“The most delightful valley, with the most pleasant garden, and most beautiful palace in the world.”

There is no Frigate like a Book…or, in today’s case, a needlework project… to take us Lands away.

Allow me to share my just-completed Riverdrift House counted cross stitch project featuring Chatsworth, one of England’s celebrated country houses. Besides being engaging to stitch, it proved a needed distraction from present circumstances by reminding me of one of the many interesting places I’ve had the good fortune to visit.

As you read, refer to this photo of the finished project and you’ll understand the symbolism cleverly worked into the design.

It all started in November 1985, when the teenaged Anglophile and her parents followed Princess Diana’s lead and went to Washington, D.C. to see The Treasure Houses of Britain: Five Hundred Years of Private Patronage and Art Collecting, an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art. Rooms in the gallery’s East Building recreated the best features of Great Britain’s famed country houses, such as paneled chambers with decorative plasterwork ceilings, long galleries crowded with ancestral portraits, sculpture-filled entrance halls, and libraries filled with rare books acquired to provide the 18th-century country gentleman with a classical education. Also on display were great works of art and possessions lent by the homes’ owners. Souvenirs from grand tours of Europe, furniture, sculptures, tapestries, portraits, porcelain, metalwork and more distilled the history of these remarkable family homes, the memorable sporting and social events they host, and the magnificent private collections they contain.

To remember this transfixing experience, I bought the exhibition poster featuring the 18th-century doll’s house from Nostell Priory, attributed to Thomas Chippendale. It’s still going strong, having graced my bedrooms, dorm rooms and basements; in fact, you can even spot it in the stock photography chosen to illustrate this 2017 All Sides with Ann Fisher program about information therapy.

I also bought a postcard of Laying Down the Law: Trial by Jury, Sir Edwin Landseer’s 1842 painting mocking the legal profession, that was lent by the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire from their home, Chatsworth.

The next summer, we took our own grand tour of English country houses, including Chatsworth.

Nestled in the picturesque Peak District dales of the county of Derbyshire, the Chatsworth estate encompasses 35,000 acres first owned by Sir William Cavendish. He and his wife, Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury (also known as Bess of Hardwick), the wealthiest and most powerful woman in England after her queen, Elizabeth I, built its house in 1552, situating it in a valley with a steep, wooded hill behind it and the River Derwent in front.

The Cavendishes became a prominent family, earning a peerage of England and the title of Duke of Devonshire. The family coat of arms includes three stag heads, a serpent, a crown and the motto Cavendo Tutus, or “Safe Through Caution.”

As the family’s status increased, subsequent improvements were made to Chatsworth, including additions to the home. A picturesque Cascade was constructed in an embankment, topped off with an elaborate water temple with a sculpture of a river god on its roof, a pair of nymphs holding pitchers, mythical winged creatures and dolphins. Water fed from a nine-acre reservoir high above runs down a series of 24 stone steps and slopes, each being different to produce varied sounds of falling water.

Legendary landscape designer Capability Brown was engaged in the 1760s to transform the original garden, turning formal terraces into natural slopes and lawns, introducing a picturesque lake and using invisible sunken fences, known as ha-ha‘s, to protect grazing sheep, deer and horses. James Paine added more features to the park in the 19th century, including bridges based on Italian prototypes.

An original 17th-century heated glasshouse still protects exotic plants, including a collection of 150 different species of prizewinning camellias. Celebrated 19th-century gardener Joseph Paxton designed and supervised at least 20 additional glasshouses for Chatsworth, some built specifically to house a collection of 240 species of orchids. Additionally, he propagated the Dwarf Cavendish variety of banana at Chatsworth. Paxton was also responsible for Chatsworth’s Emperor Fountain, which he built in 1844 in preparation for the visit of Czar Nicholas, who ended up canceling his trip to Chatsworth. Visible from miles away, the fountain features a column of water shooting 264 feet through the air, turned on and off by hand with a five-foot iron valve key.

Visitors to Chatsworth continue to delight in the estate’s features. “Nothing can be more surprising…than for a stranger coming from the north…and wandering or laboring to pass this difficult desert country, and seeing no end of it, and almost discouraged and beaten out with the fatigue of it, on a sudden the guide brings him to this precipice, where he looks down from a frightful height, and a comfortless barren and, as he thought, endless moor, into the most delightful valley, with the most pleasant garden, and most beautiful palace in the world….,”author Daniel Defoe wrote after his visit.

Other unique, important items acquired by the Cavendishes are on display. Georgiana Spencer, the first wife of the fifth Duke of Devonshire, collected minerals; she had a grotto made that was lined with stalactites, stalagmites and other finds from Derbyshire limestone caves. A sculpture gallery, designed in response to the passion for marble forms that a subsequent Duke of Devonshire acquired during his first visit to Italy in 1819, includes a colossal marble foot from the 2nd century BC/1st century AD. Other attractions include a trompe l’oeil painting of a violin on the inner central door of the State Music Room, and an exceptional piece by woodcarver Grinling Gibbons in the form of a lace cravat, and dead bird and a portrait medallion of the artist. The Painted Hall, with its marble floor, is the largest, grandest room in the house; it features painted murals showing scenes from the life of Julius Caesar.

During the 20th century, Chatsworth became synonymous with Deborah “Debo” Mitford, who married Lord Andrew Cavendish, younger son of the 10th Duke of Devonshire, in 1941. His older brother, William, Marquess of Hartington, married Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy, sister of the future President of the United States, in 1944 and was killed in action later that year. Lord Andrew became heir to the dukedom, and became the 11th duke in 1950. Debo took an active role in the restoration of the house and garden, wrote several books about Chatsworth, and developed its commercial endeavors, such as serving tea and cake at The Stables and hosting an annual Country Fair, represented on the sampler by hot air balloons and bunting. Debo even took turns selling tickets to visitors until her death in 2014.

Inspired by Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Ginger and Pickles, which Debo considered the best book on retailing ever written, Chatsworth turned its Orangery into a gift shop that has something to please everyone. Besides being stocked with standard tea towels, guidebooks, and reproductions of its signature porcelain Delftware tulip vases, the shop carries a line of knitted garments made from the wool of the sheep that graze in the park, products from its farm, and garden furniture sold at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show. We brought home two of the tin trays decorated with painted views of the house which have become famous silent advertisements for Chatsworth.

Another American connection to Chatsworth includes Fred Astaire’s sister and first dancing partner, Adele, who carried a bunch of orange carnations grown in the Chatsworth gardens when she married Lord Charles Cavendish in 1932. Adele and her husband lived at Lismore Castle, the Devonshires’ home in County Waterford, Ireland until his death in 1944; she continued spending summers there until the end of her life.

For more, read The Treasure Houses of Britain: Five Hundred Years of Private Patronage and Art Collecting; Chatsworth: The Derbyshire Home of the Dukes of Devonshire; Chatsworth: The Home of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire; House Style: Five Centuries of Fashion at Chatsworth, by Laura Burlington and Hamish Bowles; “Through the Glass Wall,” in the January 25, 2017 issue of Country Life magazine; and The Flower of Empire: An Amazonian Water Lily, the Quest to Make It Bloom, and the World It Created, by Tatiana Holway. Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire’s books include The House: Living at Chatsworth; The Garden at Chatsworth; Counting My Chickens And Other Home Thoughts; Wait For Me!: Memoirs of the Youngest Mitford Sister; and All In One Basket.