Nothing quite prepares you for your first glimpse of Chatsworth. As we turn into the drive, the house reveals itself, a handsome limestone edifice framed by a steep ridge of wooded hills, ablaze with autumn colours, and fronted by rolling parkland where sheep graze on the riverbanks. Despite its bucolic aspect, this is a landscape that has been carefully honed and crafted over centuries by successive generations of the Cavendish family, who have lived in this beautiful corner of Derbyshire for more than 450 years.
Some of the most significant alterations were made in the 19th century by the 6th Duke of Devonshire (also known as “the Bachelor Duke”), an extravagant character who had the estate village demolished and rebuilt over the brow of a hill because he felt it was spoiling the view from the house. His perfectionism paid off; as the long queue of cars snaking up to the ticket office on a beautiful October morning attests, Chatsworth is one of the most popular stately homes in the UK today, welcoming more than 600,000 visitors a year.
Opening its doors to the public is just one of the ways that this grand old pile keeps the show on the road. The estate is a sprawling enterprise that covers a sizeable chunk of the Peak District national park and has grown to encompass the Chatsworth Farm Shop, dozens of holiday lets – ranging from shepherd’s huts to a 16th-century hunting tower – two pubs (the Beeley Inn and the Pilsley Inn), and the Cavendish Hotel.
The latest addition to the fold is the Hide hotel, which is being pitched as an affordable, family-friendly alternative to some of the pricier accommodation in the Chatsworth Escapes portfolio, with doubles from £80 a night, room only. Previously known as the Highwayman hotel, it sits on the A619 road from Chesterfield to Bakewell and was run as a Premier Inn and Beefeater restaurant for many years (“lots of orange and pictures of cows”, as one staff member described it to me). It reopened in October after a refurbishment overseen by Laura Burlington, daughter-in-law of the current Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. We’re among the first guests to stay in the new-look hotel.
After completing the automated check-in (there’s no reception desk, but staff are on hand in the bar/restaurant next door), we settle into our family bunk room, which has a kingsize bed and built-in “cabin bunks”. The decor is simple but cosy, with soft woollen blankets and carpets, furniture made from reclaimed wood and modern artwork from the Cavendish family’s private collection.
We’re booked in for dinner at the Hide Grill and Pizzeria, which offers a “campfire-inspired menu designed for sharing and cooked over an open flame”. Fears of being marched outside and forced to sing Ging Gang Goolie quickly dissipate as we’re shown to a fireside table in a quiet corner of the large and sprawling restaurant. The menu offers a long list of crowd-pleasers from fish and chips to wood-fired pizzas and barbecued spare ribs, as well as kid-friendly desserts such as s’mores sharing boards. The food isn’t the only thing that’s designed with families in mind. There’s a dedicated play corner, with books, toys and a miniature kitchen to keep younger diners entertained while they wait for their food. It’s a Sunday, so we order from the roast menu – a choice of rotisserie chicken, Chatsworth estate-reared beef or lamb with all the trimmings, followed by ginger parkin with custard. The food is great, the portions generous and, at £18 a person, it’s incredibly good value.
Entry to the house and grounds is not included in the room rate, but multi-entry tickets are available, which give unlimited access for the duration of your stay. Hotel guests can buy a day pass to the Chatsworth Health and Fitness Club, a couple of miles away, with its pool, gym, tennis courts and treatments, and can book conservation tours during the winter when the house is closed to the public. Another perk is having direct access to the estate’s 14,000 hectares (35,000 acres) of park and moorland.
In our room is a booklet of circular walks that start from the hotel or the nearby village of Baslow. One route takes you from the hotel’s back gate across the fields to Chatsworth House, a walk of around 5 miles; another takes you up to Curbar Edge, one of the Peak District’s distinctive gritstone escarpments. Walkers and cyclists are made to feel welcome here with bike and boot wash stations, cycle storage and an outdoor dog bath and shower for those bringing a four-legged friend. There’s also a bus service that runs from Chesterfield to Chatsworth with a stop outside the hotel, making this a viable base for exploring the national park without a car.
We’ve arranged to have a private tour of the house, and our guide, Martin, proves to be a mine of fascinating facts about the 17 generations of Cavendishes who have called this their home. He leads us through the breathtaking Painted Hall with its colourful frescoes, the regal State Rooms, the chapel, the cosy library (where a huge Christmas tree is being installed) and the purpose-built Sculpture Gallery, pointing out some of the artworks, which range from Roman and Egyptian sculpture to old masters.
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Impressive though these masterpieces are, it’s the everyday details that bring the place to life. Martin tells us the house was used as a girls’ boarding school during the second world war. When the 17th-century tapestries in the State Drawing Room were removed for cleaning, they found Cadbury’s chocolate wrappers dating back to the 1930s stuffed behind them.
We spend the rest of the afternoon exploring the grounds – the greenhouses, grotto, maze and spectacular Emperor Fountain, built in 1844, another addition by the 6th duke, who wanted to build the tallest fountain in the world to impress Tsar Nicholas I. In the event the tsar was a no-show, although Chatsworth has had its fair share of illustrious guests, from King Edward VII to novelist Elizabeth Gaskell and political philosopher Thomas Hobbes. There has been speculation that Jane Austen based her descriptions of Pemberley on Chatsworth, although there is no evidence that she visited. Nevertheless, the house stood in for Mr Darcy’s grand estate in the 2005 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, starring Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen. “There is not a finer county in England than Derbyshire,” wrote Austen in that same novel. If you’re looking for an affordable, comfortable and friendly base from which to explore the county, the Hide is a very decent place to start.
The Hide has doubles from £80 a night, and bunk rooms sleeping two adults and two children from £125, both room-only