The management of the estate today

The estate is divided roughly into two categories - the “in-hand” estate, which means all the farming and other businesses which are both owned and managed by Chatsworth; and the “let” estate, which means farming and other enterprises which are on estate land and are rented by tenants.

There are five main sections
The Main Estate - comprises the house itself and 4982 hectares surrounding it including the park and the villages of Baslow, Pilsley, Edensor, Beeley and Calton Lees. Most employees and pensioners live in these villages, which are wholly or part owned by the Trustees.

The West Estate - comprises 2630 hectares and includes land and houses in Bakewell, Ashford, Wetton, Monyash and Buxton. Most of this high ground is made up of stock rearing farms.

The Shottle Estate - comprises 1424 hectares and includes farms and buildings in and around Shottle, near Belper. This land is suited to both stock and arable enterprises. The majority of Chatsworth’s dairy farmers live here.

The Staveley Estate - north east of Chesterfield, comprises 1376 hectares. It includes both farmland and industrial sites. Staveley Chemicals and the Staveley Foundry are on Trustees’ land here.

The Scarcliffe Estate - east of Chesterfield, comprises 3772 hectares and consists of mostly arable farms, woods and houses in and around Elmton, Whaley, Scarcliffe, Heath, Rowthorne and Palterton. In 1968 the M1 Motorway was constructed through this part of Derbyshire and the land on which Junction 29 now stands was purchased from Chatsworth.

Estate office
The Agent is responsible for the overall administration of the estate and for policy. The Deputy Agent looks after the let estate, including farms, houses and commercial tenancies.

The Survey Department
Holds maps and records of all land owned, bought or sold by the estate, and the Surveyor is responsible for the exact measurements of land, boundaries, drains, rights of way and all other information needed to establish and maintain accurate records.

The Accounts Office
Administers salaries, wages, pensions, taxation issues and the preparation of budgets and accounts for all departments.

The buildings on the Estate, including more than 450 houses and all farm buildings, are maintained by local firms of contractors.

The Personnel department administers all staff records, co-ordinates training and deals with all estate job applications.

House
The comptroller is responsible for the administration and maintenance of the house itself. His team also organise all aspects of opening the house to the public, including bookings, marketing and training, as well as the charitable events that take place in the house and on the estate.

Chatsworth House

There are a wide variety of jobs in the house. The full time joiners, electricians, plumbers, painters, a mason, seamstresses, security men, telephonists, drivers and other skilled maintenance staff make up the team which is needed to ensure the preservation of the building and its treasures. They also have a vital role as members of the fire and salvage teams.

The Housekeeper with her cleaning staff ensures the house is always looking its best for visitors. More that 60 clocks are wound once a week and one third of a mile of red carpet is vacuumed every morning. During the two and a half months of the closed season they attend to items on the public route through the house. Every piece of china is wiped, the floors and furniture receive careful treatment, glass chandeliers are washed, carvings are dusted and leather bindings are treated.

To recover from the affects of foot and mouth, Chatsworth extended the 2001 visitor season by seven weeks and unprecedented numbers of visitors came to see the specially decorated House, the floodlit Garden, the shops, restaurant. In 2002, this was repeated, with the addition of the Farmyard and Adventure Playground and Chatsworth welcomed record numbers of people. Numbers increased again in 2003, and the Christmas season is now a regular feature of the year.

Events
Every year, charities are invited to hold a number of concerts, fashion shows, coffee mornings and other events in the house and garden, restaurant and park.

A picture from the Country Fair.

Estate staff play a large part in the organisation and setting up of the large scale public events in the park, such as the angling fair, the international horse trials, concerts and the country fair, all of which bring many thousands of extra visitors. Some of the money raised by these events contributes to the maintenance of the house, garden and park, and large sums are given to local and national charities.

Devonshire Collection
The Librarian and Keeper of Collections and his department looks after the works of art in the house. They are responsible for the cataloguing and condition of all the artefacts and archival material, ranging from over 30,000 books, paintings, furniture, Old Masters drawings, prints, tapestries, maps, letters and diaries to painted ceilings, sculptures, gold, silver gilt and silver objects, porcelain, jewellery and curiosities gathered here over 450 years. They are responsible for the safe lending of objects from the collection to exhibitions around the world.

The Birds of America, London, 1827-38

Scholars can study the collection and archive by appointment only.

The Keeper of the Collections and the Comptroller supervise large-scale restoration projects undertaken here. Every year a considerable sum is set aside in the budget for this work as no grants are applied for. Major works completed in recent years include the cleaning of the painted ceilings, re-gilding external window frames, restoration of the stonework of Flora’s Temple, the Cascade House and the Cascade itself, and the repair of woodworm damage to limewood carvings.

Sewing room
The Seamstress and her team are responsible for all the fabrics, tapestries and curtains in the house. They also do both conservation and new work for other family properties, hotels and organisations like the National Trust. A team of volunteers assists in the repair of tapestries and old fabrics, using the 19th century Theatre in the North Wing of the House as their workshop. There is also a Sewing school.

A sewing class at Chatsworth.

Garden
More than twenty gardeners look after the 42 hectares of lawns, flower beds, greenhouses, hedges, trees, paths and the maze. The Duke and Duchess are constantly adding new features, as well as ensuring the work of previous generations is preserved. The greenhouses protect rare species and, together with the kitchen garden provide the house kitchen with fruit and vegetables. The 300 year old water system feeds the 1st Duke’s Cascade, the 6th Duke’s Emperor Fountain, the fire hydrants and the turbines, which in turn generate about 25% of the house’s electricity.

