THE High Peak District of Derbyshire hides its secrets well. When, in 1698, the intrepid English horsewoman Celia Fiennes rode from Chatsworth to Bakewell in the picturesque valley of the Wye, a tributary of the Derwent, she described the pretty market town as ‘standing on a hill, yet you descend a vast hill to it which you would think impossible to go down… the common people here know not above 2 or 3 miles from their home, but they of the country will climb up and down with their horses those steep precipices’.
From the 17th century onwards, wealthy Derbyshire mine-owners built fine country houses on the steep hillsides of the Peak District to make the most of spectacular valley views, using the region’s natural contours to create impressive terraced gardens. Such a house is imposing, Grade I-listed Holme Hall near Bakewell. It stands in more than four acres of historic gardens on the eastern bank of the River Wye, which runs through the town. Meticulously restored by its current owners, who bought the house in 2009, Holme Hall comes to the market today at a guide price of £3.75 million through Derbyshire agents Caudwell & Co (01629 810018).
Research assembled by the hall’s owner, John Stansfield, reveals that the main part of the present house, which incorporates an earlier 15th-century building, was built between 1626 and 1628 by Bernard Wells, a successful lead merchant originally from Gloucestershire. The new house was reputedly based on plans for smaller Italianate villas by Elizabethan architect Robert Smythson, the designer of Hardwick Hall near Chesterfield, now owned by the National Trust.
Denne historien er fra April 13, 2022-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra April 13, 2022-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
