Celebrating the Cascade is about much more than restoring a Grade I listed water feature. It is also an opportunity for Chatsworth House Trust to engage a much wider range of people with Chatsworth, ensuring they can see, feel and take part in the Chatsworth story.

As part of the Cascade project, Cascade Chronicles will capture 50 oral history interviews with current and former staff, volunteers, local residents and visitors to Chatsworth. We want to collect people’s memories and experiences of the Cascade and other water features, the gardens, and Chatsworth more generally, creating an enduring record of how Chatsworth has impacted people’s lives.

Many of the interviews will be carried out by a team of young journalists recruited from Dunston Primary and Nursery Academy in Chesterfield. These young journalists have already been honing their skills producing a radio show about the Chatsworth Garden as part of Paradigm Arts Young Journalist Academy, which you can listen to here.

Paradigm Arts will provide further training for the young journalists before they conduct the interviews at Chatsworth later this year, giving them the opportunity to put their new skills into practice in a real-world project. These interviews will be preserved in Chatsworth’s archives for posterity, to inform the research of today and tomorrow.

The Archives preserved in the Devonshire Collections already contain many fascinating insights into the lives of those who have visited the Cascade or worked in the garden, such as a letter by Lady Blanche Cavendish, niece of the 6th Duke of Devonshire, describing a young Princess Victoria as being ‘enchanted’ by the illuminated Cascade during her visit in 1832.

They also include hundreds of letters between Sarah Paxton and her husband Joseph, the 6th Duke’s Head Gardener. Sarah took over many of the duties of Head Gardener and Land Agent in Joseph's absence when he was away on business; acting as his proxy in the garden and enacting instructions sent in those letters.

As we prepare to restore the Cascade for the enjoyment of all, now and in the future, Cascade Chronicles will enable us to preserve even more treasured memories of special visits to the Cascade and day to day stories from those who have worked in the Chatsworth Garden, capturing a range of voices at this significant moment in the Cascade’s story.

Find out more about the Celebrating the Cascade project, including how you can sponsor a stone and help us bring the Cascade back to life.

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