I'm embarrassed to admit, as much a seasoned traveller I now consider myself, I still take a guilty pleasure in visiting places I have seen in films or television dramas.
One July midmorning, I imagined myself as Lizzie Bennet (the heavily pregnant version at least) taking a walk on the grounds of Pemberley in my long bright red frock and sandals with soles so thin it felt like I was walking barefoot.
It was a clear day, still and golden, with blackberries ripe and luscious in the bramble bushes. The air is touched with a lazy fragrance of the hidden flowers underneath the tunnel of green, with trees that spread their forked boughs like a stag's antler above us. Further ahead, the intense blue of the noonday sky burst like jewel in the sun.
Pemberley (of films and TV dramas) of course is Chatsworth House, the seat of the Duke of Devonshire, set in the heart of the Peak District. Thirty minutes in the car from Sheffield, we didn't have to travel far when we woke up that morning to a sky that cried for a walk in the countryside.
One of Britain's most visited historic properties, Chatsworth House stands magnificently in the east bank of the Derwent River with a backdrop of wooded, rocky hills rising to heather moorland. It's one of those places whose landscape transforms with the changing of the seasons and every single visit offers a pleasant surprise.
This particular summer visit was exclusively for the five mile walk around the garden, up the 300 year old Cascade, finding the centre of the maze and strolling around the Emperor Lake with the enormous gravity-fed fountain where the best picture view of the house can be taken. And yes, there were plenty of photos indeed!
One July midmorning, I imagined myself as Lizzie Bennet (the heavily pregnant version at least) taking a walk on the grounds of Pemberley in my long bright red frock and sandals with soles so thin it felt like I was walking barefoot.
It was a clear day, still and golden, with blackberries ripe and luscious in the bramble bushes. The air is touched with a lazy fragrance of the hidden flowers underneath the tunnel of green, with trees that spread their forked boughs like a stag's antler above us. Further ahead, the intense blue of the noonday sky burst like jewel in the sun.
Pemberley (of films and TV dramas) of course is Chatsworth House, the seat of the Duke of Devonshire, set in the heart of the Peak District. Thirty minutes in the car from Sheffield, we didn't have to travel far when we woke up that morning to a sky that cried for a walk in the countryside.
One of Britain's most visited historic properties, Chatsworth House stands magnificently in the east bank of the Derwent River with a backdrop of wooded, rocky hills rising to heather moorland. It's one of those places whose landscape transforms with the changing of the seasons and every single visit offers a pleasant surprise.
This particular summer visit was exclusively for the five mile walk around the garden, up the 300 year old Cascade, finding the centre of the maze and strolling around the Emperor Lake with the enormous gravity-fed fountain where the best picture view of the house can be taken. And yes, there were plenty of photos indeed!
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