John Edward Cooper’s Notes

DAY 2 Chatsworth and Bakewell
09:00 Depart for Chatsworth. The coach will be waiting on Park Rd.[i] Please be ready to board the coach at 08:50 and wait until the seats are labelled with your names before boarding. We will be using the same seating plan for the whole tour.
10:00 Entry to Chatsworth House. This is self-guided but you can download a website in advance to guide you around the house: chatsworth.org/house info. There are attendants in every room ready to provide information! There will be time afterwards for coffee and to explore the gardens.
13:00 The coach will pick us up at the entrance for the short drive to Bakewell, where there will be free time to explore, with a sweet treat at the end!
15:45 Return to Buxton for free time before dinner, with a photo stop along the way.

[i] Park Road: This amused us greatly, because seemingly every road around there was called “Park Road”. “Oh, which ‘Park Road’ is that?” we quipped to each other. The hotel was served by two roads, though — Manchester Road to the north, and Park Road to the south — so, in fact “Park Road” was used to clarify at which side of the hotel the coach would be waiting.

Janet wrote, “I had at least 9 hours’ [sleep] so felt refreshed when I got up at 6.50am. Pick-up today is 8.50am, and then it’s Chatsworth House and Bakewell (I wonder if this time we’ll see either The Tart or The Pudding?!)” Bakewell Tarts and Puddings are well-known confections. We passed through Bakewell on Saturday on the way to Haddon Hall, but could see neither anyone scantily and showily clad and promiscuous-looking (“tart”) nor anyone grossly corpulent and overweight (“pudding”). I got up, shaved and showered after Janet vacated the bathroom.…
 At breakfast, I skipped the bacon etc. and just had Rice Krispies, orange juice, toast, and coffee. “We went for breakfast,” Janet wrote, “then set off for our socially distanced coach (and it was — only 25 of us, well spaced out). Once [we were] settled we could, thankfully, remove our masks.” So it was, that individuals and couples were seated, in turn, on one side of the coach in one row, on the other side of the coach in the next or a following row, etc. We found our names almost at the back, on the left as we approached the seats, so on the right when seated. Then ahead of us, on the left side, was a couple with the (what we thought unfortunate) name of “Diaper”. Behind us, also on the left (or should I say “right”, because we had to turn round to look that way?) on the very back row, was a single woman. We established a humorous rapport with Mr. Diaper straight away, and agreed that we must be the “naughty” people to have been sent to the back. They, then, were “slightly naughty”; we were “quite naughty”; and the woman at the back was “very naughty”.


Our name-card

I had the Bing Maps Ordnance Survey map with me,—


© 2021 Microsoft
[click on image to enlarge]

—but couldn’t follow our route very far, because we headed northwards on the A6 and disappeared off the map some 2km north of Buxton. We reappeared on the map heading eastwards then southwards on the A623. At Baslow there was a right turn, continuing southwards along the B6012 and passing through the village of Edensor (which Rosey pronounced /ˈɛnzər/), before we bore left onto the Chatsworth estate road,—


Monday 26 July 2021 09:38:38
View of Chatsworth House from the coach

—crossing the River Wye by a three-arched stone bridge and stopping at extensive car- and coach-parks north of the house itself.


Aerial view (north upwards) from Bing Maps © 2021 Microsoft
[click on image to enlarge]


Monday 26 July 2021 09:56:30
Approaching Chatsworth from the north after leaving the coach

Rosey handed out tickets to us, and we lined up to enter through a pillared gatehouse.








Monday 26 July 2021 10:01:36
Waiting to enter Chatsworth through a pillared gatehouse in the north wall


Monday 26 July 2021 10:04:06
Southwards along an avenue…


Monday 26 July 2021 10:05:10
…to the visitor entrance


Monday 26 July 2021 10:12:38
North Entrance Hall

In the North Entrance Hall was a ticket office, which we did not need, but there were also guide-books on sale. “We purchased a guide book,” Janet wrote, “and I was very surprised to find it was only six squid” — six quid, i.e. £6. It was the same size and in the same format as the £7.50 Haddon Hall guide-book, i.e. almost square, but it was twice as thick; so if we thought that that was good value, this must be exceptionally good value.


“Your Guide to Chatsworh”

In it (pages 20 and 21) was a “House Plan”.


