Posted on 03/17/2018 5:44:38 AM PDT by C19fan
Not since the Windsor Castle fire has there been a makeover of one of our national treasures on such a scale. Indeed, the restoration of Chatsworth House has cost only a few million pounds less than the £37 million lavished on the castle. However, the facelift of Chatsworth, in Derbyshire — where Keira Knightley’s heart as Miss Bennet first fluttered over the brooding Mr Darcy in the big-screen version of Pride And Prejudice — was prompted not by adversity but because its owner, the Duke of Devonshire, had no wifi. That became the trigger for the biggest, costliest and longest refurbishment of his family seat, garden and surrounding parkland for almost 200 years.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
She was beautiful, in spite of the disastrous hairdo and bulky clothes. Of course, it was cold then.
It is actually quite sad.
Lots of the nobility and the gentry lost their homes because of the two world wars. Every time the home passed the government took their cut and that could happen several times over a short period.
The Devonshires lost a lot of property to the State when the 10th Duke died only months before his tax-avoidance trust would have vested. The 11th Duke held on to Chatsworth by learning how to make money.
That was an interesting article. What complicated family relationships these people had! That article didn’t mention that Georgiana Duchess’s daughter Harriot married
Lord Grey, the father of her half-sister Eliza. It also didn’t mention that the Devonshire menage included the Duke’s daughter by a paramour, who was brought up by Georgiana with her own children.
Their house was gorgeous, but what a mess! (And of course, no flush toilets ...)
And it was all about money, and keeping it in the families. Can't imagine how I would have dealt with an arranged marriage to a cousin, or a rich old fogey. I wished I'd had the time to visit Chatsworth and other homes on the two trips I took to the UK. I got to Blenheim Palace, Hampton Court, Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, and a home or two in Ireland and Blair Castle, and Edinburgh Castle in Scotland. There are so many stately homes to see, but it's only a fraction of what was once there. So many were allowed to rot, or were torn down. To avoid having to pay taxes on some of these properties, the families took the roofs off of them to make them uninhabitable. What a shame.
I love historic houses, and I’ve been fortunate to see many, because this is also an enthusiasm of my mother’s. I’ve been to England only once, and visited Windsor, the Tower of London, Oxford (which looks just like Hogwarts ... or Duke), and to some sites of variable ruination in Northern Ireland, where Mom is from.
The Devonshires have been very methodical about maintaining what’s left of their Ducal patrimony. The original article mentioned that the 11th Duke set up a fund to invest the tourism earnings for the upkeep up Chatsworth.
Yes, Bess certainly seemed to have a whole bunch of issues going on.
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