The garden at Chatsworth

by Deborah Mitford

A lively personal and horticultural tour of the magnificent 400-year-old gardens at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. The Duchess of Devonshire's text takes the reader on a stroll through a garden that includes parterres and vistas; water in all its forms, from formal cascades and fountains to natural streams and ponds; rockeries and trees; a working kitchen garden and statuary; and planted borders. The history of the garden is described, incorporating the creation, the changes and the restorations both the Duke and Duchess have made, "in the spirit of the place".

Genres: Gardening

Hardcover

First published September 16, 1999

About the author

Deborah Vivien Freeman-Mitford Cavendish, Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, who published under the name of Deborah Mitford, was brought up in Oxfordshire, England. In 1950 her husband, Andrew, the 11th Duke of Devonshire, inherited extensive estates in Yorkshire and Ireland as well as Chatsworth, the family seat in Derbyshire, and Deborah became chatelaine of one of England’s great houses. She is the author of All in One Basket, Wait for Me!, Counting My Chickens and Home to Roost, among other books, and her letters have been collected in The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters and In Tearing Haste: The Correspondence of the Duchess of Devonshire and Patrick Leigh Fermor. Following her husband’s death in 2004, she moved to a village on the Chatsworth estate.

Note: The author's name on her books varies from Duchess of Devonshire (most common), to Deborah Devonshire, Deborah Cavendish and Deborah Mitford.

Reviews

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an extraordinary place written about by its resident duchess with an incredibly long knowledge of it (“my mother-in-law put that in in 1937”). She writes with humor and good cheer and kindliness and just absolutely relishes a good yarn, so you should definitely read the words here, not just the pictures.

Chatsworth has been loved and imaginatively gardened since before Jamestown, and as a result you get bits and pieces from every garden fashion England has had! They have giant lawns that have been kept mown for hundreds of years and developed their own unique biodiverse ecosystem. They’ve got the trees planted by then-Princess Victoria and both her parents, and also Czar Nicholas II of Russia (as you do). The highest gravity-fed fountain in the world is here, which they built for the Czar’s second visit, but he ended up not stopping by that time so they wrote a book about it and sent it to him, and he returned them a medal. There were wild tales about the Bachelor Duke, a plant hunter, and Paxton, his energetic head gardener and inventor extraordinaire, who oh yeah was the one who designed the Crystal Palace.

And so on. This is the type of place where 17 gardeners have recently celebrated 40 years of service and the head gardener tends to make 50 years. The grounds have been open for visitors since the Victorian era, so at this point there are multiple generations of people who consider it their park, too, and they will ask to plant trees in memory of their loved ones. I wish the book were longer.

It reminds me, just a little, of a sign at Bandelier National Monument. Now, of course, it’s a public place, but in the 1930s a family lived there. The sign summed it up— “It was a happy place to live.”

[Duncan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great house. Great garden. And great author. Always entertaining.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Colour photos. Takes you on a walk around the gardens describing the plants etc. Plus gives a bit of history.

[Michael Heath-Caldwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book on Chatsworth in UK.