“Your Guide to Chatsworh”: “House Plan” (north to the right), page 20
[click on image to enlarge]


“Your Guide to Chatsworh”: “House Plan” (north to the right), page 21
[click on image to enlarge]

I didn’t make much use of the guide-book as we went around the house, though, because it was somewhat of an encumbrance to have that on hand and to try to use the camera at the same time. It has proved very useful since then, for captioning the photos I took in the house. Janet wrote: “We wore masks inside. We were on our own [i.e. we were not conducted through the house as a party by a guide], but people were stationed around the rooms ready to answer questions. As [John] said, it was a museum and art gallery.” I meant this in comparison with Haddon Hall, which was much more like a home. And in calling it an “art gallery” I had in mind the 1995–1998 Channel 4 sitcom Father Ted:

Father Dougal McGuire:
 I’ve never met a celebrity before.
Father Ted Crilly:
 You met the Pope.
Father Dougal McGuire:
 Did I?
Father Ted Crilly:
 Yes, do you not remember that time we were in Rome?
Father Dougal McGuire:
 That was the Pope? That old fella living in the art gallery?
Father Ted Crilly:
 The Vatican, Dougal! The Vatican!
Father Dougal McGuire:
 Still, he’s not a celebrity in the true sense of the word.
Father Ted Crilly:
 He’s God’s representative on Earth, Dougal!
Father Dougal McGuire:
 You’d think he’d be taller.
Father Ted Crilly:
 You mean like a giant?

Janet continued: “It was also, I said, yet another example of people with pots of money saying, ‘Look what I’ve got!’ I was angry to see a sign showing a quote from a long-gone (16th century?) Cavendish stating that he destroyed every place he visited on his travels. What a bastard!”—


Monday 26 July 2021 10:15:40
North Sub-Corridor


Monday 26 July 2021 10:16:22
Chapel


Monday 26 July 2021 10:17:04
Chapel


Monday 26 July 2021 10:18:56
Oak Room


Monday 26 July 2021 10:20:24
Oak Room


Monday 26 July 2021 10:24:08
Painted Hall


Monday 26 July 2021 10:24:44
Painted Hall


Monday 26 July 2021 10:26:32
Painted Hall, viewed from up the stairs


Monday 26 July 2021 10:27:28
Great Stairs


Monday 26 July 2021 10:30:56
Great Chamber


Monday 26 July 2021 10:31:34
State Drawing Room


Monday 26 July 2021 10:31:54
State Drawing Room


Monday 26 July 2021 10:32:14
State Drawing Room


Monday 26 July 2021 10:32:30
State Drawing Room


Monday 26 July 2021 10:34:52
State Music Room


Monday 26 July 2021 10:35:06
State Music Room


Monday 26 July 2021 10:35:16
State Music Room

—“We entered a set of very dark and oppressive rooms.” I think the ground-floor Oak Room of “10:18:56” and “10:20:24” was what started Janet’s feeling of oppression, which was reinforced by the second-floor rooms leading to the State Bedchamber. “Finally,” she went on, “in the bedroom I had a ‘claustrophobia’ attack and started hyperventilating.”—


Monday 26 July 2021 10:36:26
State Bedchamber


Monday 26 July 2021 10:37:02
State Bedchamber


Monday 26 July 2021 10:37:22
State Bedchamber

—“Fortunately, a member of staff saw my distress and led me to a ‘wind machine’ for air and [where] I could remove my mask. I was in tears of distress. I recovered somewhat and was directed to a nearby corridor full of light with plenty of open windows, so I was OK. A bad ‘do’ (last one was on the boat in Montego Bay.[ii] Not pleasant).”

[ii] Tuesday 26 January 2016.

Monday 26 July 2021 10:38:06
South Sketch Gallery


Monday 26 July 2021 10:38:20
West Sketch Gallery


Monday 26 July 2021 10:41:02
North Sketch Gallery


Monday 26 July 2021 10:44:16
Oak Stairs


Monday 26 July 2021 10:45:04
Oak Stairs


Monday 26 July 2021 10:44:46
Oak Stairs


Monday 26 July 2021 10:45:48
Painted Hall, seen from Oak Stairs


Monday 26 July 2021 10:46:36
Library


Monday 26 July 2021 10:47:34
Ante Library


Monday 26 July 2021 10:49:02
Dome Room


Monday 26 July 2021 10:49:26
Dome Room: detail from the statue of Mercury


Monday 26 July 2021 10:50:02
Great Dining Room


Monday 26 July 2021 10:54:48
Vestibule


Monday 26 July 2021 10:55:30
Sculpture Gallery


Monday 26 July 2021 10:56:06
Sculpture Gallery: one of two 15th century Devonshire Hunting Tapestries, on loan from the Victoria and Albert Museum


Monday 26 July 2021 10:56:30
Sculpture Gallery: second of two 15th century Devonshire Hunting Tapestries, on loan from the Victoria and Albert Museum


Monday 26 July 2021 10:56:58
Detail from the second of the Devonshire Hunting Tapestries

After visiting the Sculpture Gallery we found ourselves leaving the building through a door at the end of (what I now know as) the North Wing (the door to the right in the photo “11:07:00”, below).


