England 2023- Hardwick Hall

 

Oops, spy the finger lol

Waking up in a different house than your own can be discombobulating, especially when that house is in another country and has appliances you’re unfamiliar with. One of the things that I don’t’ think I’ve talked about before in my Irish or English blog posts is the fact that appliances in those location have on/off switches. The first time I encountered this was in a little tiny cottage that we had rented in the Irish countryside. It took an embarrassingly long time to figure out why the oven wouldn’t turn on. You’d think being married to a native Brit would be an advantage in this situation but the home he grew up in was so old that he also was unfamiliar with with this practice. He was just as stumped as I was. 

Thankfully waking up on our first full day in the town of Harworth we knew that in order to get breakfast moving we needed to to flip the switch on. Breakfast was scrambled eggs and toast and let me tell you I have never seen egg yolks so orange. The photo I took didn’t do it justice. The yolks were so orange they were practically red. They were the best scrambled eggs I’ve ever had. I’ve mentioned this before but it bares repeating: the food quality in Europe is so superior to the US. I’m convinced that it’s not just the fact that they don’t mess with GMO’s and glyphosate but I can almost guarantee that the soil itself is more nutrient dense. The moment I land my ever present bloating disappears and I can eat dairy and gluten with no consequences, something I cannot do at home in the states. I was grateful to be staying an entire week with access to a full kitchen.

Taken from a video so it’s blurry

Our wonderful airbnb was a semi-detached new build home hosted by Nicole. I felt a little bit guilty because this was her actual home and not an investment property that she rents out. We tried so hard to make sure that you couldn’t even tell we had been there. We wanted to respect her space as much as possible. One of my favorite things about the house was the Harry Potter decor (in fact Harry Potter would come up more than once that day- a little foreshadowing for you). In the entrance way she had the marauders map, a letter from Hogwarts, the house sigils and a little storage cupboard below the stairs that was “Harry’s room”. And to make things even better she had a Wham! Club Tropicana themed bathroom. Gen X knows why that is exciting. Basically Nicole was my people. In fact we had a lovely dm exchange all about it. I’m so bummed because she has taken the house off of airbnb and we can’t stay there this time. I had been looking forward to it! But I digress… 

 

What was on the docket for today? A visit to none other than Malfoy Manor. Well, those of us that knew it before the Harry Potter movies will know it as Bess of Hardwick’s jewel in the crown: Hardwick Hall. It is the most stunning example of an Elizabethan manor house. So many of them have not survived intact so being able to see the glorious huge windows and ornate roof was extraordinary. I would imagine that Kenilworth Castle which now sits in ruins was very similar. 

I had wanted to go visit on a previous trip but we arrived too late in the day to tour it so I only got to see it from afar, so I was very excited to actually be able to step foot inside. Today we were killing two birds with one stone. Visiting my brother in law and his daughters and also seeing Hardwick Hall. I’m very lucky that they also enjoy history, so they were happy to tag along even though they had been before. 

My brother in law lives about a 15 minutes drive from Hardwick Hall so he was content to meet us there and catch up over 16th century tapestries. One of the things I find most fascinating about this house and its location is the fact that the original building known as Hardwick Old Hall sits just feet from the “new” Hardwick Hall. Hardwick Old Hall stands in ruin but once upon a time the two great buildings stood intact and proudly next to one another. Imagine the view as you came up the long drive to see these two towering, magnificent sandstone buildings taking up the landscape.

Hardwick Old Hall to the right and Hardwick Hall to the left- they are so close to one another

 A little history about Bess of Hardwick and her gorgeous house. Bess, the Countess of Shrewsbury was 4 times married gaining wealth and titles with each one. She was a shrewd business woman and by all accounts formidable. Her second marriage to Sir William Cavendish was one of her most important in the fact that it served as a stepping stone to her eventual great wealth and social standing. It is through this marriage that she gained some financial independence of her own. She convinced her husband to buy land in Derbyshire in both of their names thereby securing her rights to the land upon her husband’s death keeping the Crown’s dirty little paws off of it. 

Portrait of Bess in the Great Hall at Hardwick Hall

Through her marriage to William she also became attached to another very grand manor house in Derbyshire: Chatsworth House. (I will link my previous blog post about Chatsworth House HERE- but many of you will be familiar with it’s current incarnation as being the home of Mr. Darcy from the 2005 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice). William and Bess were the builders of that glorious original Elizabethan house which I’m sad to say no longer exists. One of Bess’s descendants demolished the house and built the late 17th century home we see today.  Paintings of the original Chatsworth House resemble Hardwick Hall quite a bit. Clearly she cut her teeth on Chatsworth first. 

Painting of the original Elizabethan Chatsworth House

Bess was a lucky woman in that all of her marriages, even her very tempestuous final one were relatively happy ones, which was not a common thing to find in the times when marriage was usually for political or financial gain. Each of her marriages brought her ever more wealth and power. It was her final marriage to the 6th Earl of Shrewsbury that prompted the construction of Hardwick Hall. In his later years the Earl was thought to have developed dementia and in his confused state banished Bess (his previously trusted and beloved wife) from Chatsworth- the home she built with her second husband, prodding her to purchase her childhood home from the estate of her no good brother James. Had the Earl not had his tantrum we may not have had one of the finest examples of Elizabethan architecture ever built. 

Those beautiful huge windows from inside

I just loved this bed

My favorite thing about Hardwick Hall are the tall windows. They glisten in the sunlight. Every wall has a “window”. Even rooms without an actual window have glass so that from the outside complete symmetry is achieved. Glass was one of the most expensive materials in the Tudor era (and probably always has been) so the sheer volume of glass at Hardwick Hall is the greatest indicator of the wealth that Bess had amassed by the time she had the house constructed. In Bess’s lifetime the Hardwick Old Hall was in excellent shape. I feel that she would have been devastated to know that one of her descendants purposely dismantled her childhood home that she painstakingly refurbished and used the materials from it to rebuild Chatsworth House, leaving just a shell in it’s place. 

Hardwick Old Hall

One of the most surprising things is how small Hardwick Hall felt once you’re inside. As large as it looks from outside the rooms are actually quite small. This is a reminder of how much shorter and smaller people were in this era. Bess herself was only 5’3”, an average height for a 16th and 17th century woman so the rooms would have seemed even more grand. Don’t get me wrong- this house is huge, with a total square feet of 33,953 square feet it is magnificent. Each of the 3 main floors is almost 10,000 square feet. Which leads me to believe that large parts of the hall are not open to visitors. I think what I mean when I say it feels small once you’re inside is that there are not many open spaces or sprawling rooms, so it feels a bit more cozy than your average historic building.

The grounds of Hardwick Hall are also stunning. Walled gardens with twittering birds, large open fields with freely roaming sheep and views for miles. We were lucky that it was a glorious spring day with sun, and no rain in sight.

Our day out at Hardwick Hall was just lovely, one of my fondest memories. Beautiful weather, wonderful company- just magical and I am so happy we were able to go. Thankfully it is never too far because family are just a stones throw away- it will never be more than a 40 minute drive, in fact we will only be a 28 minute drive this next trip- so perhaps we’ll see her again and maybe this time we’ll poke around the Old Hall.