Chatsworth House

The overnight snow looked magical today.

I went out early and took some nice birds in snow shots. Later, as the roads away from the main roads were a bit dodgy Lesley and I took an easy drive to Chatsworth. We were amazed how few people were there but it made it all that more special for us. It was like a real winter wonderland and it seemed that we were often the first footprints in the snow.

This classic view is of the house is over a frozen Canal pond and the Emperor fountain looking as majestic as ever.

The boring bit;       the Great Fountain, installed by the 1st Duke, was the highest in this country, the 6th Duke put Paxton’s engineering skills into action to create a new record-breaking gravity-fed fountain. When it became known that Czar Nicholas, Emperor of Russia, might visit Chatsworth the following year, 1844, the idea of welcoming the Czar with an even higher fountain than the one at Peterhof (the Czar’s palace in N.E. Russia), appealed to the Duke. Unfortunately the Czar died without visiting Chatsworth, but the new fountain was still named after him. It is on record as having reached the height of 90m (300ft). It is powered by the pressure of water dropping 122m, through a 40cm iron pipe.