Hardwick Hall

"Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall": the old rhyme still says everything that matters at first sight. Close to the Derbyshire–Nottinghamshire border stands a tall, symmetrical block whose façades are almost all window, rising through three storeys to six rooftop pavilions whose parapets spell out the initials ES in openwork stone. At a time when glass was a costly luxury, the sheer area of it was a display of wealth, and to make room for the windows the chimneys were moved into the internal walls. Few Elizabethan buildings survive so unaltered, and few announce their builder so plainly.

The builder was Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury, known to history as Bess of Hardwick, each of whose four marriages left her richer, until she was the wealthiest woman in England after the Queen herself. She raised the new hall in 1590–1597 to designs by Robert Smythson, right beside the old house of her own family. That older building, Hardwick Old Hall, served afterwards for guests and servants and now stands next to the new one as a roofless ruin, and the contrast between the two, one broken and one almost untouched, is part of the pleasure of the place.

Inside, the plan is as innovative as the elevation: the great hall runs through the centre of the house rather than along its front, and each of the three main storeys has a higher ceiling than the one below, so that a broad winding stone staircase climbs to the grandest rooms at the top. The High Great Chamber, with its plaster frieze of hunting scenes, and one of the largest long galleries in England are hung with tapestries, and the house keeps an exceptional collection of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century embroideries, furniture and hangings, much of it recorded in an inventory of 1601 and many pieces bearing Bess's monogram. Her descendants, the Cavendishes and later the Dukes of Devonshire, kept the hall for centuries, and the philosopher Thomas Hobbes, a friend of the family since he first tutored a young William Cavendish in 1608, died here in 1679. Since 1959 it has been in the care of the National Trust.

Getting there

Hardwick lies close to junction 29 of the M1, about 13 km south-east of Chesterfield and some 6 km from Sutton in Ashfield; follow the brown signs from the motorway. The nearest railway station is Sutton Parkway, about 6 miles away, with Chesterfield station at a similar distance. East Midlands Airport (EMA) is about 38 km away.