Monday 26 July 2021 11:07:00
North Wing


Monday 26 July 2021 11:08:10
Flora’s Temple


Monday 26 July 2021 11:08:44
The Case

Janet recalls, “I bought some marzipan fruits from the gift shop.” This was (formerly) the Orangery. An external view of it is seen to the left in “11:07:00”, above; and below (“11:16:08”) is a photo I took inside.


Monday 26 July 2021 11:16:08
Orangery Shop: bust of Matthew Macfadyen
(Mr. Darcy in the 2005 film Pride and Prejudice)

“Then we went to the café [near the exit from which we came out earlier]. I bought [John] a can of cold (Welsh!)[iii] sparkling spring water and a Magnum,[iv] and I had two cans of Diet Coke. After that, we had a bit of a wander around the gardens.” We walked southwards to the end of Broad Walk, where there’s a large stone urn, “Blanche’s Vase”. Blanche was a member of the Cavendish family who died very young in 1840.

[iii] Welsh! — ironic, since spring water is produced locally at Buxton.
[iv] Magnum: a thick bar of vanilla ice cream on a stick, with a chocolate coating [Wikipedia].

Monday 26 July 2021 12:01:06
Chatsworth House: south façade seen from Broad Walk


Monday 26 July 2021 12:07:38
View southwards from the end of Broad Walk

Then we skirted around the Canal Pond.


Monday 26 July 2021 12:10:00
Chatsworth House seen from the southern end of Canal Pond


Monday 26 July 2021 12:11:44
Southern end of Canal Pond


Monday 26 July 2021 12:11:44 (detail)
Sculpture Into the Wind by Nic Fiddian-Green


Monday 26 July 2021 12:13:06
Wild flowers on an unmown part of the lawn


Monday 26 July 2021 12:15:14
River Derwent and Three Arch Bridge


Monday 26 July 2021 12:18:24
Coot on Canal Pond

The Emperor Fountain towards the north end of the Canal Pond was not playing. Then we went across eastwards to the Ring Pond, where a pair of coots had three cootlings — three that we were able to see, anyway.


Monday 26 July 2021 12:22:42
Cootling on Ring Pond


Monday 26 July 2021 12:22:52
Cootling on Ring Pond


Monday 26 July 2021 12:24:18
Cootling on Ring Pond being fed by a parent

Returning along Broad Walk, we left the gardens by going past Flora’s Temple.


Monday 26 July 2021 12:29:32
South and east sides of Chatsworth House


Monday 26 July 2021 12:29:52
Ornamentation of the roof


Monday 26 July 2021 12:37:56
Map near the entrance

We headed west towards the Stables, now a place of cafés and gift shops. We went in through the entrance arch on the west, flanked by Doric columns and topped by a cupola’d turret with a clock.


Monday 26 July 2021 12:43:56
Stables, west side


Monday 26 July 2021 12:43:56 (detail)
Stables, with the Devonshire coat of arms featuring real deer antlers, flanked by cornucopias

We went out through an arch on the north side (shown in the photo, below)—


Monday 26 July 2021 12:45:44
Stables, courtyard

—and not seeing the coach in that direction, we skirted around back to the west side—


Monday 26 July 2021 12:47:18
Stables, west side

—where we crossed the lawn, fortunately managing to avoid its heavy contamination with dog shit. The coach was waiting near the pillared gatehouse by which we’d earlier entered the avenue leading to the house. “Well worth one visit,” was Janet’s wry comment in her journal.


Monday 26 July 2021 12:47:46
Chatsworth House: end of North Wing and pillared gatehouse in the north wall

Rosey handed out maps of Bakewell, which was our destination after we set off at 1 o’clock.


[click on image to enlarge]

We approached Bakewell from the north on the A619. The bridge that I was keen to see seemed shorter than how I saw it in my mind’s eye when in The motorbike and sidecar, par.28 I wrote:

Clearer in my memory [than Buxton] is Bakewell on the way to Buxton, and in particular the bridge there over the River Wye. For I had a couple of little I-Spy books, spotters’ guides for children; in them were listed items to look out for, and a number of points, varying according to how unusual the sightings were, would be awarded for spotting them. One of the books was №31 in the series, “Bridges”; and the 13th century five-arched stone bridge, and in particular the triangular shape of the bulwarks of its piers, was one of the things that earned me points.

Like the bridge over the River Wye at Haddon Hall (cf. Saturday 24 July 2021), this one had triangular cutwaters the full height of the bridge, with the parapet wall following the outline of them as pedestrian retreats.


