The Bretton Room (formerly called the Red Bedroom) is in the earliest part of the house and the arched doors, lintel across the bay and the fireplace are evidence of this. The panelling with the built-in cupboard and bed, although made for another house (Bretton Hall owned by Thomas Wentworth), are approximately contemporary with the fabric of Temple Newsam and they give some idea of how a room here might have looked in the 1530s. Linen-fold panelling of late-medieval type is combined with Italianate portraits and low-relief decoration in a northern French or Flemish manner, very advanced for the north of England at that date. The hangings of the bed were extremely costly, incorporating cloth of gold and velvets, but have long since disappeared. The plaster frieze was reproduced in 1947 from genuine Jacobean plasterwork surviving elsewhere in the house.

Mrs Aston's Room

Back to Contents