London Day 2: Trekking to Chatsworth House and Gardens in search of Mr. Darcy

Day two began with a surprise: I woke up to my alarm. Usually on trips with bigger time zone changes I tend to wake up super early, which is part of why I planned this adventure for our first day in.

However, dinner at Dishoom must have lulled me into a great sleep, because at 6:ooam my alarm went off and it was time to get up and make my way to the train station for a day trip to Chatsworth House and Gardens.

Chatsworth House is a famous Manor house originally owned by Dukes (now owned by the national trust and rented out to the Duke which is why we get to wander around it).

It has incredible art, lush and vivacious gardens, ornate furniture, and… it’s where they filmed the Pemberly scenes from the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice starring Kiera Nightly and Mathew MacFayden.

My friend and I ended up on this trip together because she wanted to do an English garden tour, and I wanted to visit some Jane Austen sites, and they happen to be a lot of the same places. So this begins the official Jane Austen Garden Tour.

Firstly, getting to Chatsworth House from London by public transportation is a bit of a feat. Thank you to Reddit for supplying the answers, and I’m so relieved you all were right.

Wd started the morning taking the Tube to St. Pancras station, which we both keep accidentally calling St Pancreas station which is now burned in my brain.

Some trains for the fans:

Ok, one train pic, and one pic of me on the train with my breakfast. Sorry train fans, I thought I took more.

There was a French shop in the train station that sold brioche, coffee, and Merveilleux; these delightful little bite sized desserts that we had in Paris and melt in your mouth. If you’re in St Pancras international station, definitely drop by Aux Merveilleux de Fred, which across from Laduree.

We made our train and headed out to Chesterfield, where we caught a public bus that wound through some adorable countryside until it dropped us off at the parking lot for Chatsworth House. The journey was about 3 hrs, but was easy, comfortable, and full of fields of sheep.

Currently, you have to pre buy tickets with a designated time slot, but they let us skip in 20 mins early.

Also, it started to pour rain.

Something that is really great about Chatsworth House is that each room has a monitor, and if you ignore them, they will ignore you, but if you ask a question they will light up like a Christmas tree and give you amazing information, including colorful stories about the house and family.

We particularly liked Gary who greeted us at the front entrance, and we also later saw in various rooms (he had the best funny stories), but they were all amazing. Seriously, if you go, spend some time chatting with them.

We started in the house as we were cold and wet, and it is truly stunning.

As you can see from the pics, we were not the only people there, but it wasn’t as crowded as you’d expect. One of the monitors told us it’s relatively quiet until the school holiday begins (next week).

The romp around the house ends in the famous sculpture room. This is the room in the movie where Elizabeth looks around and us like, “aww, man. I made a mistake. I could have owned all these sculptures!!!”

The real Duke and Duchess would entertain in the dinging room, lead people out through the sculpture gallery, which was connected to the orangery so you’d have the lovely smell of oranges as you look at the sculptures. Now the orangery is a gift shop. Which I guess was also nice…

The gift shop actually was a really good gift shop. There is something there for everyone, including a little something I picked up for my sister.

Also, this is the bust they created of Mr. Darcy for the movie.

I found him!

At this point our tummies were grumbling, and it was time for a lunch break before walking the grounds. We bought umbrellas in the gift shop, which meant it didn’t rain the rest of the day.

There are a few lovely choices for lunch. Including a cafe, a nice restaurant, and a cafeteria style place. We went to the cafeteria as it was fast, and had soup and rolls. It was actually really good for what it was. I recommend

The restaurants are in a courtyard that used to be the stables.

After lunch, it was time to enjoy the extensive grounds, including greenhouses, fountains, grottos, and a maze.

After our wandering, it was almost time to catch our bus. But first, we (I) wanted to visit the sheep wandering in front of the manor.

Do you all know that I love sheep…

Bottoms? I love sheep bottoms. So cute.

With thought we caught our bus, so we could catch our train, so we could stop at Laduree (I just make it out without a macaron)

And with that it was 8pm and time for dinner. We asked a clerk in a shop where they would recommend going for dinner, and they recommended Dishoom. Not helpful.

A quick google search led us to Roti King for some Malaysian food. The line was out the door, but we waited, got to know our neighbors, and the food was well worth it.