Chatsworth House

Over six weeks, in the winter of 1895-96, a fully-fitted stage was installed into a room at Chatsworth. The theatre survives today and is one of only a handful of private theatres remaining in Britain - though elsewhere in Europe there are a number of fine examples.

The room that was converted is located at the far end of the North Wing, which was added to Chatsworth House by the sixth Duke of Devonshire in the 1820s-30s. Prior to the conversion of the space into a permanent theatre, the room had been known interchangeably as the Ball Room, Banqueting Room and Theatre. It had been used for theatrical activities at least once before, under the sixth Duke of Devonshire.

Chatsworth's Theatre sits at the end of the North Wing, on the first floor of the Belvedere Tower.

Fashionable amateur theatricals were held in Chatsworth House's private theatre almost annually between 1896 and 1907. These events ceased on the death of the eighth Duke of Devonshire in 1908. The ninth Duke and Duchess of Devonshire used the theatre for family theatricals, in which the Cavendish children would perform.

Constructing the Stage

The construction of the 1890s stage was a team effort between Chatsworth's staff, estate workers and a professional stage carpenter from London, Charles Skinner. Skinner purchased some of the necessary backstage hardware himself. Most of the hardware was bought from I.N. Lyons.

Upon installation of the stage, the painted ceiling behind the proscenium was removed, and various brackets and pulleys were attached to the exposed beams.

Chatsworth's clerk of works, James Francis Woodhead, coordinated the work. Woodhead was responsible for receiving countless packages relating to the theatre - including specially-made scenery, two hundred chairs and a substantial amount of electrical hardware - and managing a team of thirty-three manual workers.

The manual workers included at least nineteen men from villages around the Chatsworth estate. They included at least seven joiners, a plasterer, a plumber, two blacksmiths, two sawyers, at least three general labourers, and a bus driver.

Scenery was supplied by the studio of a professional scene painter, William Hemsley. Between 1896 and 1897, Hemsley's studio provided Chatsworth with a painted proscenium arch, two complete interior sets of flats, borders, tormentors and profiles. Subsequent pieces of scenery were provided by another professional scene painter, H. Skinner, from the Grand Theatre in Leeds.

Managing the Theatricals

Management of the theatre in this period fell to Chatsworth's land agent, Gilson Martin. Among other things, Martin, his assistant, Charles Fieldsend, and a number of clerks in his office were responsible for securing licences for the annual productions, resolving issues or disputes arising from the theatricals and coordinating the sale of tickets.

Though each year offered a new and different historical context, stage management was broadly undertaken by a professional stage manager, Alexander Stuart, from the Garrick Theatre in London. Stuart was responsible for sourcing props and scenery, and liaised both with Leo Trevor and Gilson Martin in this role.

For the productions in 1901 and 1902, one of the estate gardeners, George Longden, undertook backstage management. Longden is recorded as exclusively working in the land agent's garden.

The Amateur Performers

An elite group of amateur performers made up the casts at Chatsworth each year. Some of the most prominent members were Leo Trevor, Muriel Wilson, Mrs Willie James, the Princess of Pless, Lady Maud Warrender, Charles Colnaghi, and the fifth Earl of Rosslyn.