When thinking of Chatsworth, only such words as magnificent, elegant, grandiose, lavish.. and so on come to my mind. But then please, is there a walled garden? A vegetable garden? A cutting flower garden? Not that these couldn’t be elegant or magnificent but well, I know you know what I mean. And yes, there is, all of the above. And that’s exactly where I spent 95% of my first time ever at Chatsworth.

I almost went to Chatsworth in the Summer when I was in the area but the harsh Summer sunshine and heat just put me off. This time, I got soaked. I was locking my car thinking, shall I take my rain jacket? Hm .. So my photos are quite limited due to the fact that my camera (or my cardigan for that matter) is not waterproof.

At the garden entrance (of course I only bought a ticket to see the gardens, the house will have to wait) a a very friendly member of staff gave me a detailed map of the statues in the garden and I almost said to him, please, please, keep it, just point me to the direction of the kitchen garden. I’ve been following Becky Crowley, the super-talented flower grower of Chatsworth, on Instagram for quite a while now so seeing the gardens almost felt familiar. It’s such a shame she was on holiday as I would have loved to meet her but I’m sure I’ll be back very soon. Until then, here are some of the images I took that day.

By this time the rain was quite heavy. My final rain shelter was the first Duke’s Greenhouse, that was also a very inspirational space, I loved it a lot.