Ball of the year?

Hard as we Americans try, there are some things we just can’t do as well as the British.

Last month, as blog readers will recall, Focus Features hosted a Regency ball near Los Angeles to celebrate the twentieth anniversary re-release of the Keira Knightley-Matthew Macfadyen adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. No doubt this was a lovely occasion for those inclined to fork over at least $150 per ticket.

But that event probably can’t hold a candle to the similarly themed ball scheduled for this Saturday. Because this one isn’t taking place in a hotel ballroom. It’s taking place at Chatsworth.

In case you’ve forgotten, Chatsworth, the ancestral Derbyshire seat of the Duke of Devonshire, is a truly spectacular stately home--and, just incidentally, the stand-in for Pemberley, the ancestral Derbyshire seat of Mr. Darcy, in the Knightley-Macfadyen P&P. One shot of its stunning south façade (scroll down to see it here) is all it takes to make sense of Elizabeth Bennet’s passing thought that “to be mistress of Pemberley might be something!” (Whether Chatsworth was Austen's real-life inspiration for Pemberley--if such real-life inspiration there was--remains a matter of debate.)

The Chatsworth ball—tickets £180 (about $243), Regency attire required—promises to be the high point of a weekend-long Austen 250 celebration at the estate, now a major English tourist attraction. Beginning tomorrow, the three-day schedule includes talks about Austen and about Chatsworth during the Regency, lavish afternoon teas, embroidery workshops, and performances of Adrian Lukis’ delightful one-man show Being Mr. Wickham.

And, inevitably, that 2005 movie will be screened—"on the South Lawn with Chatsworth's south façade as your backdrop.” (Equally inevitably, those screenings, as well as some of the other events, are sold out.)

As of this writing, however, ball tickets remain available. In addition to drinks, Regency dancing, and a three-course meal, attendees are promised the chance to explore parts of the house that were featured in the film, including the Sculpture Gallery, where Knightley’s Elizabeth ogles a marble version of her future husband.

The 2005 movie isn’t my favorite P&P adaptation, but I’m not immune to the charms of architecture this glorious. If you only go to one Austen 250 ball in 2025, this might be the one to choose.