The Dukeries

The Dukeries is a district in the county of Nottinghamshire so called because it contained four ducal seats. It is south of Worksop which has been called the Gateway to the Dukeries. The ducal seats were: Clumber House: principal seat of the Dukes of Newcastle, Thoresby Hall: principal seat of the Dukes of Kingston and later of the Earls Manvers, Welbeck Abbey: principal seat of the Dukes of Portland and Worksop Manor: a seat of the Dukes of Norfolk. A fifth large country house, Rufford Abbey, was not a ducal seat.

The Dukeries was remarkable not only for the number of ducal families in close proximity to each other, (there were at most times fewer than one English ducal family for each two English counties) but also because the parks of the houses were largely contiguous.

Welbeck Abbey is the only house that remains in traditional ownership. Until 2005 it was leased to the Ministry of Defence and occupied by the Army Sixth Form College, while the descendants of the last Duke of Portland occupied Welbeck Woodhouse which was built in the park for the 7th duke in the early 1930s when he was Marquis of Titchfield. The house is three quarters of a mile to the north east of the main house, and while much smaller than the abbey, is some 200 feet (61 m) long.