The house boasts 175 rooms, but nearly 150 are kept private from the 300,000-plus annual visitors. It contains one of Europe’s most impressive private art collections, featuring both ancient and modern works; curios include four royal thrones. Chatsworth’s garden comprises 105 acres, and the neighbouring park covers 1,000 acres.

In 2003, the Channel 5 series Britain's Finest declared Chatsworth Britain's best stately home and the Cascade was voted England’s best water feature by Country Life in 2004.

Family connections

The land was originally owned by the Leche family; in 1549, they sold it to Sir William Cavendish, then second husband of Bess of Hardwick and, in 1555, the couple began establishing the Chatsworth house and garden.

Through her marriages (four in total), Bess accrued an annual income of around £60,000, making her the second wealthiest woman in England – after the other “Bess”, Elizabeth I, for whom Bess of Hardwick served as a Lady of the Bedchamber. Her fourth husband was the Earl of Shrewsbury and, in 1568, it was into his custody that the Queen placed her most contentious prisoner, Mary, Queen of Scots. The Scottish monarch was brought to Chatsworth several times and housed in the apartment located above the Great Hall.

Though Chatsworth’s gardens were re-designed by Capability Brown in the late 18th century, they underwent their biggest transformation when Joseph Paxton (later knighted) was appointed head gardener in 1826. Paxton designed its arboretum, glasshouses, Grotto Pond (originally where fish were bred to grace the Chatsworth dining table) and enormous rockery.

The war and beyond

During the second world war, Chatsworth became home to the pupils and teachers of Penhros College, a Welsh public girls’ school. Some of the state rooms were turned into dormitories, and the condensation from the breath of the slumbering girls caused fungal growth on some of the paintings.

Had it not been for the intervention of the war, Chatsworth House would have become an outpost in the “empire” of America’s aristocratic Kennedy family. In May 1944, Kathleen Kennedy, younger sister of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, married William Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington and elder son of the 10th Duke of Devonshire – against the wishes of her staunchly Catholic parents. “Billy” Cavendish was killed in action a few months later and Kathleen herself died in a plane crash in 1948. She was buried in the Cavendish family plot at Saint Peter's Church, Edensor, near Chatsworth. Her younger son Andrew Cavendish married one of the famous “Mitford girls”, Deborah, and the couple became the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire in 1950.

In 1981, the Chatsworth House Trust was established to preserve the house and grounds, which cost around £4 million a year to maintain. In addition, the Duke and Duchess eschewed the “theme park” approach embraced by historic houses: they encouraged greater public access to the surrounding land, and the Chatsworth Farm Shop – complete with its own Chatsworth-branded foods – is probably the UK’s biggest enterprise of its kind, employing more than 100 people.