Wait for Me!

by Deborah Devonshire

  In all the years I lived in Derbyshire, Andrew and I went out to dinner in private houses only four times; in each case it was to a dinner given by the High Sheriff for the High Court judges when on Circuit in the county, one of the duties of the holder of that ancient office. Other dinners – civic, charitable, annual celebrations for clubs and associations, from Rotary and WI to golf – came thick and fast, but they were not held in private houses. We had what could be described as a ‘full social life’, both in London and with friends in the country, and when at home there was already too much to do without going out to dinner. Once in every fifteen years was enough.

  One of these dinners stands out. It was at Calke Abbey, near Ticknall, in 1961 when Charles Harpur Crewe was High Sheriff of Derbyshire. Charles was a recluse who lived an intensely private life in an intensely private house, in his own little kingdom hidden in a vast park in the south of Derbyshire. The dinner for the judges must have been a huge effort for him. Owing to an engagement in London, Andrew could not come, so I went alone. Full of curiosity as to what I should find, I put on my best evening dress and settled into the car to be driven to Ticknall on a damp November night with the prospect of fog.

  After some forty miles, we reached the entrance to the park. There were no more white lines or cat’s eyes; the secret road was the same colour as the dead grass, and the oaks, stricken with age, seemed to threaten my invading car. The fog swirled round us as we crawled along the seemingly endless drive, skirting uncomfortably close to ponds and avoiding ghostly fallow deer on the narrow twists and turns. I thought we were lost when, round a corner, a dim light appeared. The curtains were drawn back on the ground and first floors of Calke Abbey and the rooms were lit only by candles, something I had never seen in a house of that size before; not even oil lamps reinforced the flickering flames. The judges must have thought they had arrived in a fairy story. I certainly did.

  I was led through the cold and stony hall, its walls decorated not with the usual antlers but with heads of Longhorn cattle, whose tapering horns nearly met over their muzzles and must have touched the ground when they had bent to graze, almost preventing their tongues from reaching the grass. How these cattle managed to eat I do not know. Our hosts consisted of Charles, his younger brother Henry and their sister Airmyne. The dining-room table was set with more candles – the only light in that high-ceilinged room, which I imagine had not been used for years. The first course was melon, followed by cold beef, then melon for pudding.

  After dinner Airmyne led the women guests back to the drawing room, leaving the men to their port. ‘Would you like to see Nanny?’ she whispered. I was flattered to be singled out for this honour and we set off up a magnificent flight of shallow, mahogany stairs, along a passage and through a bedroom door. I could just make out a tiny, ancient creature, curled up fast asleep in bed. Airmyne roused her. One eye opened and she just managed, ‘Good evening.’ We left her in peace and as we trekked back to the drawing room, Airmyne said, ‘She was the Kaiser’s Nanny’ (presumably nanny to the Kaiser’s son, Little Willie).

  Airmyne had been kicked in the head by a re-mount at the Melton Mowbray cavalry depot at the beginning of the Second World War and Henry told me that she had a silver plate in her skull. The wretched accident had affected her personality and she was never quite the same again. She lived for the animals who were her friends: her horses, dogs and poultry, including a goose. ‘Would you like to see the stables?’ she said. Of course I would, with Airmyne for guide, but the judges were in court the next day and the fog was thickening. We returned to the drawing room, had a last talk with the other guests and set off home after the strangest evening I can remember.

  Charles Harpur Crewe died suddenly in 1981. He was found in his beloved park, apparently setting mole traps. His brother Henry succeeded him and, in 1985, after complicated negotiations to raise the necessary capital endowment, he ceded Calke Abbey to the Treasury in settlement of death duties and it was handed to the National Trust. The house is now open and the Trust has tried its best to preserve the spirit of the late owners. The clutter that filled the house from hall to attic, including a remarkable collection of natural history objects accumulated over centuries, is still there, and the four-poster state bed – a wedding present to the Fifth Baronet and Lady Caroline Manners from Princess Anne, daughter of George II – has been unpacked. (It had been in its packing cases since it arrived from London in 1734.)

