There has been a mansion on the present site of Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, England, since the second half of the sixteenth century, but Chatsworth's history dates back to Anglo-Saxon times.
The 4th Earl of Devonshire, who is to become the 1st Duke in 1694, is an advanced Whig and had been forced to retire to Chatsworth under the reign of James II.
This had occasioned a complete rebuilding of the house, but because he had initially only planned to reconstruct the south wing, he had retained the increasingly unfashionable Elizabethan courtyard plan, which is totally different from the layout of newly built country houses of this period.
Work had begun in 1687 in a pioneering English Baroque style under the direction of English architect and landscape designer William Talman, a pupil of Christopher Wren.
Completed in 1695, the facade is dramatic and sculptural with ionic columns and a heavy entablature and balustrade.
The 1st Duke's Chatsworth, considered to be the first baroque private house in Britain, is a key building in the development of English Baroque architecture.
The design of the south front is revolutionary for an English house, with no attics or hipped roof, but instead two main stories supported by a rusticated basement.
The facade is dramatic and sculptural with ionic pilasters and a heavy entablature and balustrade.
The existing heavy and angular stone stairs from the first floor down to the garden are a nineteenth century replacement of an elegant curved double staircase.
The east front is the quietest of the four on the main block.
Like the south front, it is unusual in that it has an even number of bays and no centerpiece.
The emphasis is placed on the end bays, each highlighted by double pairs of pilasters, of which the inner pairs project outwards.
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