Forget Cornwall or the Cotswolds—Thanks to This New Country Hotel, Derbyshire Is Having a Moment

When Laura Burlington married William Cavendish at County Waterford’s Lismore Castle in 2007, she joined a family that has served as the caretakers of Chatsworth—the platonic ideal of an English country house—for almost five centuries. In the years since, the former editor and model has quietly put her own fashionable stamp on the baroque pile in the Peak District—the inspiration for Mr. Darcy’s Pemberley in Pride and Prejudice and a fixture on the moodboards of designers ranging from John Galliano to Alessandro Michele. It was Burlington who teamed up with the latter, during his time at Gucci, to put on a retrospective of Chatsworth’s clothing and textile archives curated by Hamish Bowles in 2017—Burlington, too, who coordinated an exhibition honoring its former chatelaine Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire, with Erdem Moralioglu, this summer.

Now she’s turned her well-trained eye on a respectful yet modish refurbishment of The Cavendish Hotel in Baslow, a former coaching inn on the estate supposedly won by the sixth Duke in a game of cards in the 1830s and presided over by “Debo” as a hotel in the ’70s. “I wanted [it] to feel fun and modern and welcoming—eradicating any feeling of stuffiness, which always makes me feel slightly gloomy in country-house hotels,” Burlington says of the interiors, overseen by designer Nicola Harding and punctuated with art from the Devonshires’ own collection.

The Cavendish Arms – Devonshire HotelsAnna Batchelor

In its 28 well-appointed rooms, the likes of Richard Smith’s technicolor pop-art prints (discovered among the bric-a-brac in Chatsworth’s nurseries) and Phyllida Barlow lithographs from the Hepworth Wakefield hang beside four-poster beds flanked with stacks of Enid Blyton paperbacks, while the common areas are dotted with paperwhites and hyacinths grown in the estate’s greenhouses and hand-thrown lamps by Joe Heath, a local potter and member of the main household’s staff.

The Cavendish Arms – Devonshire HotelsAnna Batchelor

Checking in on a late summer afternoon (albeit a lightly drizzly one—this is Derbyshire, after all), it felt a little like stepping into a well-to-do friend’s cozy farmhouse, with the audible crackle of a fireplace in the next room and a gentle hum of conversation and clinking teacups drifting through from the garden room dining area. After being handed an enormous old-fashioned key, we were led along the rambling corridors (the building was first acquired by the estate in the early 19th century, when it served as a coaching inn before being converted into a hotel by the Devonshire family in 1975) and up to our room, which was revealed after pushing back the doors covered in a green felt that recalled a vintage snooker table.

The Cavendish – Devonshire HotelsAnna Batchelor

Inside, the space was decorated with Harding’s signature blend of country house charm—think antique four-poster beds with Princess and the Pea-thick mattresses and chintzy wallpapers—as well as a few more modish touches, like zingy shades of electric blue and crimson, abstract paintings, and funky rotary-dial phones. But the real star of the show is the view offered from every room in the house, allowing you to momentarily imagine yourself as a character in a Jane Austen novel sit in your window, gazing across undulating fields and pockets of woodland. (You’ll want to go see them up close too, as the paths beyond will lead you to the main house at Chatsworth, which sits just a 20-minute walk away.)

The Cavendish – Devonshire HotelsAnna Batchelor

Equally noteworthy is the culinary offering, which can be enjoyed across both the light-filled, conservatory-style Garden Room, and the more formal The Gallery restaurant, which features teal green walls, floor-to-ceiling Old Master paintings and engravings, and a gorgeous central seating console with velvet banquettes and lamps crafted from the repurposed nozzles of Chatsworth’s former fire hoses. Overseen by executive chef Adam Harper, the emphasis here is on local ingredients and produce—flip your menu over, and you’ll find a hand-drawn map marking the nearby locations your smoked fish or honey or mushrooms have originated from—and spans classic British dishes (they do a killer Sunday roast) as well as more inventive riffs on country culinary staples, such as succulent venison sourced from the Chatsworth estate served with caramelized pear, or poached halibut with leeks and brussels sprouts. Oh, and don’t forget to try the afternoon tea, with its homemade sausage rolls and scones with local clotted cream—perfect for refueling after a long walk through the Peak District hills—which you’ll be actively encouraged to do during your stay.

The Cavendish Arms – Devonshire HotelsAnna Batchelor

After all, the idea is for The Cavendish to serve as something of a launchpad for out-of-towners to explore the local area—and that’s largely thanks to Burlington, who was adamant that the hotel offers more than just the opportunity to immerse yourself in the Arcadian grounds that surround Chatsworth. Encompassing heather-strewn moorlands studded with limestone caverns, cozy tea rooms serving Bakewell tarts and Buxton puddings, and gritstone market towns that have scarcely changed since Constable painted the surrounding landscape in the early 19th century, Derbyshire, in particular, has plenty to lure the usual Cotswolds weekenders north this autumn—and that’s before mentioning its burgeoning arts scene.

A view of Chatsworth House.

Photo: Getty Images

“I love to go to Hathersage, to the David Mellor Design Museum,” Burlington says, referencing the 20th-century royal designer for industry credited with inventing both square Post Office boxes and the national traffic light system. “If you like antiques, then a trip to visit the Rutland Arms Antiques Centre in Bakewell is [also] a must.” Set within an old stable block once used by the likes of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Byron, the center is home to more than 30 specialist dealers, whose wares range from Napoleonic memorabilia to mother-of-pearl combs from the ’20s. Equally worthy of attention: the Peak District Artisans. Next month, the collective of ceramicists, silversmiths, and more is staging an exhibition at The Whitworth Institute, a Victorian neogothic center built for the Derbyshire Dales community by the estate of industrialist Joseph Whitworth in the 1890s.

“Chatsworth is more than a house,” Burlington concludes. “It’s a whole ecosystem of makers and growers—and when you stay with us, you can experience the work of all those people.” But if you want to fully immerse yourself in the work of all those people? The Cavendish—and its beckons.