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There are several Medieval and Post-Medieval grand houses in the Peak, built by aristocratic families. The most noteworthy are Chatsworth House, Haddon Hall and Lyme Park, all three regularly open to the public. There are also many smaller houses still lived in and cared for as family homes, some also open to the public, as at Eyam and Tissington.

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Grand Houses

The grand houses of the Peak all have long and complex histories and are very different from each other.

Haddon Hall, belonging to the family of the Duke of Rutland, is one of the best Medieval fortified houses in England, faithfully restored to its former splendour in the early 20th century after a long period of neglect. A second but now ruined Medieval hall stood at Padley.

The entrance gatehouse at Haddon Hall leading to the western courtyard.

Chatsworth House, the main seat of the Duke of Devonshire, was built on a grand scale in the 16th century, but much of what is visible today dates to the 18th and 19th centuries. Its classical-styled fronts overlook extensive gardens and parkland.

The 18th century west front of Chatsworth House, with Stand Wood behind. In the foreground is the bridge over the Derwent that was created at the same time as the landscape park.

Lyme Hall, long the home of the Legh family but now managed by the National Trust, is built on a prominent ridge overlooking a large park. Like Chatsworth, its architecture is classical surrounding a late 16th century core.

This view shows the impressive classical south front of Lyme Hall near Disley.

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Lesser Halls and Houses

Many of the parishes of the region have their local halls and manor houses.

The Peak District is particularly well endowed with small but sturdy manor houses built in the late 16th and 17th centuries, characteristically in local stone with mullioned windows.  The lead mining in the region reached a peak at this time and this paid for this building in stone. Later halls of 18th and 19th century are also common. Many halls have surrounding gardens and some lie within small areas of parkland.

The late 16th century hall at North Lees near Hathersage.

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

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Gardens and Parks

Formal gardens have been created around the dwellings of the wealthy since Medieval times, fashions in layout changing through the centuries. There are fine gardens open to the public at Chatsworth and smaller examples at Haddon and Lyme Hall.

Chatsworth House had large formal gardens laid out in the 16th century with many geometric plantings, walks and water features. These were modified by subsequent generations and largely swept away or modified beyond recognition in the late 18th and 19th centuries when less formal layouts were fashionable. However, there are earlier survivals, notably the fine Cascade added in the 17th century and the Canal Pond of the early 18th century. In the Park, Queen Mary’s Bower, restored in the 19th century, and nearby earthworks bear witness to lost 16th century gardens. Today’s extensive gardens and arboretum are particularly fine with many features of note, including the impressive 19th century Emperor Fountain in the Canal Pond and the site of Paxton’s Great Conservatory now planted with a hedge maze.

The attractive gardens at Haddon, restored in the 20th century, are more intimate in scale and sited on a series of walled terraces high above the river. Those at Lyme, which are currently modest, have been extensively re-created in the late 20th century after earlier neglect.

The grand houses of the Peak lie within parkland.

In the Medieval period the fashion was for deer parks, used for sport and largely comprising enclosed woodland with glades and open pastures.

Fine old oaks within Chatsworth Park, a relic from when this area was farmland and a part wooded deer park above, swept away in the 18th century when the landscape park around the house was created.

The deer park at Chatsworth was replaced by a landscape park on a different site in 1760, while the park at Haddon, after a long period of disuse, had disappeared by about 1770. Lyme Park still exists but has been gradually transformed in appearance through the centuries.

The most radical change in parkland landscapes was in the 18th century. At this time it became fashionable, under the influence of such designers as Capability Brown, to surround grand houses with extensive landscape parks characterised by broad uninterrupted swathes of grassland with carefully placed stands of trees. Taken together these created a highly stylised interpretation of what was regarded as idyllic nature.

Chatsworth was given one of the grandest landscape parks in 1759-60. Other smaller examples exist that are of late 18th and 19th century date. Hassop and Swythamley are both surrounded by high walls.

Chatsworth House, seen here in the distance, is surrounded by extensive parkland with Stand Wood behind.		The south-western part of Chatsworth Park, with carefully designed clumps of trees and extensive woodland beyond the park to the east.

The architect-designed mill at the south-western end of Chatsworth Park, placed here amongst mature trees in the 18th century as a decorative feature to be seem by visitors using the main public approach road to Chatsworth from the south.

Haddon Park is a 19th century creation and is a good example of what may be described as a ‘working park’. Although it contains many decorative plantings, it is divided into fields that are used agriculturally.

While all parks are farmed for their valuable grazing and timber, some are more overtly ornamental than others. Hassop Park for example was designed from the outset, in the early 19th century, to contain arable fields surrounded by tree screens as well as more ornamentalised grazing near the house.

Similarly, although parks are often bounded by a high wall or tree screens, on large estates the ornamentalisation of the landscape extends beyond. There are architect-designed estate buildings, follies, ha-has and decorative tree plantings in the wider landscape.

This impressive early 19th Century wall defines the boundary of Hassop Park. This created a very private space for the owner of Hassop Hall, where the hall and ornamental parkland, together with farmland and woodland were isolated from the world around.

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What you can do

Click here or information on visiting archaeological sites in the Peak District

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