CHATSWORTH HOUSE

Sarah Jackman, Christ Church, Masters-level student, MSt History of Art and Visual Cultures, In-person internship

Work Projects

During my internship I helped to

kickstart Chatsworth House's

involvement with Google Arts and

Culture, a digital platform that allows

organisations to easily share their

collections. I selected and collated metadata relating to items and artworks from the

Chatsworth and wider Devonshire collection, I researched the chosen works and created

interpretations to be published online and I developed in-house guidelines for future users

of the platform. This involved problem solving to work out how to link related items for

display together. This work resulted in over 70 items, being uploaded ready for online

publication, soon to be seen on the Chatsworth House Google Arts and Culture page.

Though there was

Daily Life

Daily life involved wandering down from the 18th century stable block where I was living on-

site through the golden gates of Chatsworth, signing in with the ever-cheery staff at the

lodge and weaving my way through the back corridors of the North Wing (built by the 6th

Duke of Devonshire) up to the Birds Landing where a large number of the collections

department were based. Here, settled at a computer in an open landing space I was

surrounded by four offices containing the collections, exhibition and archive team.

Alongside me were volunteers, a bust of Mr Darcy from the 2005 Pride and Prejudice film,

filmed at Chatsworth and a PhD student researching the development of the North Wing

and theatre space.

I was quickly introduced to the whole team who flit between offices to discuss upcoming

exhibitions, Christmas at Chatsworth and more. This involved members of the conservation

team, the textile team, collections individuals and the wider archival team like Frankie who

was working to catalogue the six main collections of the Chatsworth archives including

works by Thomas Hobbes. My first week also involved a whole team meeting and individual

talks with the Head Curators of the departments (textiles, decorative arts, Old Master

Drawings and fine arts, Exhibitions, Archives) - a fantastic way to get to know their work and

the collection, hearing about their top 5 (or 20 - there are too many interesting pieces!)

favourite items from the collection.

I worked directly with the Archival team under the brilliant and knowledgeable Fran Baker.

Once settled work involved searching the cataloguing system to find the suggested works,

researching their history and provenance and uploading this and their metadata onto the

Google Arts and Culture CVS spreadsheet and then dashboard ready for publication. Doing

this daily meant getting a wide ranging knowledge of the Devonshire Collection from the

Devonshire Parure to Leonardo' Da Vinci's Grotesque Head sketches.

Lasting Impressions

I loved working with the team at Chatsworth, they were all incredibly welcoming and

extremely interesting, all working in a specialism but across almost 600 years of history and

collecting. I gained a holistic knowledge of a collection department as much as a specific

knowledge of the Google Arts and Culture platform - useful information in an ever-more

digital collections landscape.

What practical advice would you give to future interns?

Ask if there are opportunities you can help with beyond the bounds of your internship. Always talk to everyone around you and find out about their path into careers/their

interests and knowledge - I met a stained glass maker who was volunteering, gained so

much insight into the theatre from Louise's PhD work and learnt so much about routes into

archiving from the archive team - people are always happy to chat. Stay in awe of the fact

you get to spend a month at one of the most incredible country houses in the UK. Don't

forget to get out and about and explore the surrounding area of the Peaks and historic

villages like Buxton.