Cowdray House, Midhust

Gate House
Court Yard
East Range: Porch, Buck Hall, Dinning Parlour
Chapel & Grand Staircase
North-east corner
North Range
North-west corner
South-west corner
South Range
South-east corner & Kitchen
Key to dates & Owners

Eastern Rage - Porch, Buck Hall, and Dining Parlour

Plan of principle rooms of east range Porch
Tthe porch is nearly square with a beautifully carved fan vault ceiling of stone. In the centre is the Tudor rose with a crown and arounding this are carved eight cusped quatrefoils. In the corners the fans are each divided into four sections, in which alternate a large anchor and a trefoil bearing the letters, W.S., referring to the builder, William, Earl of Southampton. Also, among the spandrels of the south-wet corner fan, there are four heads; two are obviously cherubim, while the others are that of a mature man and woman. Possibly, it had been suggested, that of the Earl and his Countess.

The Buck Hall
The hall was one of the noblest rooms in England, built somewhat in the style of the halls at Hampton Court and Christ Church, Oxford. It was 60ft long, 28ft wide and 60ft from the paved marble floor to the apex of the great hammer beam roof.

Along the north, east and west walls ran very high panelled wainscoting of cedar, on which were fine paintings. Above this, on the west side, are three windows with steeply slopping sills and further to the north, the great bay window with its sixty openings, which flanked the dais that ran across the north end of the hall. Around the walls, above the wainscoting, were large brackets upon which were mounted eleven life size wooden bucks which gave the hall its name. The bucks were the work of Sir Anthony Browne (1542-1548) being part of his family crest.

The high-pitched hammer beam oak roof was divided into four bays.

Dining Parlour
Returning back through the hallway, past the staircase, you enter the Great Parlour, which was renamed as the Dining Parlour in the seventeenth century. Today it looks like an extension to the Buck Hall because most of the dividing wall has fallen. The room was 40½ foot long by 21 foot wide and at its west end was a large seventeenth-century bay window.


Compilation pre-fire and modern views of eastern range	Porch	Porth Roof	Pre-Fire Buck Hall

Auriel Window	Buck Hall windows	Dining Parlour	Windows

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