Yes!! The gilding and the *price of the fruit cake* in the cafe (even before the cozzy livs) was such food for thought I wrote a short story about a ghost stuck there working in visitor services. Love your reviews of Chatsworth!
I last visited when they were half way through the gilding, and took it at face value that they were restoring the exterior to the way it had originally been. As to the expense of this, do you know how it was paid for?
I don't, but it's a really good question to be asking. What I do know has two parts. One is that a total firehose of money has gone into stately homes since 1945, and there aren't enough people asking why; and very little is asked in return. My particular fury here is reserved for the National Land Fund which I am going to write about soon.
The other is that lots of places - including Chatsworth - have turned themselves into charitable trusts in order to get grants and tax relief. This is rubbish in so many ways (are they going to rent the house out to anyone else other than the Devonshires? Of course not) but is hilariously realised by the 2019 report of the Chatsworth Trust which I happened to read the other day, and is basically the house newspaper of the incumbents, with a double page spread on how their son had been installed as Lord Lieutenant of Derbyshire which has precisely nothing to do with the Trust whatsoever.
Yes!! The gilding and the *price of the fruit cake* in the cafe (even before the cozzy livs) was such food for thought I wrote a short story about a ghost stuck there working in visitor services. Love your reviews of Chatsworth!
I last visited when they were half way through the gilding, and took it at face value that they were restoring the exterior to the way it had originally been. As to the expense of this, do you know how it was paid for?
I don't, but it's a really good question to be asking. What I do know has two parts. One is that a total firehose of money has gone into stately homes since 1945, and there aren't enough people asking why; and very little is asked in return. My particular fury here is reserved for the National Land Fund which I am going to write about soon.
The other is that lots of places - including Chatsworth - have turned themselves into charitable trusts in order to get grants and tax relief. This is rubbish in so many ways (are they going to rent the house out to anyone else other than the Devonshires? Of course not) but is hilariously realised by the 2019 report of the Chatsworth Trust which I happened to read the other day, and is basically the house newspaper of the incumbents, with a double page spread on how their son had been installed as Lord Lieutenant of Derbyshire which has precisely nothing to do with the Trust whatsoever.