The Downton Abbey-like sumptuousness continued in the dining hall. It still gets used occasionally in this way, but I wouldn’t want to be the one ironing the tablecloth or polishing the dinner service. In the old days before gas or electric lights, the maximum time allowed for a meal is four hours – the time it takes for the candles to burn out.

Hubby said he’d love to have a library like this. I would think there were a few rare books here.

We entered Chatsworth House, and what an entrance it was.

The original house was Elizabethan but was added to over the years. The facade of the northern wing that we saw was an 18th Century creation, but in the entrance hall one could see the original Elizabethan vision, with its wonderful Italian fresco ceiling.

The grand staircase contained portraits of inhabitants past and present. The main painting of the horseman with sabre drawn was of the 1st Duke of Devonshire, who lived in the 17th Century.

We passed yet more sheep grazing in snowy pastures.

But some of these sheep were definitely on the move to (not quite) greener pastures.

The grass near the river seemed to be a bit more inviting.

Although the water looked very forbidding in the cold weather.

The landscape opened up the further into the park we went.

We were greeted by open parkland with grazing herds of sheep and deer. The latter might have been kept exclusively for sport in the old days, but now they are also farmed, like the sheep. The produce is sold at the estate’s impressive farmyard shop.

We didn’t have too much time to get used to the sun before it disappeared again.

Luckily, the sheep were there to show us the way to the house so we really couldn’t get lost.