A Tour of Chatsworth House - III

The Painted Hall

Continuing my tour of Chatsworth House, to look at its decorative stones, I left the North Corridor and entered the Painted Hall, which was full of visitors looking at the magnificent ceiling or waiting to be led on an official tour. This part of the house goes back to another era, when William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Devonshire, rebuilt the original Elizabethan house from 1687 to 1707. 

A general view of the floor to the Painted Hall

The stonework here provides examples of the work of three generations of the Watson family, with fine stone carving work by Samuel Watson the elder, who was considered to be as good as Grinling Gibbons, seen on the surround of the Great Stairs. 

Stonework to the first floor door surround by Samuel Watson

He worked at Chatsworth from 1690 to 1711 and his sons Henry and Samuel the younger were also trained and stone carvers, with Henry going onto build and own the water-powered marble mill in Ashford-in-the-Water and founding the trade in Ashford Black Marble, as well as turned Blue John. 

A detail of the floor to the Painted Hall

The floor, laid in 1779, is white Carrara marble from the Apuan Alps and local Ashford Black Marble provided by Henry Watson, with his nephew White Watson being involved with the laying of the floor as well as other work to the house. 

A detail of the floor to the Painted Hall

White Watson took up an apprenticeship in his uncle’s business at the age of 14 and was later well known as a geologist, mineral collector and maker of geological cross-sections using various local Carboniferous rocks. He also gave talks on geology to the 5th Duke and Lady Georgiana Spencer and their son William, later to become the 6th Duke, and subsequently organised the Chatsworth mineral collections.

A detail of the floor to the Painted Hall