Hardwick Hall

Hardwick Hall stands on a hilltop near Ault Hucknall in Derbyshire. Built between 1590 and 1597 for Bess of Hardwick, it is an Elizabethan prodigy house designed by Robert Smythson. The house replaced an older manor and became a symbol of Bess’s wealth, with unusually large windows for the time. Its chimneys are built inside the walls to allow more glass, earning it the saying ‘Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall’. The great hall runs through the centre of the house, a modern idea for its age. Each storey rises higher than the one below, reflecting the status of its occupants. The house passed to Bess’s descendants, the Earls and Dukes of Devonshire, who used it as a hunting retreat. In 1941 the British Army formed the 1st Parachute Brigade at Hardwick, turning part of the estate into a training camp. After the war the camp became a Polish resettlement centre before the house was handed to the National Trust in 1959. Its interiors remain largely unchanged, with a grand long gallery and a tapestry-hung great chamber. Visitors walk through rooms with high ceilings and wide stone staircases leading to state apartments. The great chamber still shows its original plaster frieze of hunting scenes and painted panelling. Outside, the 2,500-acre estate includes meadows, woods and ponds stretching into Nottinghamshire. The older Hardwick Old Hall stands nearby as a ruin, offering a contrast to the grand Elizabethan house.