Step through doors of stately home into a festive spectacle
STAFF at Chatsworth House have spoken of the challenges they faced transforming the stately home into a winter wonderland in time for the Christmas season.
The attraction’s popular Christmas market is now in full swing, and the house’s renowned festive decorations, which will be seen by thousands of paying guests, will once again bring plenty of festive cheer to the historic halls.
Susie Stokoe, who juggles being head of textiles at the house with designing the festive decorations, explained what it takes to turn the Grade I-listed building, gardens and grounds into a Christmas spectacle.
She said: “Planning is about a year and a half in total because I will need to be buying decorations for Christmas in February in order to get deliveries in September.
“There is always a pressure, a couple of weeks ago is normally my wobble spot where I worry ‘have we done enough? is it going to work? will people like it?’ That’s where my confidence wobbles.”
The finishing touches were being made around the stately home right up until the first customers arrived on Saturday morning, when the public was invited to see this year’s decorations.
Lockdown and the Covid pandemic forced the house to cancel Christmas in 2020 but, as Susie says, its return this year is a welcome one.
She said: “I think there is a really big need, a real hunger for a happy, warm, nostalgic, special, magical Christmas, I think people really, really want it this year.
“There’s more emotion there, I know people say Christmas doesn’t start until they’ve been to Chatsworth and there is a very strong local following and people come every year and it’s a tradition but this year there is more emotion in that and I’m feeling that.”
The whole project of transforming the home, which is still lived in to this day by the current Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, involves the entire staff and is the only event of the year when everybody has something to contribute to the whole experience.
This year’s theme is looking back at 20 years of Christmas at Chatsworth, with the staterooms tipping the cap towards different aspects of how the estate has celebrated the festive season since 2001.
Susie says there is a massive pressure to deliver magical moments for those who come through the doors, but, she adds, this year isn’t just focused on one particular thing.
She said: “I think there’s lots of them, it’s a whole round experience. The snow isn’t a blizzard, this isn’t a theme park, but a gentle smattering of snow on a lamppost in a beautiful courtyard is all you need to give you that ‘Narnia’ moment.”
“When you see a child’s face look out of the window when it starts snowing and there’s that look of wonder, that’s the magic of Christmas.
“What I wanted is when they arrive in the pouring rain and then the child looks out, it starts to snow and you will get that expression of wonder on their face.”
Once the doors open and the public start filing into the house, Susie says she’ll take an hour to herself in her workshop and then head out without her name badge on to try to get a feel for how people have reacted to the work.
She said: “I think the decorations on the tree in the State drawing room are pretty beautiful, the star falling on the tapestry – I look after those in my day job. I think that’s a rather magical space.
“I like the weasels just because I do, they’ve been hanging around in my office for how many years since we’ve used them.”
Tickets are available for trips around the house, gardens and Christmas Market, and these can be purchased on the Chatsworth House website by visiting www.chatsworth.org.
Planning is already under way for next year. However, Susie wasn’t giving anything away about what Chatsworth has in store then as it’s a tightly guarded secret that only a select few know.