When Kate, a 47-year-old contract worker came face to face with Charlotte Brontë’s handwriting while visiting Chatsworth House, the avid reader, who counts Jane Eyre as her favourite book, struggled to contain her excitement.
“I had a little bit of a moment,” she said. “I just thought: ‘Wow, that was actually Charlotte Brontë’s writing there on that page.’ That was pretty special.”
It was her first visit inside Chatsworth House. Although she has lived just 90 minutes from the stately home for two decades, the cost of admission had long been a barrier.
“We’ve been to Chatsworth before just to have a walk around the grounds, which are beautiful,” she said. “But going into the house and the gardens is something we’ve never done before as a family.”
Kate, her husband and their two children are among the first to benefit from a pilot scheme designed to widen access to one of Britain’s best-known country houses. Through her longstanding membership of Swadlincote Library in Derbyshire, she borrowed a free seven-day Chatsworth community membership card that gave her family free entry to the estate.
The initiative, launched by Chatsworth House Trust with Derbyshire Libraries, allows groups of up to eight people to visit the house, gardens and grounds at no cost. The pilot comes amid the growing cost of living crisis that forces families to prioritise basic necessities, putting many cultural experiences beyond their reach.
Jane Marriott, the director of Chatsworth House Trust, said the charity wanted to “share Chatsworth with as many people as possible”, adding that the partnership with Derbyshire Libraries would widen access to the estate and “champion the value of reading for pleasure”.
With two issued per library, the community membership passes have been borrowed a total of 110 times from the 10 libraries in the scheme since it launched last month, quickly becoming the most borrowed item.
“The house itself is so opulent and beautiful,” Kate said. “For me, the best bit was walking around places that you recognise from TV and film adaptations. I felt like I’d been there before because I’d seen it on screen. Standing next to the statues, seeing inside the rooms, it was pretty special.”
Alongside the historical interiors, Kate loved the House of Stories: Tales from Chatsworth Library, an exhibition featuring rare books, manuscripts and letters. “There’s also a letter from Charles Dickens. It was really lovely,” she said. “I was dragging my family back saying: ‘Look, this is really important.’”
Chatsworth House Trust hopes the library pass could become a model for widening access to heritage sites across the country. “Making these kinds of places a bit more accessible is such a great idea,” she said. “Rather than saying: ‘It’s a free day, everybody come,’ and then it’s chaos because it’s too busy, a borrow scheme means it’s just an ordinary day. You can pick the day, plan your own visit and go when you like.”
She added: “Everybody who joins the queue gets a turn, which is brilliant.”
Councillor Alan Graves, the leader of Derbyshire county council, said the authority was “extremely proud” to partner with Chatsworth on what he described as an “innovative pilot programme” that would help residents who “might not otherwise get the opportunity to enjoy all that Chatsworth has to offer”.
Kate said: “My kids are teenagers now and it’s not easy to find an activity that we all want to do together. But we had a really great day together.
“We’ve got loads of lovely memories and photos of us all wandering about in the sunshine, in beautiful gardens, having a little picnic. They’re the kind of things my kids will really remember when they’re older.”
