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North East Corner and
Cellars
North
East Corner
Beyond the Dining Parlour were two drawing rooms and two cellars.
Very little remains of the drawing rooms, except for three of their walls,
but the cellars are still intact. The first cellar is now only accessible
by the doorway in the base of the large bay in the north-eastern corner
of the court. Previously it could have been entered from the Dining Parlour,
and one of the drawing rooms. The door is probably original and inside,
the room is quite spacious, measuring 23 foot by 18½ foot. It has a plain
four-centred vault roof. To the north is a doorway that leads down three
steps to the base of the hexagonal tower where there is a much larger cellar.
It is paved with square stone slabs and the vaulted roof is supported by
stone wall ribs forming a massive chamfered cross. A large iron ring hangs
from the middle keystone. In the northwest side is doorway leading into
a seventeenth century wine cellar. All the cellars are intact and used
for storage.
First
Floor
Returning to and ascending the great staircase would take you
up to the first floor of the house. To the right a door would take you
into the Great Chamber, later called the Grand Drawing room, the room
above the Dining Parlour. The room was
lighted from the west by the upper park of the dining room bay window
and along the north wall was a Tudor fireplace that is still visible
today.
Above
the two ground floor drawing rooms was the second Drawing Room and
to the west, above the cellar, the dressing-room to the Velvet Bed
Chamber. The Bed Chamber itself was above the vaulted cellar in the
hexagonal tower and both it and its dressing-room still retain their
floors. There was an attic room above the Bed
Chamber, of which a fireplace still remains.
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