Chatsworth House 2013 pictures

On the 22nd of August, my uncle, cousin, one of my cousins friends and I visited Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. My uncle, cousin and I have now been to the House for three years in a row; we went there this year at my cousin's request. We did not embark on a major trek as we did last year, and this time my uncle and I went inside the House.

While I have an abundance of pictures from this visit to Chatsworth House, a large amount of them are of me and/or my group (and therefore ineligible to be posted here under my rules). Despite this, I've included a decent selection of scenes from the day:

 

This is a sculpture for an art exhibition at Chatsworth House, Beyond Limits. I think this sculpture is a piece called ''Standing Woman'', by Colombian painter and sculptor Fernando Botero, although I'm not completely certain. None of us read the plaque or sign by the sculpture's feet; at that point in the day, we didn't know that it was part of an exhibition.

In my coverage of my first trip to Chatsworth House, I wrote about the maze. This is a picture taken from the centre of the maze; there was a tree located at the centre on my previous two visits but it has since been removed. I do not know why.

This hedge is the outer wall of the maze. All four of us reached the centre but my uncle made it there first and already exited it by the time my cousin, friend and I had arrived.

This is another sculpture for Beyond Limits, titled Spiral of the Galaxy; it is by Marc Quinn.

This is the sign for the aforementioned sculpture. After we paid little attention to the plaques and signs of the other pieces, I ensured I photographed this one.

This is the rock from where I attempted my infamous mud jump last year. My uncle gave a spectacular retelling of the incident to us for the benefit of my cousin's friend; his retell was hilarious and deeply impressed us. If you ever want to hear the story of the time I jumped into the mud at Chatsworth House, hear it from my uncle!

An obligatory shot of Chatsworth House itself, just to show that we were there. The weather was sunny for most of the day but the clouds partially obscured the sunshine towards the end of our visit.

This trip might have been my third year at Chatsworth House in a row, but I was pleased by my cousin's request and both the House and its grounds never become boring. I will always recommend to people who want to come to the United Kingdom to go to Chatsworth House; you won't be disappointed.

Chatsworth House 2013

My uncle, a cousin, a friend of hers and I all went to Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, going there at my cousin's request. Today's visit to Chatsworth House marks the third year in a row that my uncle, cousin and I have been there. We had a pleasant afternoon as we walked around the inside of the House, had a decent lunch and enjoyed a lengthy walk out on the grounds. We didn't have the hike through the mountains that we had last year nor did I fall in mud but we had a great time, nonetheless.

I have a few pictures from the day to post at a later date.

Images from the Chatsworth House trip and hike

On the 8th of August my aunt and uncle from Nottingham, aunt from the East of England, all four of my younger cousins, my cousin's boyfriend, my brother, and I all went to Chatsworth House for the day. This journey differed from the last in two ways - the first being the amount of people in our group (seven then, ten now), and the second being the manner in which we visited Chatsworth and its grounds.

To start, the best route to Chatsworth House from Nottingham goes through the town of Chesterfield, known for its "crooked spire", the peak of the Church of St Mary and All Saints. Various explanations have been provided for why the spire is crooked, with the most likely being that it was built with damp wood that warped as it dried out. Another is that heavy lead was added to the spire a few hundred years after the church was constructed, and when it expanded in the sunlight it bent the frame.

I was fortunate to take this shot of the spire, as we were in motion and driving on a roundabout.

Rather than going directly to Chatsworth House we parked about a mile away from it. Our goal for today was to walk a nine-mile "loop" around the main grounds. The trek started off reasonably well, save for us having to turn around a couple of times because we were walking in the wrong direction. The above picture was taken when we were passing through a field full of sheep and cows, and presents a view of the Derbyshire landscape.

Unfortunately, the trek did go downhill somewhat for a spell: we ended up bumbling around a village or two and going into a field that wasn't a part of any of the paths. Worse, the maps we had for the loop were useless, as the routes listed on them didn't appear to exist (either that or we had the wrong maps).

The walk brightened up again when we encountered a helpful couple who directed us to the paths through the forest. After thanking them we made our way to the forest, of which a brief segment is shown in the above picture. However, the walk through the forest consisted of going almost entirely uphill, and whenever we were approaching the top of a hill we kept saying to ourselves "we should be able to see Chatsworth from the top of this next peak!".

This was taken from one of the highest points in our journey, and it shows an even better portion of the Derbyshire landscape than one of the aforementioned images. With its wonderful mountains and countryside, Derbyshire is amongst the most beautiful counties I've visited in the United Kingdom since moving back.

Another shot from the highest peak in our walk, this time of a zoomed-in view of the road leading into and out of Chatsworth House. However, we still could not see the house itself even from this vantage point, and so we continued on the path before reaching a crossroads with a helpful sign saying "house" and directing us to the left.

