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What can Hardwick Hall teach us about the wealth of the owner (Bess of Hardwick)?
1. Bess started life as a member of the gentry. Through four marriages, she rose through the ranks of society to become the second wealthiest woman in England after Queen Elizabeth.
2. Bess made important decisions regarding the design and decoration of HH, commissioned construction of HH immediately after her fourth husband’s death
3. Power- Bess was well-connected, e.g. counted Cecil, Dudley & Walsingham among her friends and had been a lady-in-waiting to the Queen.
4. Status and identity - family crest and initials ES.
new fashions in Art and Architecture?
1. Robert Smythson was the English architect who designed HH. He was influenced by buildings of the Italian Renaissance, which was very fashionable amongst the nobility at the time
2. Construction of building used Flemish, Dutch, Italian artists and craftsmen
3. Grandeur - great staircase and High Great Chamber and Withdrawing Room with Long Gallery
4. Change from medieval design e.g. Great Hall at centre of house and turned entrance hall 90 degrees; private spaces permitted by
internal fireplaces and chimney flues
Technology & Materials?
1. Local mines and quarries provided stone, clay and lead to build Hardwick Hall. They all came from Derbyshire.
2. The latest technologies were used for smelting lead
3. Wingfield Glass works was used, which was owned by Bess as part of her business enterprise
4. Status – glass was a symbol of Bess’s wealth as it was so expensive!
Elizabethan society?
2. Garden – social spaces, place of recreation, extension of house. Changes in ways of living, e.g. desire for greater privacy away from towns.
3. Imagery - Diana the Huntress frieze, reflected classical interests of Renaissance and developments in education, esp. for women
4. Social status- Great Chain of Being- Bess was showing off her status, power and independence
Note 
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