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Great Drawing Room

There were various proposals made for the rebuilding of this part of the house during the 1760s and 1770s. William Constable commissioned a design for a new dining room from Thomas Atkinson, and Timothy Lightoler provided an extraordinary design for a museum complete with experiment room. However, following William’s marriage to Catherine Langdale in 1775, he settled on a plan to create the Great Drawing Room. In 1776 the architect James Wyatt (1746-1813) presented a bill for the designs. 

All this changed when in 1840 the Clifford Constables undertook extensive re-decoration. The ceiling and all the woodwork was repainted - the details picked out in strong colours with gilded highlights - and the walls covered in bright yellow silk. The mirrors were repaired and re-gilded and the seat furniture re-upholstered. A new carpet was woven which incorporated the family crest into the design and the huge palm-tree ottoman was provided for the centre of the room. The four full-length portraits, by Claude-Marie Dubuffe (1790-1864), originally hung in the family’s London home at Cumberland Place, London.

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