A Dowager Duchess' Glorious Masterpiece - Gardenista
“Glorious” is a word that comes to mind whenever I visit Chatsworth. This is partly to do with the setting: from the west, the honey-colored house appears to be nestled against the wooded hills, its gold-painted window frames reflecting the sun. Photographs by Kendra Wilson, for Gardenista. We are in Derbyshire in the Peak District of England’s East Midlands. Garden designers who talk of the need to anchor a house to its surroundings need look no further. The preoccupations of generations of owners is evident all over the park, from the 17th century Cascade (above) to the sculpture dotted around by the present duke. “No one person designed the garden at Chatsworth,” writes Deborah Devonshire in the Garden book. Fortunately, she says, he was so busy landscaping all the other stately homes in England that he didn’t have time to demolish the Cascade and the dead straight line it forms down to the house and up the hill on the other side (see top picture). Different layers of the garden remain, each reflecting the fashion or creative genius of the day. During the Chatsworth years, he built the Great Conservatory, constructed the enormously tall Emperor Fountain and re-built the village of Ensinor, across the valley from the house. The gardens at Chatsworth were built as pleasure gardens; the marvel of the place taking precedence over individual flower beds. The Trough Waterfall, above, was designed by the Dowager Duchess and the 11th Duke around the remains of a ravine garden created by a previous duchess, known as Granny Evie. Deborah Devonshire (can we just call her Debo for short) found her writing feet with the publication of the Chatsworth books. The picture which we used on the cover of Observer Food Monthly magazine and which Debo later chose for her memoirs (Wait for Me!)