  Henry remained in a tiny part of the Abbey, which gave it a whiff of the past in the same way that Granny Evie did at Hardwick. Both ex-owners were treated as Exhibit A and visitors were thrilled to find them in situ. Henry gradually cast off his shyness and took to social life with enthusiasm. We met at all sorts of Derbyshire functions and his unexpected point of view on any subject was refreshing after what was often banal social chat. It was a joy to find him in Washington in 1985 when he accompanied the now-famous bed to the ‘Treasure Houses of Great Britain’ exhibition. I was with him when the art correspondents from serious American periodicals questioned him as to why the bed had never been unpacked. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he said, ‘I suppose they had something else to do.’ A friend who was also present reminded me how worried the curator looked when I said, ‘Do get into bed, Henry, just to show everyone that it is real.’ The Harpur Crewe siblings were the only true eccentrics I have ever met. They have all gone now and with them the mystery; in spite of the Trust’s best efforts, Calke Abbey is a lovely house containing an exhibition of curiosities but no Harpur Crewe among them.

  21

  Living Above the Shop

  I

  T IS A popular misconception that it was thanks to me that Chatsworth was ‘saved’. It is not so. When my father-in-law died and the near-lethal blow of death duties had to be faced, it was Andrew who was determined to keep Chatsworth independent. He turned down overtures from the V&A and Manchester University, who wanted to buy the house and its contents, and he chaired all the meetings that were held to decide how best to pay the bill. He wanted it to stay as it had always been without adding a zoo or safari park. He was proved right and people come to walk, run, talk, shout, play games, bring their dogs and their children, picnic anywhere, and do what they like (the only private area is the Old Park to the south of the house, where the deer have their fawns and calves undisturbed). I believe this freedom is one of the reasons that visitors love the place and I get letters from many people who tell me how peaceful and comforting they find Chatsworth. Even when there is a big crowd, you only have to walk a little way to be on your own, in tranquillity. The house itself has always drawn people, many of whom find it hard to believe that it could be anyone’s home; a few come to see the works of art; all come in search of beauty, indoors and out, and most seem to find it. I think that Andrew would have liked the public to see round the house for nothing, but he knew it was an impossible dream given the expense of its upkeep. In 1980, in order that Chatsworth could continue to be kept open to visitors, Andrew, Stoker and the family’s legal advisers created a charitable foundation, the Chatsworth House Trust, whose object is ‘the long-term preservation of Chatsworth for the benefit of the public’. An endowment fund was created from the sale of works of art from the private side of the house and from other family resources. The income from this trust fund goes towards the upkeep of the house, garden and park, which are the responsibility of the Council of Management of Chatsworth House Trust. (The first official position I had at Chatsworth was when I was invited to become a member of this council in 1981, thirty-one years after the death of my father-in-law.)

  Andrew had an instinct for what was right for the estates, and was always concerned for the people who worked at Chatsworth, as well as for its visitors. It was his idea, for example, to provide the much-used heated indoor swimming pool, tennis court and gymnasium for the staff. He insisted on a free car park at the south (Beeley) end of the park; he made access agreements with the local authorities for paths across the grouse m
oors, at Bolton Abbey as well as Chatsworth; and out of his own pocket, he provided electric buggies for the disabled to be able to drive on the paths through Chatsworth’s 105-acre garden, and also up to the Strid at Bolton Abbey. He was always looking for ways to ensure the survival of Chatsworth. When it was realized that we had many regular visitors – not just numbers in a survey but people who had become well known to our staff – Andrew suggested the ‘Friends of Chatsworth’ scheme and it has been a success. In 2001, when the house had to delay opening for three weeks because of the threat of foot and mouth disease, it was his idea to try to make up some of the deficit by keeping the house open till 23 December with the public route decorated for Christmas. I thought this would fail but I did as he asked and, thanks to the enthusiasm of the staff, it was – and is – a great draw, with people coming from all over the country to see it.

