In our lightning tour of UK, my party will be driving near Lyme Park. Is it possible to drive onto the grounds without paying for parking......and if not, is it worth paying the 2 pounds or so parking fee and wandering the grounds? We are Jane Austen fans if you didn't guess - lol.

I thought it was a beautiful spot and well worth visiting. The family members who are not Austen fans also enjoyed it. Not sure about parking options. We took a short walking trail up from the Macclesfeld Canal.

While I have your attention.....has anyone an opinion as to the minimum amount of time needed for 4 adults to view Chatsworth stately home and see a bit of the garden? I realise there are many other interesting things there too but we would not have time.

Hey Lifetrip,

I'm a fellow fan of Jane Austen, and we went to both Lyme Park and Chatsworth. I would definitely feel that the grounds are worth the 2 pounds. We stopped there on our way to Derbyshire, and had lunch on the site. The grounds aren't very big, and the house actually looks much smaller in person!

As for Chatsworth it sort of depends on what you want to see. Does everyone want to see both the house and the grounds? I'm not really into the interiors of most stately houses, even though I love walking around the exteriors of them. I would suggest maybe about an hour for the interior, and 1-1.5 hours for the grounds. While you are there, I would suggest going to the Chatsworth Farm house up the road. You can see it on the Chatsworth website.

Anna1013 has given a pretty good estimate for Chatsworth - but her 1 + 1-1.5 doesn't equal 2-2.5 hours when you total everything like walking to/from the car park etc -- plan on 3 or more hours for Chatsworth.

Cool, I like the sound of 3 leisurely hours at Chatsworth. Is it the best stately home in England? Opinions please.

Are you really worried about a 2 quid parking fee?

Talk about small change.

No....2 quid is not the issue....it's the time to drive there and whether the sight is worth seeing.