Wait for Me!

by Deborah Devonshire

  Andrew wanted the winter months when the house was closed to be quiet, so the only suitable building was the Stud Farm at nearby Pilsley, which was built in 1910 for Victor Duke’s Shire horse stallions. Planning permission seemed to take for ever but finally, in 1976, we were granted permission to market produce from the Chatsworth farm and from our tenant farmers. We were allowed to sell freezer packs of meat only, the smallest quantity of beef being one-eighth of a beast, and half of a pig or lamb. We made sausages in a second-hand machine, sold game, including venison, in season, and the arable farm supplied potatoes and flour.

  I wanted the shop to be the opposite of a shiny, American-style supermarket with wire shelving and to look like a rough and ready farm outbuilding, with shelves of thick wooden planks and as little metal as possible. Refrigerators do not make tempting showcases, but we had to have some (more is the pity) and I wanted the service to be human and friendly. All went well for a time, then demand dropped, the shop began to lose money and the Trustees said it would have to close unless it turned to profit within a few months. It was saved by Jean-Pierre Béraud, the whirlwind French chef who came to cook at Chatsworth in 1978 and who took over the Farm Shop in 1984.

  Jean-Pierre was a born entrepreneur as well as a marvellous chef, but putting him in charge was something of a risk as he could speak little English, did not know the difference between a pound and a kilo and once told me that he had sacked a waitress because he could see from the way she walked that she was no good. He used to storm into my room without warning and sound off loud criticisms of the estate office and anyone who stood in his path. But Chatsworth, and I, never had a better friend. He rescued the dying Farm Shop by installing a kitchen and selling cooked (value-added) food and soon made his presence felt further afield. Cooking demonstrations have become popular and we recently had a visit from Claire Macdonald from the Isle of Skye. She has a glowing reputation as a cook and is a first-rate demonstrator. To the surprise of our audience, she was generous with the double cream and there were mutterings about health risks and cost. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘they sell skimmed milk in my supermarket but I couldn’t look a cow in the face if I bought that.’ Excellent woman.

  If I say the Chatsworth Farm Shop was the first of its kind, I shall get a hundred letters saying, ‘No, we were’, but it was certainly ahead of the game and is still a leading player. In 2004, the year of Andrew’s death, it employed 48 full-time and 52 part-time staff, the turnover was just short of £5 million and it had won many awards. The Farm Shop, like the Orangery, slowly changed from a cottage industry to a serious business, thereby losing much of its charm for me. I prefer the WI way of people making jam, marmalade, bread and cakes in their own kitchens, supplying eggs from their own hens, and knitting garments from a herd of Jacob Sheep. I despair at the current regimentation, the wild rules over hygiene and the insidious and, to my mind, dishonest practice of ‘Own Label’, which gives the false impression that goods are made on the premises when in fact they come from a factory that supplies the same product to many other shops. There seems to be no way of going back to giving real food, made by real people, to the public on a large scale; it is thought to be too dangerous.

  Until 1975, the catering at Chatsworth was a cold water tap by the lodge, now relabelled ‘Water for Dogs’. I tentatively suggested to Dennis Fisher, the comptroller, that we should try to offer something more like tea to our visitors. He answered that it would be unpopular with the owners of the tea shops in nearby villages, who relied on the custom of our visitors. And, anyhow, where would we put it? I retreated, but demand was persistent and I eventually made an amateurish attempt to please visitors by persuading some of the local ladies to serve tea, coffee and cake in the stables, where the customers were squashed together in the old horse stalls, perched on iron-hard benches. It pleased nobody and we had to do better. Jean-Pierre came to the rescue again; we invested in some second-hand equipment and he and his staff set up their kitchen underneath the hayracks. Jean-Pierre never allowed anything to be fried, so we were spared the High Street smells, and I am happy to say his edict still holds.

  The ever-higher expectations of our visitors began to make us look for a way to expand the restaurant and in 1986 Philip Jebb produced plans for a new building incorporating the old game larder, which was built in 1910 to hang pheasants and was a short distance from the entrance to the house. Two designs were submitted to the planners, but neither suited them, so Jean-Pierre, Bob Getty (the clerk of works), Derrick Penrose (the land agent) and I went to plead our case to the Royal Fine Art Commission, chaired by our old friend Norman St John-Stevas. It was an odd experience. We were not asked to sit down, so we stood like children awaiting a beating from the headmaster. And we got it: permission was refused. ‘Have another look at the stable block,’ they said. Andrew and I were angry with all concerned, and I still have the formal typed letter from Lord St John refusing us permission. (At the bottom, out of sight of the typist, he has added ‘With love from Norman’ and three kisses.)

