House Tour

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Chinese Room

The Lobby leads to the Chinese Drawing Room, which was the ladies' withdrawing room. It shows Lady Hertford's taste of 1827 - 28 almost undisturbed, being hung with hand-painted Chinese wallpaper, given to her mother by the Prince Regent in 1806, and embellished with birds cut out of spare portions of the paper and from the first volume of Audubon's celebrated Birds of America.

Both rooms are fitted with lavish Louis XIV doorcases and cupboards (incorporating Japanese lacquer, which is imitated in the decoration of her contemporary Broadwood piano) and the lobby has a ceiling painted to suggest the draped textiles of fashionable 'tent-rooms'. Some of the composition mouldings are highly unusual in being silvered. In 1808 the Chinese Drawing Room had been newly completed and probably furnished by Thomas Chippendale the Younger who was paid £408 in 1804.

Both rooms were extensively restored and redecorated between 1985 and 1987 when the Chinese paper was taken down so that the earlier paper underneath could be removed and the whole ensemble cleaned. A new scarlet and silver border was printed, the original fireplace reinstated and an overmantel mirror and curtain poles of the 1840s from Melton Constable, Norfolk, were installed. The Indian carpet, possibly made for the royal visit of the Duke and Duchess of York in 1894, was returned to this room in 2003.

Terrace Room

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