Chatsworth Estate historic landscape survey

Chatsworth Park, Derbyshire : Medieval ridge and furrow in the foreground with Chatsworth House framed by Stand Wood on the east bank of the River Derwent. Extensive areas of Medieval and pre-enclosure field systems lie preserved in the Park. [Nicola Bannister]

A team of freelance researchers working with archaeologists from the Peak District National Park Authority and the Trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement began a four year Historic Landscape Survey to research and record the core of the Chatsworth Estate in Derbyshire (an area of 4,860ha spanning the valley of the River Derwent with the house at its centre). The survey (one of the last to be funded under EH's Survey Grants for Presentation Purposes Scheme) was undertaken to acquire an increased academic understanding of the Chatsworth Landscape, to develop an integrated approach to the conservation management of the historic landscape, and to produce integrated interpretative material on the evolution of the Estate. Archaeological features and extant structures, historic woodlands, extant field boundaries, and boundary furniture are being recorded. A detailed study of the designed landscape of the Park and gardens is being funded by a joint partnership between the Countryside Commission and the Chatsworth Estate and is running alongside the Historic Landscape Survey. Close liaison between the two surveys is achieved by continual exchange of information from the field and archive surveys to avoid duplication. The first year of the Landscape Survey covered the whole of the parkland (with in-bye land and moorland to be undertaken in subsequent years); detailed maps and catalogues are produced at the end of each season. The results of the entire project will be synthesized for the production of the final report.

Chatsworth Park, Derbys., A milltone grit gate post in the park wall bounding the Old Park. The date 1757 is engraved at the top.

The archaeological survey of the parkland has revealed extensive areas of medieval and post-medieval field systems and associated features, which predate emparkment (between the mid-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries). These give an extremely valuable record of agricultural landscapes, providing information on medieval cultivation strips and later enclosure. Three prehistoric barrows have also been identified in the park to the west of the river and complement those barrows already known in adjacent upland areas. The site of old Edensor, hollow-ways, millstone quarries on Dobb's Edge, pillow mounds, and a disused eighteenth-century turnpike demonstrate the variety of archaeological features recorded during the course of the survey.

The oldest extant stone wall was found to be the Park Pale of the Old Chatsworth Park to the south of the House, dividing Chatsworth from the Manor and parish of Beeley. Aligned over steep terrain, the wall contained numerous large orthostats and was over 1.5m in height in places. Further enclosures within the Park included the nineteenth-century field systems to the east of the House and the pasture fields to the west of Edensor, bounding the north west side of the Park. The latter field system contained not only one of the most complete sets of eighteenth and nineteenth-century field barns to be found in Derbyshire, but also numerous stone built water troughs of varying construction. Several of the field barns contain ashlar and patterned stone work which probably came from demolished buildings in old Edensor.