Press coverage 2
The concrete bleakness of Derby station, where I arrived for a compressed version of their four day tour, could not have been more at odds with the gracious living that Britain’s great houses personify. But once Chichester-Clark’s BMW station wagon had carried us into the open countryside, I found myself in a county of unexpected wild beauty. For the next two days, the 21st century would hardly impinge on us.
Oour first stop was Kedleston hall, the stupendous neoclassical palace created by the young Robert Adam for the Curzon family. Gazing form the portico across sunny parkland and a series of ornamental lakes, we were treated to a vision of English pastoralism that George Nathaniel Curzon must have dreamt of during the six febrile years he spent as Viceroy of India.
Now owned by the National Trust, Kedleston was closed to the public on the day of my visit. But Hurt and Chichester-Clark pride themselves on being able to open doors, and so I was ushered up the heroic front steps by the late viceroy’s great nephew, Richard Curzon, who lives in the east wing. A nattily dressed figure in his late thirties, with an aquiline nose and an engaging manner, he looks as if he should have been painted as a devil-may-care hussars playing cards on the eve of Waterloo.
As we strolled around the house, from the breathtaking marble entrance hall to the ethereal saloon with its 62ft coffered dome, it became clear that his knowledge of Kedleston is encyclopedic. But it was not this alone that set our tour apart; snobbish as this may sound, the sense of history provided by a guide whose ancestors line the walls above you cannot be underestimated. Nowhere was this stronger than in Kedleston’s 13th century church, where every single effigy and inscription relates to a member of the Curzon family.
From Kedleston we drove to the idyllic village of Tissington in search of Sir Richard Fitzherbert. We found him in shirtsleeves and heavy boots, preparing to water the tiered garden that rises, with a gorgeous profusion of roses, behind the house, “My family built this place in 1609, and we’ve been here ever since,”he said. “I’m the ugly mug who happens to live here at the moment.”
As he wielded a rusty watering can he made no secret of the financial struggle involved in running what he calls “a middle-sized stately”.
