House Tour
The Gothick Room
The Gothick Room and the adjacent Indian Dressing Room [19], formed the principal lodging of the mid 18th
century house, and would have been entered by doors from the passage. Each room shared the Dark Room with the
lodgings beyond so that two servants could look after three sets of apartments.
The decorative plasterwork in the Gothick Room is the finest in this part for the house. The plainer Palladian
mouldings date form Henry Lord Irwin's alterations in the 1740s, with the more festive rococo motifs probably
added soon after the young heiress Frances Lady Irwin arrived here in 1758 and made this her bedroom. Hers was
the fashionable 'Pillar and Arch' wallpaper, fragments of which were found in the room a few years ago and on
which the present reproduction is based. The room contains the mid 18th century bed from Aldby Hall, Yorkshire,
a rococo candlestand from Hagley hall, Worcestershire and a pair of 'Cathedral Gothick' chairs from Bampton
Church, Oxfordshire.
Blue Striped Dressing Room
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