‘Chatsworth, Seat of the Duke of Devonshire. Derbyshire’ in John Britton and Edward Wedlake Brayley, The Beauties of England and Wales, or, Delineations, Topographical, Historical, and Descriptive, of Each County. London: Vernor and Hood, 1801–1816, III, p. 488. E.26.3

One of the most ambitious and famous publications to supply the new market for topographical imagery was Britton’s The Beauties of England and Wales. Produced in 18 volumes between 1801 and 1815, it set a new standard and introduced readers to numerous country estates, many of which had been improved by Brown. One of the grandest of all was Chatsworth, which Britton describes as standing ‘finely covered with wood, in a narrow and deep valley, bounded by bleak and elevated tracts of land, and divided in two by the river Derwent’. This relationship between the surrounding natural landscape and Brown’s own interventions was a recurrent subject of comment – not always positive. In his 1783 Sketch of a Tour into Derbyshire and Yorkshire William Bray noted that ‘From the descent on the opposite side [of the river], Chatsworth is seen from the bottom, with its woods and numerous additional plantations made by the late duke, the tops of the stony and barren hills shewing themselves behind it. It does not appear to advantage from hence’.