When it comes to personifying a particularly British breed of aristocratic guts, glamour and eccentricity, one woman tends to stand out. Deborah, the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, aged 93, is the stuff of legend. Born into the Mitfords, Britain’s most famous family of sisters, Deborah (or Debo as she’s known,) has lived a life that documents the the highs and lows of or the British aristocracy’s romp through the twentieth century. And she has done it all with her own particular sense of very distinctive style.
Growing up the youngest of six sisters (her brother, Tom, was killed in the war,) Debo had an idyllic, bucolic old fashioned English childhood in Gloucestershire. Soon, however, theirs was a family that grabbed headlines. Her sister Unity became famous for supporting Hitler during the war, the eldest, Diana, a renowned beauty, married Oswald Moseley, head of Britain’s Fascist Party, and ended up interned in prison for the duration of the conflict, whilst Nancy wrote novels closely parodying her family (The Pursuit of Love, Love in a Cold Climate,) and Jessica, (or ‘Decca’) eloped, joining the Spanish Civil war before becoming a Communist and an author. Debo followed the least shocking route, marrying the dashing Andrew Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire, a man who inherited both his title and the beautiful and extremely sprawling Chatsworth Estate that went with it after his older brother Billy was killed in the war.
The Duchess and her Duke soon set about reviving Chatsworth, a neo Classical splendour perched in the middle of the Lake District, and on the edge of the River Derwent. They inherited a 297 room pile deeply in debt and struggling to survive, and transformed it into a thriving business with 600,000 visitors a year. With it’s rambling parkland, exquisite interiors and extraordinary Old Master’s collection, the house quickly became a must see in Britain, and with it’s fame, rose that of it’s Chateleine, too. Known for her wit, the circles she ran in and her English sense of style, the Duchess herself became almost as famous as the house she ran. An author of several books (her latest, Wait for Me, is her memoirs,) hers is a life full of stories. She danced with Kennedy, knows the Queen, was photographed by Cecil Beaton, has been shot for Vogue, is a huge fan of Elvis, loves keeping chickens and was painted by her good friend Lucien Freud.
Today, her son having moved into the big house following her husband’s death in 2004, The Dowager Duchess of Devonshire lives on the Chatsworth Estate, in the Old Vicarage at Edensor, about a mile down the road. Photographed for W Magazine by Simon Upton, who she also collaborated with on a beautiful book on the estate, the heavenly house is in some ways an homage to her life. Apple green hallways, a sitting room full of books, pale pink bathrooms, walls chock full of prints, a garden full of chickens and a heavenly blue and white dining room are all perfectly imperfect, full of the stories of a very full life. Stuffed full of collected artworks and nick nacks (there’s room for a picture of Elvis, her ultimate hero, on the mantlepiece in her Drawing room still today,) her nest displays colour and charm in equal and plentiful parts. Much like the lady herself.
Pictures: All photographs by Simon Upton as featured in W Magazine
http://www.wmagazine.com/artdesign/archive/home_devonshire
Find The Duchess of Devonshire’s books here:
http://www.amazon.com/Wait-Me-Memoirs-Deborah-Mitford/dp/B00969INPU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1368589055&sr=8-2&keywords=duchess+of+devonshire
http://www.amazon.com/Chatsworth-House-Dowager-Duchess-Devonshire/dp/0711216754/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1368589062&sr=8-5&keywords=duchess+of+devonshire
