House Tour
Georgian Library
Beyond the Picture Gallery, occupying the east end of Sir Arthur Ingram's Jacobean gallery, is the Georgian
Library, which was completed in 1743. At a time when English architects and patrons were much influenced by the
designs of the Italian architect Andrea Palladio (1508-80) this room is one of the most Palladian of all rooms:
the classical 'order' of Corinthian columns was derived from an 18th century edition of Palladio's Four Books of
Architecture first published in 1570.
Above the entablature there were once seven plaster busts of classical authors, painted to imitate bronze and
possibly from the workshop of the London sculptor John Cheere: three survive. The magnificent library table,
almost certainly the work of William Hallett and designed for this room, was triumphantly returned here in 1988
after a successful public appeal. It appears in a mid 19th century watercolour which also shows the room with
some of the chairs from the Picture Gallery and two contemporary globes by John Senex. The original chimney-piece
and overmantel with its painting of St Francis then attributed to Van Dyke were replaced by the organ (by the Leeds
makers Wordsworth & Maskell) when the room became a chapel in 1877.
Mrs Meynell Ingram and her family (the Woods of Hickleton, Viscounts - later Earls of Halifax) were highly
influential in the Anglo-Catholic movement and established a number of churches. At this date her favoured
architect was G F Bodley and his scheme at Temple Newsam incorporated a reredos by Farmer & Brindley, furniture
by Rattee and Kett of Cambridge, stained glass by Burlison & Grylls, textiles and wallpaper by Watts & Co and
silver by Jes Barkentin. Bodley's rich but dusky colour scheme was destroyed in 1944 and the room restored to
its former function in 1974. The chapel and these furnishings are now below in the rooms which were taken over
as kitchens in 1796 but had, before that date, been the site of the Jacobean chapel.
Bathroom
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