  The stable block at Chatsworth was designed in about 1760 by the architect James Paine for the Fourth Duke of Devonshire. Philip, Jean-Pierre, Bob and I explored every nook and cranny of this magnificent building, from the blacksmith’s shop and brew house to the horse stalls, loose boxes and harness room. The Victorian carriage house, added by the Sixth Duke in the 1830s, was a possibility but did not look inviting: it was being used as a garage and housed all sorts of cars and clutter, including the Yellow Peril, Victor Duke’s 1914 Humber. There was a glass-roofed area where cars were washed, and the pools of oil on the floor in the main building reminded me of Rutland Gate Mews. It took a great deal of imagination to picture what it could become, but my colleagues had that ability in spades and when we were satisfied that we had solved all practical difficulties regarding the kitchens, cold rooms, prep rooms, washing up, heating, lighting, lavatories, delivery space and rubbish disposal, we put in for planning permission again. This time it was granted.

  The arches of the covered ride, originally an exercise track for the horses in bad weather, were glazed in so people could sit and eat in comfort. Heavy chains were hung between the pillars to stop too many noses being broken on the new glass. Bobby Jones, far and away the most skilled in his profession, tiled the walls of the ladies’ lavatories with camellias and the gents’ with horses. It won a Loo of the Year award and Jean-Pierre and I went to London to receive it from a minister, which we found very pleasing. I had to admit the planners were right: the stables would never again be neglected, their new role was too important for the comfort of our visitors. The conversion of the Carriage House Restaurant was finished to our entire satisfaction in 1991, a year ahead of schedule and within budget. Swallowing what was left of our pride, we asked Lord St John to open it.

  The Peacock Inn in Baslow – so called because it had once belonged to the Duke of Rutland whose family emblem is a peacock – came in-hand in 1972. It was run down and needed a complete overhaul. The Chatsworth Trustees decided to invest in its long-term future and Philip Jebb was invited to redesign the hotel so that the bedrooms should all face south over the home farm. I worked closely with him and, when the time came, it was my responsibility to oversee the decoration and furnishing, which I did with pleasure, using furniture in store at Chatsworth. Perhaps I was given the job because I had done up Chatsworth itself when we went to live there and was thought capable, and perhaps also because I did not cost the Trustees a penny. Had I not done it, they would have had to employ a professional decorator, which would have been a shock to their system. (When we added ten new bedrooms to the inn, in 1986, there was more budget trouble, and I had to go for the cheapest materials scoured from wholesale shops north of Oxford Street.) Eric Marsh took the lease when it opened in 1975 as the Cavendish Hotel and he still runs it thirty-five years later. Under his aegis the hotel has thrived, largely patronized by people who come to see Chatsworth.

  The enlargement of the Devonshire Arm
s at Bolton Abbey in 1982 was a bigger project and produced an unexpected bonus for me, Chatsworth and, I hope, for John and Christine Thompson. Christine was one of three people who answered my advertisement for someone to make the soft furnishings. The applicants brought samples of their work to the interviews and hers were the best. She carried out the job to everyone’s satisfaction, on time and on budget, and a few months after the hotel was finished, I got a letter from Christine saying that if we needed four willing hands at Chatsworth – John Thompson was a French polisher and could turn his hand to anything – they would be interested. ‘I’m thirty-five years old and I’ll work for you for twenty-five years, then I’ll retire,’ said Christine. A woman of her word, that is what happened – except that she and John completed twenty-six years.

  In 1980 Andrew got a letter from Tom Harvey, an old friend who lived in Norfolk, whose wife, Mary Coke, a daughter of Lord Leicester, had been brought up at Holkham Hall. Tom said that the Country Fair at Holkham was extremely successful and suggested that we should hold one along the same lines at Chatsworth. Andrew passed me Tom’s letter, saying, ‘This is more up your street than mine.’ Tom introduced me to Andrew Cuthbert, who was in charge of the team of volunteers who ran the Fair, and my Andrew agreed to give it a try. When our first Country Fair opened the next year there was something for everyone. You could buy gumboots, gloves, garlic and guns, fishing tackle, ferrets, fudge and frocks from the best shops from all over the country. In successive years there were massed pipe and military bands from the Household Cavalry, the Gurkhas, and the Royal Horse Artillery with their horse-drawn gun carriages, as well as terrier and ferret racing, clay-pigeon shooting, archery and sheepdog trials.

