Hardwick Hall

Stand on the gravel and look up. The light does something strange here. On a bright day, the whole front of the house seems to flicker, as hundreds of small panes of glass catch the sky and throw it back at you. On a grey day, the windows turn silver and dark, like the surface of a pond. Either way, your eye goes to the glass before it goes to the stone. That was exactly the plan.

This is Hardwick Hall, high on a ridge above the Derbyshire countryside, close to the small parish of Ault Hucknall. It was built in the 1590s, in the last years of Queen Elizabeth the First. Its builder was a woman, and that fact alone made it unusual. Her name was Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury. But almost everyone, then and now, knows her simply as Bess of Hardwick.

Bess was born into a modest gentry family on this same land. She was not destined for great wealth. Then she married — four times in all. Each marriage brought her more land, more money, and more influence. By the end of her life, she was one of the richest people in England, and among the most formidable. Hardwick Hall was her statement. It said, very clearly, who she had become.

Now look up at the very top of the six towers. Along the skyline, carved in stone, you will see two large letters, repeated again and again: E and S. They stand for Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury. Bess put her initials on the roofline of her house, so that anyone riding across the valley could read them against the sky. It is a little like signing a painting — except the signature can be seen from miles away.

And then there is the glass. In Elizabethan England, glass was costly. Most houses had small windows, partly for warmth and partly because glass was a luxury. Hardwick goes the other way. The windows grow larger as the floors rise, until the top storey is almost a lantern. A rhyme grew up about the place: Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall. It is a joke, but it is also a fair description of what you see.

The design is usually credited to Robert Smythson, an Elizabethan master mason and one of the leading house designers of his day. The plan is clever and very symmetrical. The towers stand out from the main block, so the building looks almost the same from every side. There is no obvious back of the house. It was meant to be seen all the way round, from every road and every field.

Here is a detail many visitors miss. Just a short walk away, across the lawns, stand the ruins of another great house. That is Old Hardwick Hall, which Bess was also building and improving at around the same time. For a while, she was working on two large houses side by side. Today the old hall is a roofless shell, its walls open to the wind. The new hall stands complete beside it. Looking from one to the other is a powerful way to feel the scale of her ambition.

Inside, the house follows a simple logic: the higher you climb, the grander it becomes. The ground floor was for the working life of the household — kitchens, service rooms, the busy everyday. Above that were more private family rooms. And at the top were the great state rooms, built to impress the most important guests. The stone staircase that carries you upward is wide and slow, and it turns as it climbs. It is part of the experience. You are meant to feel the house unfold as you rise.

At the top is the High Great Chamber, often considered one of the finest Elizabethan rooms in England. Look above the tapestries to the frieze that runs around the walls. It is made of painted plaster, shaped into a forest scene. You can find hunters, animals, and trees, and at its centre the goddess Diana, the Roman goddess of the hunt. Many people saw this as a quiet compliment to Queen Elizabeth, who was often linked with Diana in the art and poetry of her time.

Nearby runs the Long Gallery, a very long room lined with windows on one side. In Elizabethan houses, long galleries were places to walk and talk, and to take exercise when the weather was bad. Here, the walls carry portraits and tapestries, and the light falls in long bands across the floor. The house is also known for its textiles, including embroideries from Bess's own time. Some of them are said to have been worked on by Bess and her household, though not every attribution is certain.

Another figure moves through this story. Arbella Stuart, Bess's granddaughter, spent long years here. Arbella had royal blood, and some people saw her as a possible heir to the English throne. Because of this, her life was closely watched and tightly controlled. Her story did not end happily. When you walk these bright rooms, it is worth remembering that for one young woman, this house could also feel like a gilded cage.

After Bess died, the house passed to her son, William Cavendish, and through the Cavendish family it later came to the Dukes of Devonshire. For long periods, the family lived mainly elsewhere. That turned out to be good luck. Because Hardwick was not constantly modernised, much of its Elizabethan character survived. In the twentieth century, it passed to the National Trust, which cares for it today. There is one more surprise, down in the village. The philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who served the Cavendish family, died at Hardwick in 1679. He is buried in the parish church at Ault Hucknall, only a short distance away.

As you leave, turn around once more. Let your eye travel from the gravel to the great windows, and then up to those stone letters against the sky. Listen for the wind across the ridge, and the rooks in the trees. More than four centuries ago, one woman decided that this hilltop would carry her name. It still does. And on a clear day, the glass is still catching the light, just as she intended.