Ask any teenage girl who they idolise right now and it’s all but nailed on that Taylor Swift will top their charts.

The undisputed queen of pop continues to capture the hearts of teen admirers around the globe, with her deeply emotive songs on heartbreak and the difficulties of growing up tapping directly into the core of her audience.

Sadly, it’s also an equally safe bet that out of 100 females surveyed zero votes would be returned to select the revered Bess of Hardwick as their role model.

It’s been 426 years since her death yet the inspiring legacy of Bess continues to be proudly felt to this day around the Derbyshire estates that she once helped create.

Behind the scenes as hardwick Hall get ready for the Bess: Unframing the family exhibition. Pictured: Elena Williams, collections and house manager and Liz Waring moving a painting for the exhibition.

placeholder image — Behind the scenes as hardwick Hall get ready for the Bess: Unframing the family exhibition. Pictured: Elena Williams, collections and house manager and Liz Waring moving a painting for the exhibition.

Through a series of well-made marriages, Bess rose to the highest levels of English nobility and, using her connections and business savvy, went on to become so wealthy she was only beaten in the bank balance by England's most famous Queen, Elizabeth I.

Perhaps even more remarkable is the fact that the determined Bess was able to achieve such success in a hugely dominated male world while also staying down-to-earth at the same time.

Bess is of course most famously linked to Hardwick Hall. She began her ambitious project to build a new and grander Hardwick Hall in 1590 following the death of her estranged fourth husband, the Earl of Shrewsbury, with work on the stunning property finally completed seven years later.

It is here at the popular National Trust attraction that the brand new Bess: Unframing the Family exhibition opens to the public on Saturday (23rd May) with the aim of shedding more light on Bess and the family who helped make her who she was.

Behind the scenes as Elena Williams, collections and house manager at Hardwick Hall, puts the finishing touches to the new Unframing the Family exhibition.

For Elena Williams, collections and house manager at Hardwick Hall, it’s a stirring tale which still resonates in the modern world.

“I have been working at Hardwick for a while and there are so many stories for us to tell,” she said. “There’s so many facets of Bess and her family’s life that we are yet to share and this is just another one. I’m very proud and really looking forward to seeing what people think.

“She is extraordinary because she is a woman who was able to navigate, politically and socially, in a very male dominated world and that is what people find fascinating. Bess was also, and we hope to bring this back to the fore, a family person. Her children and grandchildren were really important to her. She wanted them to have success in life, she wanted them to avoid the problems she had when she was younger, so there’s that wonderful side to her as well, which we hope to reveal.

“There is a lot of relevance there. Bess was a mother, she was a grandmother, she had an extended family who were really important to her and I think that speaks to people today who have larger families for different reasons.”

Elena Williams, collections and house manager and Liz Waring moving a painting for the opening of the Unframing the Family exhibition.

The fascinating exhibition features portraits of figures connected with Bess and her family - including Mary Queen of Scots, Anne Keighley, William Cavendish, 2nd Earl of Devonshire, Lady Arbella Stuart and Sir Henry Cavendish - and is the culmination of months of hard work and dedication.

The fascinating exhibition follows a successful conservation programme that included technical examinations of the paintings to uncover the paintings’ hidden histories. Techniques included infra-red imaging, paint analysis, x-rays and detailed scanning, similar to those featured on the BBC’s Fake or Fortune? series.

“The exhibition was inspired by the Painted Portrait Project, where a group of portraits, including Bess and her family, went away for investigation and conservation. Now they have inspired us to think about presenting this project to the public,” explained Bess-loving Elena.

“They are really interested in what we do and how we care for the objects. We started planning the project in detail last year. Some of the items in the exhibition haven’t been on display for many many years. We are really excited to be able to share this with the public.

Freya, a volunteer in the collectons team, is pictured cleaning and preparing the exhibition.

“One of the things we really want to do is inspire people to find out more about conservation and perhaps get involved in it in some way.”

History-loving Freya, who works as a collection volunteer alongside Elena, is also keen to see the next generation inspired by local history.

“A lot of hard work goes into conservation and I think it’s nice to draw in the attention of visitors and give things a boost, especially for the next generation to find out about what we are doing,” she said.

“I have always been interested in history and did classical studies, so this was a no-brainer for me. There’s a lot of hard work gone into this project and I feel a lot of pride. I hope the visitors will enjoy it as much as I do.”

Bess: Unframing the Family runs until 1 November and follows the recent opening of the Bess’s Dream exhibition, which offers visitors the opportunity to learn more about the real Bess and how important her family was to her.

Both exhibitions are free to enter with admission to Hardwick Hall. Details about both exhibitions and admission to Hardwick and its wider estate can be found on the National Trust website: www.nationaltrust.org.uk/hardwick