We never saw Chatsworth House from the peaks we climbed that day, and it was only when we approached the main grounds after walking downhill that we finally saw it. The route from our parking place to Chatsworth House was about nine miles in length (or at least felt like it anyway...we were walking for several hours!), but it did not consist of going on the loop. Everyone was tired and incredibly hungry when we arrived at Chatsworth House - during our afternoon meal not one of our plates had any food remaining.

There were still several hours remaining before Chatsworth House and its grounds closed for the day, so everybody except for my uncle and me chose to visit the house's interior. My uncle and I wanted to take advantage of the beautiful weather, and so opted to walk around the gardens.

The above picture is of the south wall of Chatsworth House; last year that end of the house was covered with scaffolding from all the renovations being done at the time. It was nice to get a proper picture of the south side.

This rock entrenched in one of Chatsworth's many ponds was the catalyst to the highlight of the day. My uncle and I decided it would be a great idea to leap onto the rock and take some pictures from it, citing "no one's likely ever done it before." We easily cleared the jump down to the rock, congratulated ourselves on our achievement, and then took some pictures. Then came the issue of getting back over.

The gap between the pond rock and the rock nearest to the main path was three-and-a-half in length and two feet in height...meaning we had to jump up as well as over. My uncle went first - he performed a running jump and clear the gap back over. I thought for a moment, and then I decided to pass all of my electronic equipment - camera, phone, and Vado - to my uncle. It was the best decision I had made all day, because when I attempted the run-jump back I did not jump high enough, I felt my stomach collide with where my feet were supposed to me, and I fell into the water. Chest-deep in stinky, muddy water. I took my uncle's hand and climbed out of the pond, and then we made our way to the nearest bathroom, where my uncle had to hand-wash most of my clothes in a sink.

A shot of the fountain, located at the south end of the house. I do wish I had taken this picture, and my others similar to it, with the camera held vertical rather than horizontal (as well as a little straighter). Still, I think it's a fine image.

A view of Chatsworth House from the back on that lovely, sunny day. I was still mostly wet at this point, and it had been over half an hour since my clothes had all been washed. After I had captured this my uncle and I then sat at one of the tables at the rear exit of the house to wait for the rest of our group; needless to say, when they had finished inside the house and its gift shop a few minutes later they were surprised to see the dampness of my clothing!

We all ate an ice cream each, and then all my cousins, my cousin's boyfriend, my brother, and I went to the maze in the gardens. We had to find the centre fairly quickly, as it was getting close to 6:00, Chatworth's closing time. After reaching the middle we took a few pictures and then hurriedly returned to the house when one of the keepers of the gardens shouted at people to start hurrying up!

One of my last pictures of the house that day, of the front and taken with my phone. When we left the house we still had about an hour's walk to the car park, giving my clothes additional time to dry; I only had to change my shirt and sit on a bag for the journey back to Nottingham.

It was a superb day. The weather was perfect, we had a lengthy walk, saw more of the countryside, had plenty to eat, saw the house and its gardens, and had an overall amazing time. We were exhausted at the end, and it almost goes without saying that everyone slept well that night, but we were contented. As for the mud...well, that merely added another layer of fun, didn't it?

Picture sorting after a holiday

It happens every time: you go on a week-long or more holiday, you have a superb time, you take hundreds of pictures to help preserve the wonderful memories, and then you go home. Once the fun is over and you've settled in back home, you now have countless images to rename and organise into the appropriate folders on your computer; you also have to fulfil, in a timely manner, any promises you made to your relatives to provide them with copies. If you're a blogger, there's also the matter of satisfying your followers.

I've been back for a little over a day from our Nottingham trip and I have successfully renamed and organised all of the 1000+ pictures I took on the holiday. I sorted out around a tenth of them last night, and today I spent a combined total of under two hours dealing with the rest. To be fair, I did have an advantage as I had visited Stratford-upon-Avon and Chatsworth House last year and had existing references to go from for them in renaming a portion of the new images, but even for those two parts of the journey there was a plethora of pictures that needed original names.

We are lucky that in today's world we have digital cameras: just fifteen years ago most people were not able to take 1000 images on a trip...and if they did they would have had to carry an extraordinary amount of film, which would have been expensive to then have developed. It may be a lengthy process having to sort through hundreds of pictures on the computer, but it's infinitely more preferable than having to fork out huge sums of money to have someone develop the film.

Now that I've renamed and organised the images of the recent trip and have them available for my relatives, the final step is now to satisfy my blog readers.

Chatsworth House trip and hike

We returned to Chatsworth House today, although the actual house and its grounds only consisted of a part of the trip. I will be sure to go into more detail about the day when I post pictures! Until then, these small updates are all I currently have time for!

