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Houses, Halls and Parkland in the Derwent Valley

The sheltered valleys have always attracted the wealthy and influential families of the Peak, where they built their houses and halls with parklands.  The jewels are Chatsworth House and Haddon Hall, both regularly open to the public.  There are also many smaller halls still lived in and cared for as family homes.

Chatsworth House

This grand house in a fine setting has been a showpiece for the Cavendish family, Earls and later Dukes of Devonshire, since the mid 16th century.

The 18th century west from of Chatsworth House, with Stand wood behind and the bridge over the Derwent in the foreground, created at the same time as the landscape park

The House has been added to and modified over the centuries and much of the classical exterior visible today dates to the 18th and 19th centuries.  In its early days the House and its formal gardens stood at the edge of a large deer park that extended up through Stand Wood to the east and onto the moorland shelf beyond.  However, in 1759-60 the landscape was transformed by Capability Brown with the creation of a grand landscape park in the valley, with scattered parkland trees, many retained from the hedgerows removed to make the park.  This was flanked by woodlands on both valley sides.   Further extensions were made northwards in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Chatsworth House in the distance, surrounded by extensive parkland with Stand Wood behind

Haddon Hall

This exceptional Medieval fortified house, one of the best in England, stands on a low bluff overlooking the Wye.

The entrance gatehouse at Haddon Hall leading to the western courtyard

In Medieval times the house, started in the 12th century, with two courtyards flanking a large hall, stood at the heart of an extensive deer park.  It was used throughout the Medieval period by the Vernon family and later, in 16th and 17th centuries, by the Manners, Earls and later Dukes of Rutland.  However, by the end of the 18th century the buildings were dilapidated, seen as outmoded and little used, and the park had all but disappeared.  Both park and Hall were restored in the 19th and 20th centuries, charming gardens added and a small landscape park created, hidden from view by long tree screens alongside the A6.

Lesser Halls and Houses

A third park exists at Hassop, the present house and park created in the early 19th century by the Earl of Newburgh, but both with earlier origins.  Neither is open to the public, the impressive house is currently used as a restaurant and the park is privately owned.  Its high wall against the road from Bakewell to Hassop hides much of the park but allows a glimpse of the house through the gates.  There are also smaller adjacent private parks at Ashford, Churchdale and Thornbridge, and another at Stanton.

The fine 17th century Holme Hall across the river from Bakewell

The Peak District is well endowed with small but sturdy manor houses built in the late 16th and 17th centuries, characteristically in local stone with mullioned windows.  Good examples survive in the Derwent and Wye valleys at Highlow, Eyam, Holme and Snitterton, while the classical-style halls at Stoke and Longstone are 18th century in date, the latter unusually built of brick.

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