A Tour of Chatsworth House - IV

A detail of a carved pilaster in the Inner Court

The Painted Hall in Chatsworth House has a very fine example of the use of Ashford Black Marble, one of the Carboniferous limestones from the Monsal Dale Limestone Formation on the Chatsworth Estate that acquired a national reputation as a decorative stone. 

A geological map of the area around Monyash

At a higher stratigraphic level, quarries on reef knolls in the Eyam Limestone Formation around Monyash once supplied large quantities of grey Derbyshire fossil marble, which contains a high proportion of crinoid stems and ossicles; however, only Mandale limestone is now produced at the Once-a-week Quarry near Sheldon. 

The fountain in the Inner Court

This very attractive stone is normally found highly polished in flooring, window sills, fireplaces and inlaid work but, in the Inner Court adjacent to the Painted Hall, it has been used for a large fountain, which I haven’t seen mentioned in any documentary sources. 

A detail of the fountain showing crinoid stems and ossicles

The surface of the limestone shows distinct signs of weathering and any polished finish that may have previously existed would have been now dissolved by carbonic acid, which naturally occurs in rainwater. 

Carved Millstone Grit pilasters in the Inner Court

The ashlar walling of the courtyard is built in uniformly buff coloured Millstone Grit, which was quarried from Ball Cross, overlooking Bakewell, and is generally plain in nature, except for carved serpents to some of the keystones and four pilasters that are elaborately carved with military equipment, as seen on the west boundary wall that overlooks the River Derwent. 

A carved pilaster in the Inner Court

Moving back into the Painted Hall, various white marble busts are found along the east wall and those that I photographed have pedestals made out of granite with large indistinct crystals of pink orthoclase feldspar, subsidiary white plagioclase feldspar, biotite mica and quartz. 

A white marble bust and pink granite pedestal

I didn’t closely examine the granites but my first thought was that they looked like the samples from Spain and Sardinia that formed part of my collection of building and decorative stones. These are of late Carboniferous to Permian in age and were formed in the Hercynian orogeny. 

A detail of a bust and pink granite pedestal

William Cavendish, the 6th Duke of Devonshire, was very keen to acquire ancient stones and artefacts for his Sculpture Gallery and his Italian agent, Gaspare Gabrielli, who was a dealer in rare stones. Pink granite called granito sardo was sent from Capo Testa, on the northern tip of Sardinia, to ancient Rome in great quantities and they may therefore be this variety. 

The fireplace in the Painted Hall

The fireplace in the Painted Hall is made from a veined red/brown variety of marble that I had seen a couple of weeks earlier in the chancel of All Saints church in Darfield, which I subsequently identified as a Devonian limestone from Belgium that is known as Rouge Royal.

A detail of Rouge Royal marble