Last comments on the Nottingham trip

So, the last seventeen posts on my blog have been about our trip to Nottingham, but I think there is room for one more, with some final thoughts on the matter. First off, even though I did this in person, I wish to thank my aunt, uncle, and cousins on my blog for everything they did for us that week, from the new places they took us to visit to things we had experienced before and wanted to do again: it was all grand, so thank you. I also wish to thank for grandparents here for letting them stay with us for the duration of the trip.

What, you may ask, was my favourite part of our time there? Was it the maze at Chatsworth House, visiting Shakespeare's Birthplace, going to the cinema twice in two days, or perhaps even the Haunted House ride at Drayton Manor? (Okay, maybe not that last one.) An easy answer would be to say that everything that we did was equally good, and to be honest, that is the case for the most part, but to me, the part that stands out the most was spending time with family as well as gaining two new friends, and just having a great time with them.

While Stratford-upon-Avon was (in my opinion) the best place we visited with everything that day being perfect, to me, getting a chance to spend time with family in a way we had not been able to do so before means even more. When we lived in the United States, it was not easy for family other than my grandparents to visit (even that was only a few times), and other than a couple of business-related trips that took Dad to the United Kingdom, it was not easy for us to visit family in turn. It was a delight to spend more than a week with them, and I know the feeling was reciprocated. To add to this, it was also great to call two more people our friends before the trip ended.

The Nottingham trip was a brilliant experience for all involved. We all have fond memories of everything that happened, plus hundreds, if not thousands of pictures of what we did together.

Finally, I shall conclude this post with another picture of the rainbow that began our trip to Nottingham:

Stratford-upon-Avon images

On the 9th of August, everyone who went to Chatsworth House on the 8th, plus an older cousin of mine all went to Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, the home of William Shakespeare. Here are a few of the pictures I took, plus some thoughts about the events of that day:

This was one of the first pictures I took when we got to Stratford-upon-Avon. I always find the skylines and architecture of a place fascinating, and Stratford-upon-Avon was no exception, starting with this spire. In fact, on the way there I also got a glimpse of the skylines in Leicester and Coventry, but it was nice to look at Stratford's landscape from the ground rather than in the car. I think the spire in the picture is from the Church of the Holy Trinity building.

The first place we walked to in Stratford, after we had some lunch at the leisure centre, was the Stratford-upon-Avon Butterfly Farm. The butterfly farm, as its name implies, houses butterflies, possibly hundreds of them. They have an enclosure reminiscent of a rainforest for them to fly around in, and although the butterflies will often land on people, you are not supposed to pick them up yourself, as butterflies are delicate, any touching of their wings will easily harm them. I have never seen so many butterflies, both in types and number, all at once before.

The butterfly farm also houses a few other animals, including reptiles, insects, and arachnids, such as the one in the picture above. This is a tarantula, though I cannot remember what type it was called. Despite its size and how fearsome it looks, I found the Black Widow in a nearby glass enclosure to be far more disturbing.

The butterfly farm was certainly a good experience, but after seeing all the exhibits, I was glad to get out. It was not because I had become bored of the place or anything like that, rather, I found the heat and humidity, both of which are necessary for the well-being of the animals housed in the farm, to be overwhelming after more than half an hour in there. My biggest regret, however, was not being able to take more pictures as my camera had fogged up from the steam emanating from the ponds. Still, if I had the chance to go again I would do so.

The next part to the adventure was a motorised boat ride on the Avon itself. The ride lasted for about half an hour, and consisted of travelling to one end then to the other of a small designated part of the Avon for boats. I took this picture of a bridge from the boat.

This is the Colin P. Witter Lock. I thought was an interesting structure, so I decided to take a picture of it: I liked the contrast of the lock with the water in the front and the greenery behind and to the sides. I wish the image was a little less slanted, though,

While these two boats are stationary, it was good to pass other boats on the river. Unlike the rafting trip from years ago, there were no water fights going on here!

The Church of the Holy Trinity is the name of this beautiful building. I am glad the boat was going at a reasonable speed so I could get a decent picture of it this close.

This has to be one of my favourite pictures from the Stratford-upon-Avon trip, as it to me is a "perfect picture": the colouring is superb and everything looks good, from the trees on the left, the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in the middle, the town and boat in the distance, the sky above, and the water in front (especially the ripple from the boat in the bottom right-hand corner). In all, I am exceptionally pleased with this image.

I took this just before the boat ride ended. I am fortunate to have a camera with a strong zoom feature: this is the tower from the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and was taken from quite a distance on maximum zoom.

After the boat ride, we made our way towards a part of Stratford-upon-Avon titled "Henley Street". Henley Street is name of the town's high street and main pedestrianised road, as well was a major shopping and tourist area. As we were moving and wanting to get past traffic, this was the best picture I could take of the Costa Coffee building and the architecture from this side of Henley Street. I remember seeing that building and others in its style in pictures and was glad to see them for myself in person.

