Hardwick 1

We're still wondering how, in our several visits to the North, we'd never been to Hardwick. It was the work of Bess of Hardwick, aka Elizabeth Shrewsbury, whom we have already met at Chatsworth. The daughter of a modest country squire, she became, through a succession of marriages (4) and deaths of husbands (4), the richest woman in Elizabethan England, not including Elizabeth the Queen. The second marriage, the Cavendishes, got her a title and the fourth, Shrewsbury, made an already wealthy woman the wealthiest. She was a compulsive builder too, including the first house at Chatsworth, now gone, and the two below, Old and New Hardwick. She died in her 80s, still building. That (New) Hardwick is still around is something of a marvel. It was built in the 1580s and is thus one of the very oldest purely residential places we have seen. Not only is it wonderfully intact, it is chock-full of period items, furniture, art, and the most tapestries we have ever seen anywhere, ever. The Devonshires lived at Hardwick for a time but quickly moved over to the new/improved Chatsworth (within sight of Hardwick, maybe 15 miles away), once it was ready. Over the centuries, Hardwick was occasionally used as a hunting lodge or overflow guest-house or refuge, but mainly as the warehouse for Devonshire family items no longer fashionable nor wanted. Thus the impressive collection of items there. New Hardwick is now a National Trust property, and Old Hardwick, literally across the street, is a ruin and is managed by English Heritage. There is so much to see at Hardwick I'll have to do two posts, again.

Full frontal postcard view of Harwick; perfect symmetry

Compare with the above needlework, done by Bess herself, a representation
of the old Chatsworth

All of the towers at Hardwick have these colossal four-foot letters announcing
who lives there

Bess was very handy with needle and thread and obviously did not have a
self-esteem issue

Bess

In the great entry hall at Hardwick, and its long table, a reminder that Hardwick
is not very far from the Medieval world, when all the members of a household,
family, guests, and servants, took their meals together 

Same hall, hung everywhere with tapestries

Everywhere

Bess' coat of arms over a fireplace; flanked by tapestries

Needlework thought to have been done by Queen Mary
of Scots (Bess' Shrewsbury husband was her official
"host" for a time)

Another great hall, covered in tapestries, and above them, beautifully painted
plaster relief scenes; and period furniture

The long hall; when it was reported to Bess that the new
Burleigh House had a long hall of more than 120 feet, she
specified that Hardwick's should be 140 feet; it remains,
by volume at least, the largest of the long halls 

Cozy fireplace in the hall

The philosopher, Hobbes, who tutored the kids over at
Chatsworth

Francis Bacon; don't know what the Bess/Cavendish' Shrewsbury connection was,
but I am sure they were close personal buds

The Queen; full-length portrait

No end of tapestry

Or fine furniture

Boat Inn

That evening found us on another canal, in Sprotbrough...

Didn't quite get the name of the canal, a confluence of two big ones

Thus

Where boats are welcome

But apparently not motorcaravans/motorhomes

But for the incredibly popular Boat Inn, which offered us
a place for the night

Nostell Priory, 2

His lord- and lady-ship in the library; note the bust (in the painting and on the wall

Moving right along to the game room, here is an 18th century billiard table;
most everything we've seen heretofore is the far more substantial 19th century
version

And here is the clock made by a very young John Harrison...
but it's not this clock for which he is possibly the most famous
of clock-makers...

Even with its nearly all-wooden mechanism; no, as a clock-
maker, Harrison spent most of his life trying to solve the problem
of  longitude, that is, measuring it, while at sea; what was needed
was a super-accurate clock or watch, accurate despite the
vicissitudes of temperature, barometric pressure, the pitching and
yawing of the craft, etc. After numerous designs, attempts, trials,
etc., he succeeded, winning the recognition (and prize) of King,
Parliament, and the royal maritime board; and history

Up in the bedrooms now

And Guido Reni

Well-worn servants' stairs

"You rang, sir?" episode #5,732

Alas, impossible to get a good photo of perhaps the best
doll-house yet

One room, lens stuck right up onto the glass; incredible

Enlarge, read, and edify yourself: Chippendale the artist, craftsman, and marketeer,
making a catalog to circulate among the elites, defining a market, etc. 

Sample pages from the Director catalog

Rose garden

Walled garden

Kiddie garden

All that's left of the Priory

On the grounds, a man having fun

Nostell Priory, 1

Nostell Priory is not one of the household names among great houses. But it has much of great interest: its James Paine/Robert Adam Palladian architecture, its Thomas More connection, some art of note, more Chippendale than almost anywhere else--including some Chippendale for servants--some great faux pieces, perhaps the best doll house so far, and, not least, a clock by a maker of historic interest. We spent most of a day there, and I'll have to do two posts.

The estate really was a priory in the middle ages, but after
the Dissolution went through a couple owners before finally
coming to the Winns, textile merchants from London; above
the central bit by Paine, 1730s, the wing in the distance by
Adam; there was supposed to be a matching wing on this side;
but, there isn't

View from the gorgeous curved staircases; the usual
National Trust family activities going on out on the lawn

You walk into the large entry hall admiring all the armor and
family portraits and what-not, and then, at the far end, are
blown away by this gigantic very old family portrait, The
Family of Thomas More, blown away as much by the size
and quality of the painting as by its subject matter

Thomas More was Henry VIII's Chancellor, confidant, etc.,
whom the king finally had executed for not going along with
the Anglican church thing (A Man for All Seasons, etc.); the
painting is signed by Roland Lockey and dated a couple
generations after the scene depicted and it is thought to be
the best of the copies of the original Holbein; it came to
Nostell Priory after one of More's distant grand-daughters
married into the Winn family; here, however, the plot twists
and the whole thing starts to read like a Dan Brown novel...
analysis of the canvas dates it at exactly the time of Holbein,
not 70 years later when Lockey would have been painting; the
suggestion is that this is one of the original Holbeins (thought
to have been lost) which Lockey merely toyed with and
touched up; that's just the painting; the subject matter is more
intriguing (all this explained to us by a docent), rancid with
all sorts of Medieval and other symbolism; among More's
many writings was a history of the reign of Richard III (used
by Shakespeare among others), and implicit in
some of the symbolism is the suggestion that the two
little princes somehow escaped Richard and were in hiding
and were thus still available...a suggestion Henry might
have found, um, threatening; and thus More's execution
might have  been due to more than just the disagreement
about the Reformation and Henry being the head of the
church of England; another interpretation is that
the guy identified in the painting as "Thomas Pattison"
really is Henry VIII, and the whole scene depicts a visit
the king made to the More household (in happier times)
to see More's daughters engage in philosophical
disputation...More was an advocate for the education of
women, a novel notion...[photo off the web]

Moving right along, here's merely a Younger Brueghel
Procession to Calvary

Comfy living..Chippendales everywhere you look

A Quentin Massys we've seen before

We saw several of these beds at Chatsworth...called a
Polonnaise, after the style of a Polish skirt...

Faux door on the left; I've gotten some skill in detecting
these; symmmetry, you know

Dining room

Music room

Withdrawing room; the sofas and chairs recently re-covered
to period for a cost of about $50k

Desk in study

One of the 30 Chippendale servant's chairs
at Nostell Priory; visitors may sit on them

In the massive library, a faux panel

Thus, with the door mostly closed

Just an ordinary low chest?

No...conceals the ladder whereby servants
can fetch the books on higher  shelves