It would be impossible to find two houses more dissimilar than Chatsworth and Haddon. Chatsworth is—although the building was begun as far back as 1687—comparatively modern of aspect; none would guess its age as more than fifty years. The stone is lightly coloured, the window frames are gilded, and in certain lights the Palace of the Peak suggests a well-preserved matron who intends always to guard carefully against any signs of the oncoming of age. It is tranquil and perhaps somnolent, a house where one cannot believe that anything of real note has ever happened. Somewhere there is a picture, dim and faded, of the house built by Sir William Cavendish, second husband of Bess of Hardwick; this is stern, forbidding, and one is glad that it stands no longer in this happy valley.
Old Chatsworth, however, was not without its admirers. Charles Cotton wrote:—
“Cross the court, thro’ a fine portico,
Into the body of the house you go:
But here I may not dare to go about,
To give account of everything throughout.
The lofty hall, staircases, galleries,
Lodgments, apartments, closets, offices,
And rooms of state, for should I undertake,
To show what ’tis doth them so glorious make,