Speaking if seeing things in person, the best part about Henley Street is this building: Shakespeare's Birthplace. This building is the place where William Shakespeare was born and spent the early part of his life at. Unfortunately, people are not allowed to take photographs or videos inside the house, but an outside shot is still impressive enough. I will admit that I had a "wow, I am really here" moment when I stepped inside the house, as I could not believe I was standing inside the house where one of the world's most famous and respected people had once lived.

The thing I found most interesting about the house was how large and spacious it was: someone inside said that it had a few unnecessary inside walls and more small rooms by today's standards, but I thought that the house was actually better than today's houses in some ways: it was larger than all houses I have been to so far since living over here again (even our current house is smaller); and if you added modern utilities to it or removed them from current homes, it would be a very comfortable house with plenty of space. Of course, the historical significance of Shakespeare's Birthplace and maintaining the building and its grounds is far more important than comparing it to modern houses, but even so, I thought it held up reasonably well.

This is a picture of Shakespeare's Birthplace from the back. In the group are two performers acting out a scene from one of Shakespeare's numerous plays.

Here are the two performers mentioned in my commentary for the picture above this one, and they are acting. One of my cousins and our friend had their picture taken with the lady in my photo above (done by my brother); I wish I could put it up, but I have a rule to avoid putting up images that contain family members or friends.

Once we had finished at Shakespeare's Birthplace, we went back out onto Henley Street. We then went to a pretty little restaurant that served "cream tea": when my uncle mentioned that we should try cream tea that afternoon, I assumed he meant tea with cream in, and since I drink coffee, plus a couple of other people in our group were coffee-drinkers, I was not sure what all the excitement over cream tea was. It turned out it was actually a meal consisting of a selection of sandwiches and cakes, not just tea with cream in it, and it was very nice. I should also note that I was the only one who drank coffee at tea time.

It was the early evening at the time we met the Milkshake Lady, and we had an hour and a half's trip back to Nottingham, so we left Henley Street and made our way back to the cars. As I mentioned in a previous post, I am a fan of sunny days with "friendly" clouds, so I took a picture of the sky: it was like this the for a majority of the day.

Finally, this picture was the second-from-last image I took in Stratford-upon-Avon (the last was not as good in quality as this), and it was taken from inside my uncle's car, hence why it looks a little like it was taken through a window. We went straight back to my grandparents' house that evening, and we had fruit for dinner as we were still full from cream tea.

To me, this day was what I call a "perfect day": nearly everything about it went smoothly, and anything that could have been considered "dull" normally (such as having to wait a couple of times in queues or for the boat ride to have enough passengers) were still somehow exciting. Plus, everyone was cheerful, and the weather was brilliant: Stratford-upon-Avon is definitely a place I would go to again.

Chatsworth House images

On 8th August my aunt and uncle, two of my cousins, their friend, my brother, and I myself went to Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. Here are some photos of that day, plus some more about what happened:

This is a view of Chatsworth House from the back. Unfortunately, the house was being renovated in parts that day, and this is the best picture I took of the place. I was not bothered about the work on the house, as it does need maintenance for it to be preserved.

This is a piece of amethyst on display within Chatsworth. I think it is beautiful, and I have always thought amethyst is a lovely gemstone, so it was a real treat to see a piece that large.

One of the of many paintings on the ceiling at Chatsworth House. They were so numerous there that it was not possible to get a picture of every one of them. Still, they were impressive to look at...imagine painting them!

This has to be one of the best parts of Chatsworth House: although the violin on the door looks as though it is real, in reality it is a painting made to look 3D.

This is a pink vase. One of my cousins wanted a picture of it, so I answered her request. It actually is a pretty nice vase.

Now this was an impressive piece of art: I was amazed by its detail and at how shiny it was...a truly brilliant piece! Oh wait...they did not have flat-screen televisions back in the 1500s did they?

Well, it certainly took him long enough! I wonder what kept him?

The dining area was a fine room too, though I would not have wanted to have washed all those dishes on my own!

Outside on the grounds was this maze, and this is a picture of it. We spent more than twenty minutes searching for the middle before my brother found a path that we missed: before long, my cousins' friend, one of my cousins, my brother, and myself were in the middle of the maze!

Here is the tree in the centre of the maze. Our friend was the one who went out to fetch everyone in our group who had not found the middle yet. There was a nice feeling of satisfaction when we reached that tree!

The visit to Chatsworth House was excellent, and I do thank my aunt and uncle very much for taking us there. We had dinner at a restaurant called Nando's, a place where I had never eaten at before until then, before going back to my grandparents' house for the night.

Chatsworth House

My brother, aunt and uncle, my two cousins, one of their friends, and I all went to a place called Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. It is an amazing place, with great artwork and other historical pieces in the house itself, and excellent grounds on the outside. There was also a maze that we had to traverse in the garden areas! I do have pictures, and they, like the others, will be posted at a later date!