Monday 26 July 2021 13:15:10
Approaching Bakewell Bridge from the north on the A619

We crossed the bridge, and made our way slowly through the busy streets of the town. Rosey had pointed out the location of the “Coach Park” on the right of the map, and I wondered how our going this way was going to get us to it. To my surprise, we went just about all the way through Bakewell south-eastwards on the A6, then turned left into the selfsame “Agricultural Way” that had amused me on Saturday. This crossed the Wye, then arced around to the left, ending at the Coach Park and the Agricultural Business Centre. On leaving the coach, we all headed west over a couple of footbridges, the second of which, Weir Bridge, was full of “love locks”. This phenomenon was a novelty when we first encountered it on the River Moscow, but was now too commonplace to interest me or prompt me to take a photograph. We looked at one or two establishments where we might have lunch, and decided to go to The Rutland Arms. It’s said that Jane Austen wrote part of the 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice while a guest there. We were taken to a high-ceilinged back room. They were a bit slow to serve us after that. I had a pint of Stella Artois and warm breads with oil and balsamic, and Janet had Diet Pepsi (her cola of choice when she can get it) and warm granary bread with salad.


Monday 26 July 2021 14:03:54
At the Rutland Arms


Monday 26 July 2021 15:01:06
Rutland Arms Hotel

We wandered around, then made our way back to the coach. I chose the way back that would afford me a less foreshortened view of Bakewell Bridge.


Monday 26 July 2021 15:08:28
Bakewell Bridge viewed from downstream


Monday 26 July 2021 15:09:28
Bakewell Bridge and River Wye

The geese around here, as in Buxton, were predominantly Canada Geese, not Greylag Geese; and again, as in Buxton, there was an abundance of Black-headed Gulls.


Monday 26 July 2021 15:13:00
Canada geese and black-headed gulls on the River Wye


Monday 26 July 2021 15:14:22
River Wye

The itinerary mentioned “Bakewell, where there will be free time to explore, with a sweet treat at the end!” So it was, that as people got off the coach, Rosey was handing out Bakewell tarts in brown paper bags; these, however, had acquired some grease-marks on them. I felt fortunate that there weren’t quite enough for all of us, so that we were able graciously to decline the receipt of one!
 After going up to the room, we went out again as soon as we could to visit the Devonshire Dome, thinking that it might close at 5 o’clock. In the centre was marked a spot where if one made any sound there was an almost artificial-sounding echo, repeated many times with a delay of a bit less than half a second. I had the notion that the dome was not “unsupported”, as the guide had said it was, for the roof itself was supported by ribs made of metal girders and struts, with horizontal and longitudinal beams between them. The Pantheon in Rome is what I thought of as “unsupported”, for it has a dome of solid concrete, with no other supporting structures. But the Wikipedia article states that the Devonshire Dome “…was built by John Carr of York and extended by architect Robert Rippon Duke, who added what was then the world's largest unsupported dome…” “Unsupported”, therefore, must mean, “with all the weight borne at the circumference”, regardless of the composition and structure of the dome itself.


Monday 26 July 2021 16:50:40
Inside the Devonshire Dome, Buxton


Monday 26 July 2021 16:50:58
Inside the Devonshire Dome, Buxton


Monday 26 July 2021 16:51:04
Inside the Devonshire Dome, Buxton


Monday 26 July 2021 16:52:48
Inside the Devonshire Dome, Buxton

After returning to the room to freshen up, we went to the bar, where I had a prosecco and Janet had a Diet Coke. Ca.5.30pm, we entered the “greenhouse”. I had another glass of prosecco and the rest of my bottle of Rioja. We were alone at first, though a couple came in later. The soup was tomato, so I had that. It had a hint of darker streaks in it, which proved to be very spicy. I enjoyed that, but Janet wouldn’t have liked it at all. Because I knew I could get vinegar in a Sarson’s bottle, rather than in fiddly little almost inaccessible sachets, I had haddock, chips and minted peas. I’d ordered cheese, but cancelled that because I’d already had enough. Janet had sea bass with vegetables and new potatoes, then fresh fruit salad. We were back in the room at ca.7pm. I transferred 75 photos from the camera’s SD card to the WD Elements HDD (19:21). I opened them in Windows Photo Viewer, and rotated three of them that needed it (19:25–19:26). I discovered that the screen of the Asus computer was broken: there were a number of cracks in it, the largest being approximately in the middle from top to bottom. It was only touch-sensitive on the right side of this crack, but otherwise seemed to work OK. I checked my Gmail inbox using it (19:40): there were nine Facebook notifications…. But I deleted them all unread. According to Janet, she showered and made herself a decaffeinated coffee, and I slept. “We were in bed at 9.40pm,” she wrote. My gut had started to be “parlous”…

[Tuesday 27 July 2021]