Chatsworth reopening to visitors - for a packed programme of activities themed around celebrating childhood

A multi-sensory art exhibition will launch the new season and will be followed by a new family festival and a reimagined adventure playground.

Jane Marriott, director of Chatsworth House Trust, said: “Through this season celebrating childhood, we hope that our visitors can experience Chatsworth from a new perspective – one that is playful and inquisitive, that celebrates learning and encourages a deeper connection and enjoyment of Chatsworth’s rich history.”

The season opens on Saturday, March 16 with a Picturing Childhood exhibition including rarely seen artistic masterpieces from the collection, some of which will be on display for the first time.

Gill Hart, head of learning and engagement, said: “The exhibition is full of pictures of children. We’ve been able to tell the story of childhood from the Tudor period right up to the modern day and we’ve interspersed our historic collection with new commissions from various artists.”

Visitors are invited to see, touch, smell, feel, think, do, and play through the new commissions and loans by artists that encourage hands-on and perspective-bending interactions, including a unique scent experience curated by food historian and scent artist, Tasha Marks.

Gill said: “We’ve done quite a bit of experiential design to make the whole visitor experience more playful and more family friendly this year.”

The inaugural family festival takes place from May 25 to 27 and will include mastering gravity-defying circus skills, learning bushcraft, running for gold in sports day races, walking in the footsteps of dinosaurs and scavenger hunts.

Children will be able to immerse themselves in a new-look woodland adventure playground when it reopens in April following a large-scale redevelopment