  The Fair was a success from the start and has become an increasingly popular annual event. Its appeal is twofold: it attracts people from the industrial conurbations surrounding Chatsworth, as well as country people who enjoy fishing, shooting and hunting; and it is a rendezvous for those whose livelihoods depend on country sports. Andrew Cuthbert, who retired in 2002, was indefatigable. I used to look out of my window at daybreak and see him, hours before anyone else turned up, marking out the positions of the various tents and tracks. Thanks to him and his team of Red Socks (worn for instant identification) the Country Fair not only makes a major financial contribution to the upkeep of Chatsworth but also creates an immeasurable dollop of goodwill between Chatsworth and its public.

  In 1956 we had followed Badminton and Burghley in staging annual horse trials in the park. Horse trials had become so popular and their calendar so crowded that a date was difficult to find, but early October was eventually chosen. The competitors and spectators loved the course, with its steep hills and turf that had never been ploughed, and all went well till 1988 when, at the end of the first day, a mighty storm devastated the tents and the ground was flooded. Dragging out the heavy vehicles ruined the look of the park and, as it was so late in the year, it took many months for the ground to recover. Regretfully the trials were cancelled, but in 1999 Stoker’s wife, Amanda, who is devoted to the sport, reinstated them, the same year she won the three-day event at Badminton with Jaybee, ridden by Ian Stark. With Amanda’s experience and support to ensure its success, this event now takes place at Chatsworth in May and once again horse-trial followers come to enjoy this demanding test of horse and rider.

  In the early 1980s my friend the designer David Mlinaric told me that several of his clients had been looking without success for classic garden furniture of the kind found in old established gardens. There were several highly skilled joiners at Chatsworth, as well as the enthusiastic Bob Getty, so we thought we would try our hand at making some. Many of the models sought after by the new generation of garden owners were to be found in J. P. White’s early twentieth-century Catalogue of Garden Furniture. We chose a selection of sturdy, unassuming benches, which would look good in gardens from Northumberland to Cornwall, and took a stand at the annual RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

  I loved selling and for each of the twenty-one years that we went to Chelsea, I was on our stall Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and got to know the showground, exhibitors and organizers well. Garden designers favoured our products and we exported them to the United States, France, Switzerland and Ireland. Our carpenters’ workmanship was second to none and we soon had designs of our own, some copied from seats at Chatsworth and one from the popular wheelbarrow seat at Mount Congreve, reproduced with the permission of Ambrose Congreve, whose County Waterford garden has a grove of pink magnolias as tall as forest trees.

  The largest seat of all was the ‘Chiswick’, a faithful copy of what must surely have been a William Kent design for Chiswick Villa. Copies by new manufacturers, light-heartedly named the ‘Lutyens’, are flimsy ghosts of the real thing. The Kent design was a much sturdier, long-lasting version of extreme beauty with rounded arms and slatted back. Our best sellers were classic plant tubs with fibreglass linings to hold large shrubs. We also did well meeting the revived fashion for wooden lavatory seats, whose middles we made into cheeseboards. We supplemented these products with items from the Orangery Shop. The Chatsworth tin trays flew off the stand – handing them over was like feeding the birds. The shop staff from Chatsworth came to help, as did Bob Getty and Wendy Coleman from the building-yard office. Alan Shimwell was invaluable, carrying boxes of trays from the car park till the string nearly cut off his fingers.

  One year our stand was opposite a sandwich bar and a trail of old women, seeing somewhere to sit at last, plonked themselves down on our expensive benches, making it impossible for customers to look, measure and ponder. I had not the heart to move them on, but I was pleased that the sandwich bar had gone the following year. Nicko Henderson came to help on the stall, giving the Chatsworth staff a chance to go round the show. He put on the blue apron, tied at the neck and waist, which we all wore. Several people who had served under him in one or other of his embassies glanced at the tall figure in the apron, could not believe their eyes, walked on, came back to make sure and, still astonished, stayed for a chat. He was a brilliant salesman, but when we checked the pockets of his apron at the end of the day, his inexperience as a shop assistant was exposed and we found hundreds of pounds of forgotten tray money in notes and coins that he had thrown with his apron into the laundry pile as he left.

