Carlisle Castle

Carlisle Castle is another old one, with much history, rather more of it about captives than warfare. We embedded ourselves in a turbuss tour, conducted by a member of the English Heritage staff at the castle.

Entrance, curtain, and tower of Carlisle Castle

One of the better tours we have been on...this
guy covered Carlisle from the earlier
Plantagenets to Bonnie Prince Charlie...about
800 years of English/Scottish history, in less
than an hour

The Keep

In the Keep, two small windowless rooms housed 60
prisoners, awaiting trial and execution, from the Battle of
Culloden (that's where the English put an end to the Jacobite
cause and the Pretender)

The only source of water was moisture
seeping through these two stones; you can
see where the prisoners licked them smooth

The executions were unusually brutal for the times, more on
the order of the Wars of Religion; in any case, tradition has
it that this is the source of "The Bonnie Banks of Loch
Lomond," that is, the prisoner taking the low road, the grave,
and his beloved the high road, life, back to Scotland; so they
say

Foundation remains of the tower where Mary Queen of
Scots was held for a time

Thank you note from Elizabeth Regina to the
castle master for keeping the Scottish (by
then, ex-) Queen safe and sound

Top floor of the Keep, very old graffiti by
castle guards keeping their watches

They don't build them like that anymore
department: downspout dated 1717...

Carlisle Cathedral

After Chatsworth we drove on a couple more hours, skirting the Peaks District, over-nighting at a lay by at Chunal Hill. From there we drove on the next morning, now skirting the Lake District--too crowded this time of year, even the northern bit that we saw in 2009--and headed for Carlisle, the last of our north-bound English destinations. The cathedral there is attractive, despite being more chopped-up than most. One enters the south transept, looks admiringly at the choir, ambulates around the ambulatory, takes in the elevation, the great east window, the organ...wait a second, aren't these things a bit askew? And then, back at the crossing...wait a second, where is the nave?

Squared-off east facade, nice window

South-side chancel

Nicely-carved choir

Elevation, two aisles, small gallery, small clerestory, painted
barrel-vault wooden roof

Nice to look at

East window...altar a little off center?

Organ..way off center? And not just the organ, the arches too...

Artsy shot of lancet windows

Back in the crossing, one of the older bits, with Romanesque arches and the
zig-zag stone work that makes you think the builders maybe had been to the
Holy Land or at least to Moorish country

Ditto; note the huge piers

The usual bronze model helps: it started out as an abbey church, 11th century,
then Carlisle became a cathedral city, 12th century, and it became a cathedral,
and then the Reformation came along, and later the Dissolution, and then
Cromwell and the Civil War...oddly, the Parliamentarians amputated the nave--
the peoples' part of the church--and left the priests' part intact; oh well

Fortunately they left the feline gargoyles intact

South-west view, showing the sawed-off nave; the red stone throughout--and
throughout Carlisle--is strikingly beautiful

Chatsworth House, 2013

The house is 18th century, and, as a ducal residence, imposing. I think I posted rather more of the interior in 2009, so have a look there for more.

Best boot-scrape yet; the snake is the family emblem; also a Christian symbol of
resurrection

Our founder: Bess of Hardwick, who did the first building
at Chatsworth; except for the other red-head, she was
probably the most powerful, certainly the richest, woman
of the Elizabethan age

Entry hall, from the balcony; the Apotheosis of Julius Caesar overhead
(a distant relative? no, these people were really into Empire in those days)

State room

Great illusionary art by Jan de Vart; just about everything in
the photo is painted; in the music room

Monarch's bedroom

Ladies' toiletry center

Great way to display your Delft: must remember...

OK, I am going to skip the Rembrandts, the Titians, the Watteaus,
the Poussins, all the rest: this is Josh Reynold's portrait of
Georgiana, fifth Duchess of Devonshire; one of several

And this the very famous "stolen" Gainsborough Georgiana;
she was the great lady of her age, trend-setter both in fashion
and politics; alas, as it was said, every man in Britain was in
love with her, except her husband, the 5th Duke; it's complicated;
read Amanda Foreman's Duchess or see the Keira Knightley
movie (filmed in part at Chatsworth); not pictured: the Duke
and the Other Woman

Interesting bedding

Room for three

Library

Formal dining room; see 2009 post for interesting tidbit

Sculpture hall

Parting shot of Chatsworth...we'll be back

Chatsworth Gardens, 2013

We visited Chatsworth in 2009. It's one of the ones you want to see again. And probably again, too. I can't say it's either the best or our favorite. But, like Lanhydrock, Petworth, and Blenheim, it's one of the ones we liked best. Not the family nor home feel, like Lanhydrock, nor the art, like Petworth, nor the nation and the majesty, like Blenheim. No, although Chatsworth has great art, great history (the Dukes of Devonshire), and great architecture, it's the gardens that are of special interest: the work of two centuries of the greatest landscape architects, Grissel (Versailles), Capability Brown (nearly every English landscape of note), and Joseph Paxton (the 19th century's greatest). So we started with the gardens and first a garden tour.

The house from the Cascade/gardens side

What's left of Paxton's Conservatory and hot-house: probably the germ for the
idea of the Crystal Palace resides here

One of many, many water features

In the extensive rock garden/grotto area; all of it artificial

Ditto

A Monkey Puzzle tree in the Arboretum, with its 300 varieties;
the maze in the the distance

The grand canal and its fountain

The Cascade and its temple, from the house

From the top; designed so that every step has a different
sound...

Some of the grounds, from the Arboretum

All that remains of the original Elizabethan estate: the Deer
Stand, where the ladies could watch the gentlemen hunting
(the hill was bare then)

More of the grounds, from the carpark; not pictured...formal gardens, the "E" and
"R" on the hillsides in the distance, the sculpture arrayed all around the grounds,
and so on