We visited Chatsworth House in the Peak District at Christmas - and here's what we thought

And outside in the gardens I’m normally thinking, yes this is all great but I could have just gone for a walk in the countryside for free.

And Chatsworth is not cheap to enter.

Tickets to Christmas at Chatsworth will set you back £34 for an adult and £19 for a child, or £84 for two adults and up to three children.

But, having never been inside Chatsworth House and having seen some photos I thought the kids might like it so I gave it a go.

We started with the gardens - also our first time - before the rain set in and I have to say, I found myself quite enjoying the atmosphere.

One advantage is that the main attractions in the garden are all quite close together, so if you have moaning, badly-behaved youngsters in tow you can get most of the sites ticked off before you start getting cross and shouty.

A benefit of going when it’s cold and wet is that most people don’t bother - we only saw a few people and it felt like we had the place to ourselves.

There are some nice things to look at but the highlights for us were the historic kitchen garden full of old greenhouses, the maze and the rock garden.

The rock garden was founded in 1842 to resemble a chasm with towering stone walls and its highest point being at 14-metre outcrop with a cascading waterfall.

My initial plan was to bring our own food for this trip to save some cash but I was sure I'd suffer some other penalty by making my kids eat cheese sandwiches while others feasted on luxury treats.

Instead we bought some bratwurst hotdogs from a stall set up inside the courtyard where all the shops and restaurants are.

I should have listened to my frugal inner voice as four of these sausage sandwiches cost me £38.50.

I had the Christmas Dinner Hot Dog which comes with a bratwurst wrapped in bacon with stuffing and cranberry.

It was quite filling but for £10 it needed a fair bit more stuffing and cranberry - and some butter on the roll would not have gone amiss.

If I could pass on a tip to Lord and Lady Burlington, I’d advise dropping the nosh prices a bit.

After a quick peek at the menu in the self-service Carriage House Cafe - with a whopping £16.75 for a roast turkey carvery - I was out of there like the place was on fire.

Next we headed into the house and, despite being incredibly posh, I have to acknowledge it was Christmas times a million and blew my mind.

For the festive season they’ve done out 24 rooms with Xmas decs and trees to a bewildering level of detail and dubbed it the “Palace of Advent”.

I defy even the most hard-boiled Christmas Grinch not to get all soppy while gazing at the trees.

The most massive tree, which must have been over 20 feet, was in the Painted Hall and even had baubles made of what looked like real slices or orange.

There’s another in the chapel which is all lit-up in indigo with matching crucifixes dangling from its branches.

Then there’s snowman models, a room set up with a Christmas model railway running just below the ceiling and displays including a portion of collector Adam Wide’s 8,249 Christmas brooches.

For me, and loads of little kids in the place, the highlight was the animated light projections showing elves climbing back up chimneys and labouring with huge Christmas presents and one showing reindeer against a winter backdrop.