Lady of the House

I am based in the Midlands of the UK and for a lot of people that means great access to the Peak district. For me it means great access to The Chatsworth Estate. With the weather being as brilliantly warm as it has been in the UK over the past few weeks it was an obvious choice to go for a wander and a picnic through the grounds.

The Chatsworth Estate was the setting for Mr Darcy's Pemberly House in the 2005 Pride and Prejudice film with Keira Knightly, and it was also the setting of the 2008 film The Duchess, also featuring Keira Knightly (she must be a fan!). The house still contains a lot of Duchess Georgiana's collections that were featured in the film now.

The grounds are teeming with free roaming sheep and deer, and there is excellent access to the River Derwent for some summertime cooling off!

My absolute favourite part of the Chatsworth Estate is the farm shop. With all homemade, handmade and homegrown produce it is the perfect place to stock up of picnic goodies.

First stop; the farm shop.

A stall of flowers, fruit and veg is a permenant feature outside the farm shop.

A quick stock up on the essentials then onwards to the grounds!

After a wander down the river the call of the picnic food could be ignored no more, we picked a nice shady spot next to the river and tucked in!

A picnic would not be a picnic without a punnet of good old fashioned British strawberries........

....and apparently they were too good to resist!

Then came the hardcore picnic favourite.....triple chocolate brownie!

Once we'd done stuffing our faces with the incredible food we continued our wander down the river until we found a spot we could paddle in.

The heat was intense and the river was full to bursting with people so we soon made our way back, passing some sheep making the most of the afternoon shade!

Chatsworth Estate is a fabulous place to visit and is well worth a visit!