  It is pleasing to look back at our successes, but there were failures as well. Chatsworth Food, a company selling jams, chutneys, biscuits and cakes, which were supposed to make Chatsworth’s fortune, was a dismal flop. The management was useless and it quickly went out of business. One good thing came out of it for me, however: Helen Marchant. I did not have a secretary till 1986, when the secretary for Chatsworth Food worked part-time for me. By then the piles of paper on the floor of my little sitting room were toppling. When the business failed and she left, I moved my piles of paper to the ground-floor flower room, where it was easier for people to find me, and began to pester Helen, who was Andrew’s secretary, for help with some typing. I was deeply appreciative of Helen’s help – and still am.

  The most expensive failure was the Chatsworth Farm Shop in Elizabeth Street, in London’s Belgravia. It started with a bang. I took a cockerel on a lead to welcome the Prince of Wales, who had kindly agreed to open the shop, but in spite of this and a daily crowd of customers, the cost of twice-weekly vans taking the meat and other specialities 160 miles from Pilsley to London and back, as well as the difficulty of finding reliable staff, were too great. The shop lost money and sadly had to close.

  Few people realize how a house like Chatsworth, the land and the people who live on it are interdependent. Families, some of whom had been with the Cavendishes for generations, were traditionally able to find jobs as disparate as butchers, housemaids, gamekeepers, seamstresses, accountants or librarians – all with the same employer. In the nineteenth century Joseph Paxton, who came to Chatsworth at the age of twenty-three as head gardener, developed skills under the generous patronage of the Sixth
Duke that later allowed him to become an MP, director of the railways and the designer of the Crystal Palace. In the twentieth century, Tom Wragg, the Edensor school master’s son, became keeper of the collection; Sean Feeney, the smiling butcher whose health prevented him standing for long hours, got a job as a river bailiff. Everyone knew that an effort would be made to accommodate people’s needs – something that was seldom possible for other big employers. This created a ‘family’ atmosphere, which I have never met elsewhere. To me it was spoiling, because starting with new people is something I find difficult. Luckily this seldom happened at Chatsworth; most of the old people remained till they retired and were usually replaced – sparing the bother of advertising – by the next-in-line from their department.

  22

  Distractions

  L

  IFE AT CHATSWORTH seemed to leave hardly a moment unoccupied, but thanks chiefly to the wonderful staff, my role there was flexible, and hobbies could be fitted in as well as friends. There was often no defining line between work and other interests, and sometimes one of the organizations connected to a hobby would ask me to become involved in an official way. When this happened there was a danger that what had once been fun would become work and, however enjoyable, would pin me down and I would have to sit at a table listening to everyone mumbling their thoughts. The Bakewell Show was an example. My sisters-in-law and I looked forward keenly to the Thursday after August Bank Holiday. We entered our ponies without a thought of winning and loved every moment of the parade of cattle, sheep, goats, Shire horses, hunters and successful children’s ponies. When I was asked to join the committee, it became work; I still enjoyed the Show but it was different. I have nevertheless been lucky in my life to be able to pursue several interests purely for pleasure. In middle life, grouse shooting ruled the month of August, and pheasant shooting much of November, December and January. I loved all that went with a shoot: the reunion of friends, seeing a new bit of country or finding the same patch of dying leaves beneath my feet, well remembered from the year before. Drive fifty miles in this country and you find different crops, different stone and different voices. Even the BBC has not succeeded in levelling out the latter and listening to the beaters you know if you are in Derbyshire or Devon, Somerset or Sussex, Aberdeen or Anglesey. I liked the battle with the weather, the layers of clothes and the discovery of Derri boots, after which I never had cold feet again. I loved the company of the loader – as long as he made no comment on my shooting. Alan Shimwell, who has done nearly sixty years’ service at Chatsworth, both on the farm and in the garden, as well as thirty-three years of chauffeuring, never said a word as chance after chance flew over our heads with nothing to show for it. He was the perfect companion on the long car drives and so popular with our hosts that my theory was that one day they would say to me, ‘Don’t you bother to come next year, let’s just have Alan.’