Why You Need to Visit Beautiful Chatsworth House England

There's a farmyard, an adventure playground for kids.

And it houses one of Europe's most significant private art collections.

All right, get ready for this statistic.

It has been the home to 17 generations of the Devonshire family for nearly five centuries.

Five centuries, folks.

We're talking back into like the mid-1500s.

Each generation has definitely contributed something to the house, the gardens, the estate, the preservation, the art collections that you see today.

So it's kind of pieced together, each generation kind of making some contribution to hopefully the betterment of the house and its estate.

The Cavendish family is the family who it has belonged to, and it's been in the family since 1549.

1549, 1549, that's right.

Bess of Hardwick was the one who had the house built today in 1553 on the site, kind of the beginnings of it.

And it's right along the River Derwent.

It's D-E-R-W-E-N-T.

Nice little river kind of running right in front of it, if you will.

So it's been the seat of the Dukes of Devonshire for all this time.

But they weren't dukes at first.

They started off as earls.

Now, I'm not exactly sure what the whole distinction is, but I believe Duke's, if I remember correctly, Duke is a higher status than an Earl.

So somewhere around maybe the mid to late 1600s, they were elevated in status.

The house has 126 rooms.

with 100 of them being closed, closed to visitors.

So you can't visit most of them.

And that's because it's still very much a home of the current Duke and Duchess of Devonshire and the family.

They still live there.

So this is the 12th Duke, because remember, they would have been earls.