A view of the garden from the roof of Chatsworth House.

The farmyard and adventure playground
Was opened in 1973 and is designed to be an entertaining but non-sentimental way of explaining the lifecycles and ultimate uses of the commercial farmstock on the estate. More than 200,000 people including 14,000 school children, visit every season. It has welcomed more than 3 million visitors in the last 30 years. In the winter months most of the animals return to the “in-hand” Chatsworth farm. In 1998, to celebrate the Farmyard’s silver jubilee, the facilities were improved to provide better access for visitors with disabilities and interpretation panels, and a new Adventure Playground was built. The Farmyard now offers an extensive education programme. There is a café and shop.

A girl stroking a pig at the farmyard.

Every year the estate invites more than 1600 Derbyshire school children to attend 2 Countryside Days. Each outdoor department puts on a display or an exhibition to explain their work to the 9 and 10 year old children. The children and teachers have an opportunity to ask questions and see the work for themselves.

Park
The 450 hectare park is open free to the public throughout the year and used by more than 750,000 people each year. It is looked after by the Domain Department. They maintain the 9 mile deer fence, walls, footpaths, drains and trees. The conduits and lakes which supply the garden system with rainwater from the moors also need constant attention. There are herds of red and fallow deer in the park.

The park and lakes at Chatsworth.

Retail sales
There are 4 gift shops: in the Orangery Shop in the house, the Carriage House Shop and Garden Shop in the Stables and the Farmyard gift shop. They offer a very wide range of gifts, china, food, clothing and books, many of which are associated with the house, the estate or the history of the family. A percentage of turnover is passed on to the House Trust in lieu of rent. They employ six full time and many temporary staff during the season.

The Orangery shop at Chatsworth.

The Farm Shop was set up in 1977 to add value to the farm’s produce by selling directly to the consumer. Focusing initially on Chatsworth produce, such as meat, game, dairy products and flour, the shop has expanded to sell other British foods and wines. It provides more than 107 permanent and 12 seasonal jobs. In 1997, the Shop won the BBC Good Food Award’s “Best Speciality Shop”. The Farm Shop sells produce by mail order and this service can be booked via the Estate website. There are plans for expansion of the shop and the café in 2004.

Catering
The restaurant was opened in 1991. It caters for between 20,000 and 30,000 people each month. The Catering Manager is responsible for other catering outlets in the park, farmyard and garden. The restaurant is also used for a limited number of private and charitable events during the spring and autumn. Rooms in the Stables also provide a Bar and meeting rooms that can be hired for private and corporate events. A percentage of turnover is passed to Chatsworth House Trust in lieu of rent.

People eating at the Carriage House Restaurant.

Farming
The 14,000 hectares of the estate is spread across more than thirty miles. The Trustees farm “in-hand” approximately 2500 hectares in two separately managed blocks. The grassland surrounding Chatsworth is used for dairy, beef and sheep production. This poses two particular problems; its scale - over five miles from end to end, and the fact that both the moor and the park are huge open areas used for public recreation as well as for grazing.

Elm Tree farm is a 400 hectare “in-hand” arable farm east of Chesterfield, about 20 miles from Chatsworth. Wheat, barley, potatoes and oilseed rape are grown on this flatter, more fertile land.

Farming at Chatsworth.

Forestry
Approximately a tenth of the Estate is covered with trees. The main blocks are at Scarcliffe and Chatsworth with scattered smaller blocks over the entire Estate. The Forestry Department is responsible for the upkeep of these woodland areas. They need to balance the aims of timber production with those of amenity and conservation. The income from timber sales does not meet the expenditure incurred but the proper maintenance of the woods is considered to be an essential element of the Trustees stewardship of the estate.

A picture of some of the trees on the estate.

Game
The Keepers maintain the pheasant shoot and control the vermin which damage birds and young trees. The keepers also act as wardens to help visitors walking on the many miles of “permissive” footpaths.

Fishing
The estate owns fishing rights on stretches of two rivers in Derbyshire - the Derwent and the Wye. Both are “in-hand”, and members of the fishing club pay an annual subscription for the right to fish during the season. The three Water Bailiffs patrol the rivers and are responsible for the maintenance of the banks and weirs.

Chatsworth fishery.

The ‘let’ estate
Consists of more than 120 tenanted farms, as well as many other businesses. The Landlord and Tenant system of land tenure enables people to farm without having large capital sums to invest in buying land and buildings. The farms range in size from more than 300 hectares to holdings of a few fields. Rents are reviewed every three years, which gives the agents the chance to check that the farms are being properly looked after and gives the tenants the opportunity to discuss any changes or problems.

Many other businesses pay rent to operate on estate land, including the Cavendish Hotel in Baslow, the Caravan Club site in the old kitchen garden, the Garden Centre at Calton Lees and the craft workshops in Pilsley. There are a large number of let private houses.

Near Chesterfield is the Staveley Works (144 hectares). An ironworks is recorded on this site in 1783. Staveley is now home to chemical plants and a foundry, which the companies concerned lease from the estate.

Minerals form an important part of the let estate and are administered by a Minerals Agent, based in Rowsley. They range from limestone quarries producing more than 300,000 tonnes a year to small masonry stone quarries producing marble-like slabs containing fossilised marine creatures. They are let to various mining and construction companies. Until the 19th century there was extensive lead and copper mining on the estate.

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