Hot food for hard working volunteers and staff includes Chatsworth favourites such as lasagne, macaroni cheese, cottage pie made with local beef, and mushroom and leek risotto among others.

Instead of preparing meals for visitors to Chatsworth, for the past few weeks chefs in the Carriage House Café kitchen have been cooking ready meals to provide vaccination staff working long hours with fuel for the fight against Covid. Chatsworth’s delivery drivers have been dropping off meals at destinations including Chesterfield Royal, St. Oswald’s in Ashbourne, Royal Derby and others among the county’s 24 vaccination centres.

Derbyshire has shown that it is leading the nation’s vaccination roll-out - in one week recently, the country vaccinated the second highest proportion of eligible residents in the whole of England.

Chris Baily Jones, Head of Catering at Chatsworth: “The vaccination drive in Derbyshire and elsewhere is absolutely vital in making us all safe for a way out of lockdown. We’re determined to do our bit to support Derbyshire NHS and all the people working such long hours to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible.”

Ready meals for Derbyshire vaccination centres has been made possible with funding from Chatsworth Estate alongside personal contributions from a number of individuals at Chatsworth. The Devonshire Group community forum, which includes Chatsworth, is chaired by Lord Burlington, son of the Duke of Devonshire, and was set up at the start of the Covid pandemic to reach out and support local communities.  

A large number of charitable organisations are supported by the Devonshire Group through donations of money, items and complimentary tickets, and by offering savings on commercial rates. In 2019, charitable giving across the Devonshire Group amounted to £334,452.

For more information on Chatsworth and the community, visit https://www.chatsworth.org/about-chatsworth/our-shared-future/

Notes to Editors

About Devonshire Group

The Devonshire Group comprises the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire’s interests, charities and businesses throughout the UK and Ireland, including Chatsworth, which sits within the Derbyshire Estate, the Bolton Abbey Estate in North Yorkshire, the Lismore Estate in County Waterford, and the Compton Estate in Sussex. 

The businesses include visitor attractions, shops, restaurants and luxury accommodation at Chatsworth, Bolton Abbey and in Lismore Castle in Ireland.  The estates include tenanted businesses and residential property, a property development business with a pipeline of 2000 homes, sustainable forestry and farming businesses and an estate farm shop at Chatsworth. The Devonshire Group employs approximately 1,400 colleagues across their estates which spread over 65,000 acres.

The Duke of Devonshire and his family are at the centre of the Devonshire Group and they are supported and guided by an independent body of trustees.  

The group is committed to benefitting heritage, people and a shared future, by preserving, restoring and enhancing their heritage assets, by being a significant contributor to their communities and by being seen as a leader in the way they do things.   

Chatsworth House Trust

Chatsworth House and many of its contents, the gardens and 737 hectares (1,822 acres) of the surrounding landscape are leased for a nominal sum to a registered charity, the Chatsworth House Trust, established in 1981. The 12th Duke and Duchess pay rent to the charity to live at Chatsworth and work with the charity and others to welcome Chatsworth’s visitors.  Every penny of visitor admission income goes directly to the Chatsworth House Trust, which is dedicated to the long-term preservation of Chatsworth House, the collections, garden, woodlands and park for the long-term benefit of the public.

The Devonshire Collections

One of the largest and most significant private collections in Britain which has been evolving for five generations and reflects the 16 generations of the Devonshire family. At Chatsworth the diverse collections, which are continually added to, encompassing Old Masters to contemporary ceramics and artefacts from Ancient Egypt to cutting edge modern sculpture and digital portraits, can be seen in the house and garden.

Devonshire Educational Trust 

The Devonshire Educational Trust (DET) is an independent charity that works in partnership with the Chatsworth House Trust and Bolton Abbey Estate to provide learning opportunities across the Devonshire Group. The charity was established in 2004 to enhance the educational experiences of children, young people and adults. 

For further press information, please contact:

Steve Houghton, [email protected], (out of office hours, 07917 671516)

Redbrick Communications, T: 0115 9101500