Marie Williams Johnstone

The room was warm and cosy leading to a lovely relaxing night’s sleep.

I packed my bags which I hadn’t been able to do the night before because of my clothes that were wet due to the Bolsover deluge. However, my fleece was still quite damp and not suitable for wearing or packing.

We checked out of the Premier Inn and drove to the Chatsworth Farm Shop Café at Pilsley for breakfast. The traditional breakfast options are big and hearty so I opted for a lighter breakfast, an almond croissant which was also enormous.

After our delicious breakfast we arrived at Chatsworth in plenty of time (despite the queue for the car park) for our 11.30 house time slot.

We reacquainted ourselves with the house and enjoyed the new exhibitions. Because of our late breakfast we decided to explore the grounds before having lunch. We enjoyed exploring the wider grounds which we have not been able to do before due to limited time available during a day trip.

We had a late lunch, sharing an egg roll, before browsing the shop where I couldn’t resist purchasing 111 Dark Places in England which Mr C had noticed in the smaller shop as we exited the house. Another lady had been captivated by the book and was chuckling with us about ‘a bucket list’ of things to do. Mr C & I had noticed that we had already visited a significant number of places on the list. I suppose that is what happens when you are interested in history.

We had a leisurely drive home, although our Satnav chose a less scenic route home than it had done for our journey to Bolsover Castle. Back home we unpacked before enjoying a lovely pork chop roast dinner.

More layers and stacks can be found in the gallery.

I found out a bit more about the sculpture picture below:

Manolo Valdés’ (b. 1942) Butterflies takes centre stage in this year’s show, with a prime positioning on the Duke’s private lawn in front of Chatsworth House. Butterflies is a unique work that was executed earlier this year in aluminum, a material which both enables an extraordinary play of light over its surfaces while at the same time providing the tensile strength and weight-saving attributes needed to support its monumental headdress measuring over nine meters wide. Commenting on his involvement in the 2010 Beyond Limits exhibition at Chatsworth, Manolo Valdés, the New York-based Spanish sculptor, states: “Seeing my work in such a spectacular setting is very rewarding. It is seldom that one may find such an ideal place as Chatsworth to show this type of art.”

I was also pleased to find out about the sculpture that was displayed in the cascade, you can see my photos of that here:

Yue Minjun (b. 1962) has been one of the most prominent rising stars of the Chinese Contemporary Art scene in recent years and Sotheby’s presents an eye-catching work by him this year: a set of 25 bronze figures entitled Contemporary Terracotta Warriors. They represent Minjun’s visual response to the 8,000-strong Qin dynasty terracotta warriors (221-206 BC), one of China’s world famous cultural attractions. The figures are placed within the stepped cascade at Chatsworth, imbuing them with the order of a military display.

He was a compulsive collector of sculptures and during his visits to Italy he met some of the best artists of the time and befriended the famous sculptor Antonio Canova. These two lions are copies of sculptures that Canova had made for the tomb of Pope Clement XIII at St peter’s in Rome. Unusually Canova carved his own sculptures rather than employing teams of other carvers to work on the stone. *

*Information taken from Chatsworth guidebook 2010

The guidebook tells me that the first dinner to be held in ‘The Great Dining Room’ at Chatsworth was for the 13-year old Princess Victoria:

It was her first adult dinner and there was a cooked rehearsal the day before. The 6th Duke wrote, “it is like dining in a giant trunk and you expect the lid to open”.

He brought portraits by van Dyck from his other houses to hang on the walls. In 1996-2001, Chatsworth’s textile team replaced the damaged silk on the walls and made new window curtains, exact copies of the 6th Duke’s.

The current Duke and Duchess still use the room to  host dinners on very special occasions.

As you can see there are several frames in the dining room.

For more of this weeks PhotoHunt pictures check out tnchick.