Christmas Post: Christmas at Chatsworth, Derbyshire

Although I’ve been to Chatsworth House once before – a scary amount of years ago – I’ve never been to their Christmas event and my friend suggested that we should do so for our annual Christmas trip. This year’s theme was The Enchanted Garden, focusing on the beauty and magic of the country in winter which included some interesting projections of fairies throughout the house, as well as beautifully decorated rooms and lots of Christmas trees.

We spent roughly 6 hours at the event, our first stop being the house itself. There were 20 rooms/areas decorated with beautiful, and in some cases very large, Christmas trees plus corridors with interesting sculptures. We probably spent about an hour to an hour and a half inside the house admiring the decorations – and waiting for that perfect shot – it was busy but we never really had to wait more than a few minutes before we could take a photo.

Then after a bite to eat and a hot chocolate we went out to explore the market. We were really impressed here by the number of stalls – over 50 – and the range of products from local British sellers – artwork, Christmas decorations, food, candles, lighting sculptures, all at mostly reasonable prices (there were a few outliers that made us raise our eyebrows!) Both of us managed to pick up presents both here and at the Chatsworth House gift shop.

From here it was getting dark so we headed to the light trail in the gardens. Having been to quite a few Christmas light tours over the years we thought this was just okay. It had some nice elements but the house was always going to be the star of the show.

We really enjoyed our time here and thought it was definitely value for money.

The Practicalities:

Our tickets cost £32.73 each. This included free parking, access to the house (a timed ticket for entrance), access to the market and the garden light trail, and also admission to the farmyard and playground but we weren’t interested in visiting them.

The house and garden trail is open until 4 January and as of writing there are still tickets available, weekdays more so than weekends.

The market finished on 14 December.

As an addendum, we decided to stay overnight in a nearby hotel rather than head to our respective homes late at night. We settled on the Peak Edge Hotel which was fantastic. Really quiet and welcoming with wonderful friendly staff and amazing food in the restaurant, both dinner and breakfast. Our twin bed superior room was £235 which included a full cooked breakfast plus continental options and they were fantastically accommodating of my friend’s gluten free requirements. The restaurant was beautifully decorated and whilst undoubtedly on the expensive side, we decided to splurge a little for Christmas.