Kedleston Hall is a Georgian jewel a few miles north of Derby built to rival Chatsworth. Its 18th-century Palladian facade and neoclassical architecture and parkland are just as impressive and it is one of the National Trust’s most popular visitor sites.
It was always the wish of its former owner Lord Curzon, a Viceroy of India and a nearly Prime Minister, that his childhood home, more a palace to showcase his exquisite collection of paintings, artefacts and furniture, should be opened up to the public.
And it was duly handed over by his heirs in 1987, 62 years after his death in 1925. By some distance he has been the most generous of benefactors to the National Trust — two of his other historic properties, Tattershall Castle in Lincolnshire and Bodiam, in East Sussex, were bequeathed to the nation, along with provision for their maintenance. He also restored the Elizabethan mansion Montacute in Somerset, which the Trust also took over.