was captured. The Legh family ancestor was the one to regain the flag, but he did this by chopping off the arm of the enemy carrying it. Rigor mortis set in, leaving the arm still clutching the standard when he returned. The Prince was very happy, sought to reward the soldier with land and, two generations later (these things take time), the family were granted the land which is now Lyme Park. The family were prodigiously proud of their history and so incorporated the arm grasping the standard on to their coat of arms, and then used it as a decoration on the ceiling. 19 times. Just to reinforce the point.

Lyme Park also has a 1400-acre medieval deer park, so we had venison for lunch at the restaurant on site. Venison is cheaper than beef here. It's going to be a long while before we have fillet steak again.


Another afternoon - another walk. This photo was taken on the way down from Mam Tor on the High Peak estate. The countryside looks more wild and untamed than the first photo. It was even picturesque in parts. Eliza really didn't like this part of the walk. We were up on a ridge and it was windy. She cheered up when we got out of the wind and found some sheep... and a family out walking the dog. Sheep and dogs and little children running around: such were Eliza's highlights of the weekend.

We also spent a day at Chatsworth. Chatsworth is larger and grander than Lyme Park, and is actually located in Derbyshire. I'll leave it to another post to describe it.