On 29 July 1846, a Mr and Mrs Clay and Family signed into our Visitors’ Book. They gave their place of origin as Sudbury Hall. This refers to a house built in the 17th century near Ashbourne in Derbyshire.
George Vernon inherited an estate at Sudbury in 1660, the year that Chares II was restored to the throne. There was already a mansion at Sudbury but it was George who built the house we see today. He married an heiress called Margaret Onley and in doing so swelled the family fortune. It is believed that George designed the hall himself. Margaret died in 1675. George would be married twice after her death, to Dorothea Shirley and finally to Catherine Vernon. It was a son of Catherine’s, a man named Henry, who inherited Sudbury when George died in 1702. Sudbury Hall was being built at the same time as Chatsworth was being radically remodelled by the 1st Duke of Devonshire.
Sudbury Hall is a two-storey, red brick building. The State Rooms are on the west side and the servants’ quarters are on the east side. This was a layout favoured by Tudor architects. The drawing room can boast an overmantle by Grinling Gibbons. The house has a central tower topped by a cupola. It contains a fine collection of paintings, including a portrait of Nell Gwyn by Sir Peter Lely.
When the Clays called at Chatsworth, Sudbury would have belonged to George Warren Venables-Vernon, 5th Baron Vernon (1803-1866). He became M.P. for Derbyshire in 1831. Due to the Reform Act of 1832, the constituency of Derbyshire was divided and Vernon became M.P. for South Derbyshire. Like his contemporary the 6th Duke of Devonshire, Vernon supported that Act. Vernon inherited the title when his father died in 1835. He was a scholar with a keen interest in Italian literature. He reprinted early editions of Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy.’
Like many aristocratic families, the Vernons of Sudbury were burdened by death duties during the 20th century. In 1967 Sudbury Hall was given to the National Trust in part payment of death duties. In 2020 the Hall was temporarily closed to the public for renovations. The Trust consulted over 100 child ambassadors on how to make the house more accessible for children and in 2022 the Hall reopened as The Children’s Country House.
There is one last parallel between Sudbury Hall and Chatsworth House – this time a very modern one. In 1995 Sudbury represented the interior of Pemberley in the BBC’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (Lyme Park represented the exterior). In 2005 Chatsworth was used as Pemberley in the film Pride and Prejudice with Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen.
First image: Sudbury Hall, photograph by Mike Peel. Available via Wikimedia Commons under a CC-BY-SA-4.0 license.
Second image: Visitor book entry from Mr and Mrs Clay & Family, 1846.
