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Hardwick Hall: another ‘jolly’ from 2016 – Part One – Bess of Hardwick, a force to be reckoned with. I’m sharing this again because we are in lockdown…

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Hardwick Hall is a great Elizabethan House,

built to create and proclaim the impression - and fact - of great wealth  and status of a great woman,

Bess of Hardwick

Fine tapestries and decoration throughout (c) Jane Risdon 2016

who - four times married - became the most remarkable Elizabethan woman in England, next to the Queen herself.

Bess was born at Hardwick Hall, then a small manor house in the mid-1520s, her father was John Hardwick, a country squire who died when she was under a year old, leaving his family of five young children in reduced financial circumstances.

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Kedleston Hall, a grand house, parkland and pleasure grounds built to impress: another ‘jolly.’ Part One revisiting my post during lockdown.

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Drawing on the monuments of ancient Rome and the designs of the 16th century Italian architect Andrea Palladio, Robert Adam was chosen to be the architect 'resolved to spare no Expence, with £10,000 a year, Good Temper'd & having taste himself for the Arts.'

Adam set out to build a house that would rival Chatsworth.

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