The Great Hall

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Elizabethan house was dominated by the Great Hall, which rose the full height of the building and was originally top-lit by a lantern. However, by the close of the sixteenth century the upper windows had been blanked off and the ceiling lowered to allow for the creation of attic rooms. The Great Hall had an elaborate carved stone screen at its south end, beyond which was the entrance passage, the kitchen, buttery and pantry together with stairways to cellars and upper lodging rooms.

By the eighteenth century, the Great Hall must have appeared old fashioned, and a surviving design of c.1730 suggests that Cuthbert Constable intended to completely remodel the interior. However, it appears that remodelling was not undertaken until the 1760s when his son William commissioned a number of leading architects to furnish him with designs. These included John Carr (1723-1807), ‘Capability' Brown (1716-83) and Timothy Lightoler (1727-69). The new front door to the house was designed to harmonise with the existing Elizabethan windows. The decorative plasterwork was executed by James Henderson ( fl. 1755-87) of York who had been contracted for the work by Lightoler. The bill of £252.17.0 1/2 was settled by William in February 1767.

As part of the overall decorative scheme, William acquired the plaster figures of Demosthenes and Hercules with Cerebus for the niches on either side of the fireplace. These, and the plaster busts of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus and the Greek poetess Sappho on the overmantel, are amongst a number of works supplied by the sculptor John Cheere (1709-87), who had initially submitted a series of sketches. Unusually, the sketches also survive at Burton Constable.

Above the fireplace is a carving of oak boughs and garlands of laurel leaves, crowned by the Garter Star. It surrounds the armourial shield of the Constable family executed in scagliola by Domenico Bartoli. For ‘Carving the Ornament Round the Achievement in the Hall' the Fisher workshop of York charged the princely sum of £42 in 1767.

Domenico Bartoli was also responsible for the four scagliola table tops in the Great Hall. One pair of tables imitate porphyry marble whilst the other two imitate pietra dura .

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