Scarsdale Sutton:  a glorious ruin that has haunted me ever since I first saw it from the M1 in Derbyshire.  And so it became my inspiration for my Regency country estate Northam Park in Notorious Vow.  Its similiarity to the design of Chatsworth, that perennial favorite English country house prominently featured in the 2005 articulation of  Pride and Prejudice, is striking.   Northam Park displays the same frowning facade of Scarsdale Sutton which Vivien notes as she observes the rendering of Russell’s country estate in watercolor side by side with his other rural domain, Wimberley.  She remarks upon the melancholy demeanor of the mansion, which the earl decries as ungodly.   

“…the long unpedimented south facade of Chatsworth is not very unlike the north front of Sutton, both of whose principal elevations show the characteristic frown induced by leading the keystones of the upper windows to meet the lowest fascia of the main architrave—a feature given almost excessive prominence at Chatsworth..”   The Genesis of Sutton Scarsdale, Andor Gomme Architectural History Vol. 24, (1981), pp.34-149 (article consists of 8 pages) Published by: SAHGB Publications Limited

Northam Park is Diana’s now.  What she intends to do with it is, perhaps, a subject for a later book.