Chatsworth House

If you've ever seen Pride and Prejudice, you'll recognize Chatsworth House. I can never quite get over how fantastic it is to actually be at these places that just seem like fairytale movie sets. The Duke and Duchess of Devonshire have the difficult responsibility of owning about a half dozen of these places- including Lismore Castle that we visited in Ireland. Tough Life.

Nearby Chesterfield had this unique twisted church steeple. Word is they built it with green wood that warped when it dried. The city decided to keep the flawed structure to help put the town on the map.

At Chatsworth, we started our day by perusing the auction tents. They had cleared a bunch of things out of the attics of their properties and Sotheby's set up the auction. It cost 30 pounds just to get in and get a catalog- but worth it for the experience. There must have been a hundred Sotheby workers smiling at you at every turn. What their smile really meant was - you don't look very rich so don't touch anything... and why did you bring those swine children with you?!?

It was a really neat viewing. The girls were perfectly behaved and loved flipping tags to see the 'estimated' selling price. We then marked items in the book so Lana could bid online during the auction on Wednesday. (Turns out the silver set we liked with estimated price of 200 pounds had an opening bid of 1,400. We had to pass. It seems like they must have done well with the auction though.)

Here is a view of the port-a-potties at the auction site - the only thing I was allowed to take a picture of. I've never seen quite so nice a portable toilet. The exterior ever had curtains skirting around the bottom so you couldn't see the wheels. I suppose if you're going to drop a couple grand for a silver platter, that is what you expect.

The gardens and views were fantastic too. Various modern sculptures were on display and the girls liked reenacting the Terracotta Army pose on the cascade fountain.

The inside was great, as are most of these castle/houses.

The snake is some sort of family emblem. I thought this baby carriage with wrap-around snakes to keep the baby in was a bit much though.

This room instantly reminded us of Grandma Brooks. You don't need to just put plates on shelves, you can hang them over every square inch should you be so inclined.

We can only dream of a table spread like that. (And a room big enough for the table)

What a fab collection of keys!

We ended at the farm and adventure playground. Watching a milking demonstration was fun, but the pigs really caught our interest. The Duke and Duchess sell all their farm wares at a shop a few miles away, so it was neat to 'see where that bacon comes from'.

The adventure playground was 'too boring' until Lana suggested they pretend fallen leaves were bombs or something like that. They apparently liked the idea, as we were left in peace until it was time to leave 45 minutes later. As we gathered them up it became apparent we watched as 2 Jr. terrorists planted leaf-bombs around the base of every support beam before leaving... not sure if it was a good 'play' activity after all.