  My own involvement started with Dorothy Dean, our housekeeper from 1968 to 1981, who was the first person to realize that people wanted to take something home from Chatsworth, a souvenir to remind them of their visit. We talked about it and she set out guidebooks, postcards, playing cards, matches and bonbons on a trestle table in the Orangery, a lofty glass-roofed room in the north wing of the house, and, after working all morning with the cleaners, she changed her clothes from housekeeper to shopkeeper and stood behind the table. Sales rose steadily and in 1978 she reported that the takings from the Orangery and a small kiosk in the garden selling plants and ice cream had enabled her to bank £75,000 that season. The Orangery Shop was on its way. Philip Jebb designed stalls in the shape of bookcases, which stood in a circle in the middle of the room around the enormous marble copy of the Medici vase. It all looked very pretty, but the space was almost immediately too small and the stalls were moved against the walls to make more room.

  I loved the shop and often served behind the counter. I was so interested in what people wanted and why – shades of Muv’s ambition to be the woman behind the till in a French restaurant. We printed better guidebooks, improved our range of postcards, laid in stocks of the ubiquitous tea towels, and out they all flew. We ordered various items with pictures of the house and its contents, an expensive outlay that took some persuading of the Management, of which I was not yet a part. The tinware, our most successful line, generated cash like nothing else. Why? Because the trays, bowls and tea-caddies were pretty, eye-catching, useful and were decorated with views of the house, painted by the artist Patricia Machin. The only drawback was the number we had to order at a time – the minimum quantity for trays, for example, was 20,000 – but each one we sold was a silent advertisement for Chatsworth, and worth far more to us than just their cash value. The trays became quite famous and sold through the General Trading Company and other London outlets; today they turn up in antique shops at many times their original price.

  We introduced a line of knitted garments made from the wool of the Jacob Sheep that grazed in the park. People were intrigued by these four-horned creatures (even the ewes sport this decoration) and snapped up the brown-and-cream coloured jerseys, hats, scarves and gloves until demand exceeded supply. One of the knitters became so obsessed with her work, knitting all day and most of the night, that she lost track of the patterns. Garments of the strangest proportions appeared, either too long or too short or with sleeves a mile long and little else. She was a ‘case’ and I knew that if we stopped taking her work, it might tip her over the edge, so we gave up the hand-knitted garments and turned to other wares.

  We commissioned porcelain manufacturers to make a few items of exceptional quality, also decorated with pictures of the house, and expensive reproductions of seventeenth-century delftware tulip vases at Chatsworth. While these were still for sale they provided high-quality decoration for the shop and even though they were the most expensive items, they did eventually go (you have to sell many postcards to generate the same turnover). At the other end of the scale, for ten pence children could buy colouring-in sheets showing scenes of Chatsworth and the Duchess of Devonshire’s Ball of 1897. In a quiet way the Orangery Shop became well known and in 1983 we engaged a professional manageress. For some years I went to the Birmingham and Harrogate gift fairs, but I soon discovered that our trusted buyers, sisters Sue and Jane Brindley, liked the same things as I did, so I gave up, knowing their eyes would work better than mine.

  In the 1960s and early 70s, I received many letters from teachers asking for information to give to their pupils about our farms and woods. The teachers themselves were often ignorant about farming practices, knowing little about the use of common arable crops, for example, let alone about the animals they saw out of the bus window. I was aware of the growing division between town and country and wanted to do something about it. We thought long and hard and decided to convert the disused building-yard near the house into a farmyard, so that children could see cattle, sheep and free-range hens close up – just the opposite of a safari park.

  When the educational Farmyard became reality and not just a dream, it grabbed my attention as a new baby would have done and I spent hours there, trying to get it all right. I feel pleased that today about 200,000 people, mostly children, come to enjoy and, I hope, to learn from it every year. It was not designed to be a collection of pets but to show the unsentimental facts about the life cycle of commercial farm stock. Life-size diagrams of butchers’ cuts are pinned up in the pigsties and cattle yard, in case there is any doubt as to the animals’ fate.

