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Bess of Hardwick

A new partnership between English Heritage and the National Trust give access to the whole Hardwick estate for the first time.

Visit whole estate at historic Derbyshire stately home for the first time

A conservator works on remarkable 400-year-old plaster friezes at Hardwick Old Hall in Derbyshire – home to extraordinary Elizabethan Bess of Hardwick – as English Heritage completes a seven-month conservation project. Rising from a modest background to become one of the richest women of her time and friend to Elizabeth I, Bess of Hardwick was an ambitious builder whose houses symbolised her rise to wealth and power. Once the finest of their age, the decorative plaster panels have long been exposed to the elements but have now been protected by the charity for future generations to enjoy.

Secrets behind the walls of Old Hardwick Hall revealed

New Roof Experience at Hardwick Hall, Near Chesterfield..Tour Guide Ken Noble pictured on the roof.

Hardwick’s visitors can now enjoy an elevated position

Deborah Devonshire and Stella Tennant, Chatsworth, 2006. Picture: Mario Testino

Classic couture

Open doors: Head guide Shenagh Firth at Chatsworth with a portrait of Duchess Georgiana

Chatsworth with the lid off

The National Trust's Rachel Albanese with portraits of Beth of Hardwick, Queen Elizabeth I and Arbella Stuart

Before Wolf Hall there was Hardwick Hall - and the woman who would be Queen

The Chatsworth ceramics

How six jugs link Chatsworth with a Sheffield council estate

Workmen hang two Gideon Tapestries at Hardwick Hall

Video: Gideon Tapestries rehung at Hardwick Hall

National Trust welcomes wind farm refusal

Jayne Dowle: Opening eyes to history at home and away

Face to face with the Tudors at the house that Bess built

Crocus display shows success for campaign against polio

Hall opens envelope on royal correspondence

'Talk and walk' at historic hall for gardening enthusiasts