Wednesday November 01, 2006

An unusual National Trust property

An unusual place this not because it looks different but the fact it was never lived in. It was built in the 1760's for the first Lord Scarsdale designed by the Scottish architect Robert Adams. Inside and out it takes a lot of its influence from Imperial Rome. The main building is a series of State rooms designed and built to impress visitors. The Curzon family - their real name never lived in this building but in another one next door. The entrance is very grand you walk into a tall hall two stories high with lots of marble columns. The effect is dramatic and you can feel the coldness of the room with so much bare stone as you enter. One of the rooms which I think was a library had a large writing desk in the centre with an odd chair by it. It must have been like sitting on a horse and as you sat in front of you was a handy surface to place heavy books on and read them. It also had several hidden compartments to hide money and betting slips when bets on cock fighting took place. On the table itself were two converted kinfe boxes used to hold stationary and covered with snakes skin.

The next room was the withdrawing room. The was where the ladies withdrew when the men had the cigars and port. It had four large sofas with wonderful covering which matched the walls. Each sofa had ornate end pieces covered with gold paint. The next room was a dining or ballroom. It features a large dome the top of which could be seen outside the building. I think this was my favourite room. There were further rooms all very elegant and full of impressive tall pictures. The two wings of the house were joined by curved halls, the main one had the regular nice wooden flooring, the one the servants used had cheaper Elm wood. Downstairs under the entrance hall was a less grand affair used to avoid wear and tear on the softer stoned upstairs one. Behind this was a collection of artifacts the family collected over the year , at one point one of the family was Viceroy of India. This resulted in a large collection of silver items. This was melted down and turned into a huge bowl used to chill wine. I said to one of the National Trust attendents lets hope nothing nice was melted down to make the bowl. It was the size of a small bath.

Outside there are huge grounds - eight hundred acres to wander around and of course they hve their own church were the family are buried in fancy tombs. The church is Norman thirteenth century and is the only survivor of the medieval village. So if you are in the Derby area this place is worth a visit. Sorry no pictures the National Trust don't allow photos inside their buildings and I forgot my camera anyway to take a nice shot of the buildings.