secretsofchatsworth

Chatsworth, in Derbyshire, is among England's largest and grandest estates. It served to demonstrate to wealth and status of the Cavendish family, its earls, especially after their elevation to dukes, the highest non-royal peerage rank. Its size generated enough agricultural revenue to survive the modern age, more recently supplemented with tourism. In its Victorian high-day it featured the grandest hothouses for a then unsurpassed collection of tropical plants, the most excessive of various dazzling displays. The 2008 movie The Duchess portrays its most famous inhabitant, Georgina, gambling-addicted wife of the duke, both of which were seduced by the scheming upstart Bess Foster. Later it was the site of a transatlantic minor Kennedy love affair.- Written by KGF Vissers