Emperor Fountain Aqueduct - Bakewell, UK
Posted by: dtrebilc
N 53° 13.617 W 001° 36.220
30U E 593214 N 5898427
The water spilling over this aqueduct above the grounds of Chatsworth House feeds a gravity fed fountain.
Waymark Code: WMQ4QB
Location: East Midlands, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 12/19/2015
Views: 1
"Chatsworth House is a stately home in Derbyshire, England. It is in the Derbyshire Dales, about 3.5 miles (5.6 km) north-east of Bakewell and 9 miles (14 km) west of Chesterfield (SK260700). It is the seat of the Duke of Devonshire and has been home to the Cavendish family since 1549."
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Chatsworth House & Gardens are open to the public from to 11am to 4.30pm daily. There are various attractions and various admission charges, subject to revision. For information of current charges and attractions contact. Chatsworth, Bakewell, Derbyshire DE4 1PP Tel: Baslow (0246) 582204. There is no admission charge for the Stand Wood nature trails, which for the most part are on concessionary footpaths.
One of the things that can be accessed on the footpaths in Stand Wood is this aqueduct.
"The watercourses and walks in Stand Wood were the work of Joseph Paxton, who worked for the sixth duke between 1835 and 1845. At this time romantic landscapes were all the rage and the steep hillside with its boulders and fine views presented an excellent opportunity to create a natural extension to the grounds It also provided an eminently suitable source of water for the fountains in the gardens below, permitting, as G.F. Chadwick put it, 'the storage of water at a considerable head above the point of display.' (G.F. Chadwick - Work of Joseph Paxton.) The hillside was first surveyed in December 1843, and not long after a two-and-a half mile long conduit, (The Emperor Stream) was dug across the moor far above Chatsworth to a reservoir (The Emperor Lake), slightly to the west of the existing Swiss Lake, and standing 350 feet above Chatsworth House.
The Aqueduct dates from 1839, and is a key part of Joseph Paxton's grand design for providing the water supply for Chatsworths' pools and fountains. The broken aqueduct was the idea of Paxton's patron, the 6th Duke of Devonshire, who was inspired by a similar but much bigger structure he encountered in the folly garden of Schloss Wilhelmshohe near Kassel. Ruined aqueducts were very much in vogue in Germany at that time, and the Chatsworth Folly looks very much like one depicted in Grohmann's Ideen-magazin of 1796-1810."
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The aqueduct and waterfall is largely ornamental and after the water leaves the aqueduct it enters a pipe 15 inches in diameter to feed the fountains below. At maximum pressure the fountains can reach a height of over 260 feet, but use so much water that they are not operated all the time.