  The Farmyard opened in 1973 with pigs, goats and a Shire horse, as well as the unavoidable lavatories and tea shop. Before tractors, Shires were the only source of power on the land (except for steam engines that did the threshing before combine harvesters took over) and Andrew’s grandfather’s stud was famous. There is great excitement when our Shire mare is about to foal; she has obliged several times with a daytime birth and this is watched with fascination by all. The daily highlight, however, is the milking demonstration. The cows are milked, one at a time and sideways on – the better to show the operation – in front of an incredulous young audience. Watching the children watching the milking is better than any theatre; they remain riveted to the spot until a teacher or parent insists on moving them on. I asked one little boy from a school in the middle of Sheffield what he thought of this performance. ‘It’s the most disgustin’ thing I’ve ever seen,’ he said, vowing never to touch milk again.

  We began to hold Open Days in the park for children and teachers. The men from Elm Tree Farm, an arable farm seventeen miles from Chatsworth, brought bundles of half-grown wheat, barley, oilseed rape and potatoes. Few teachers and even fewer children could guess from the leaves which crop was which. The keepers from Chatsworth brought their dogs, guns and a batch of pheasant chicks with their surrogate mothers: broody hens. There were displays of clay-pigeon shooting; some of the teachers tried their hand at it (against the law now, no doubt) and I imagine some of the children would have liked to have a go too – at the teachers. Shepherds and their sheepdogs showed off their skills; it was before One Man and his Dog had become so popular on television, but our audience loved it. Foresters were there to explain that trees are a crop and, like other crops, have to be planted, weeded, thinned and eventually harvested – in other words cut down. ‘What? You cut down trees?’ said a furious teacher, who had been brought up to think it a crime. The children were interested in the giant saws and watched David Robinson, a born teacher himself, climbing a tree in the harness used by tree surgeons. Afterwards, teachers and children all piled into their buses and back to their built-up surroundings, but we hoped that a little of what they had seen had rubbed off. I felt that if they understood that the very grass they walked on was a crop, then we had gone a little way towards explaining the use of the land.

  If the aim of the Farmyard was educational, the aim of the Farm Shop was purely commercial. Agriculture was in the dumps and I feared for the future of the in-hand farm at Chatsworth and for the men who worked on it. Both were an integral pa
rt of the whole. The idea of a farm shop came to me during the Royal Smithfield Club’s conference in Buxton in 1972; I was listening to the farmers and butchers and it occurred to me that selling our farm produce direct to the public might help change the farm accounts from red to black. This was long before the public at large had started taking an interest in local food, but instinct told me that the same people who came to Chatsworth to walk in the fresh air and enjoy the glorious landscape would also be attracted by the idea of buying beef and lamb straight from our farm. No doubt too in the back of my mind were memories of Muv’s poultry farm of long ago, of her passion for fresh, wholesome fare, and Uncle Geoffrey’s campaign for ‘unmurdered food – nothing added and nothing taken away’. The Smithfield farmers and butchers, acknowledged experts in the livestock and meat for which these islands are renowned, not only became lasting friends but were also generous with their advice. ‘You’ll sell all the fillet steak and be left with the forequarters,’ they cautioned, and warned of other pitfalls of the trade that they had learned the hard way.

  I presented my idea to the Trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement, who did not take me seriously. It was depressing to be met with a no. After years of death duties and debts, the estate office staff seemed to be suffering from inertia; ‘anything for a quiet life’ was their motto and new ideas were looked on with suspicion. ‘We are an agricultural estate,’ the land agent explained to me, ‘with village property, minerals and woods, and that is what we understand. We have no experience in retailing food.’ I was aware of all this but did not give up. I knew that nostalgia for the past was a big attraction for the visitors who came to the house and that the same ‘feel’ would entice people to a farm shop. Tears at home and arguments elsewhere eventually won the day and we set about getting planning permission.