Grimsthorpe Castle, Lincolnshire
The Chinese Drawing Room
Grimsthorpe Castle is a country house in Lincolnshire, 4 miles north-west from the town of Bourne. It sits within a 3,000 acre park of rolling pastures, lakes, and woodland landscaped by Capability Brown.
The oldest part of the castle is the south-west tower which dates from the 13th century, the main body of the house was built in the mid 16th century in a tudor style using stone from nearby Vaudey Abbey which had recently been dissolved.
In the early 18th century Robert Bertie, the 16th Baron Willoughby de Eresby, employed Sir John Vanbrugh to design a Baroque north front to the house to celebrate his ennoblement as the first Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven. It is Vanbrugh's last masterpiece prior to his death in 1726.
The Chinese Drawing Room contains a mixture of classical, rococo, Chinese and Gothic motifs that are surviving fragments of a succession of superseded or incomplete decorative schemes. The room gets its name from the painted Chinese wallpaper that was hung in the early 19th century. The room also contains a pair of Italian guilded mirrors that were purchased from the Hotel Baldi in Florence in 1844.
Grimsthorpe Castle, Lincolnshire
The Chinese Drawing Room
Grimsthorpe Castle is a country house in Lincolnshire, 4 miles north-west from the town of Bourne. It sits within a 3,000 acre park of rolling pastures, lakes, and woodland landscaped by Capability Brown.
The oldest part of the castle is the south-west tower which dates from the 13th century, the main body of the house was built in the mid 16th century in a tudor style using stone from nearby Vaudey Abbey which had recently been dissolved.
In the early 18th century Robert Bertie, the 16th Baron Willoughby de Eresby, employed Sir John Vanbrugh to design a Baroque north front to the house to celebrate his ennoblement as the first Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven. It is Vanbrugh's last masterpiece prior to his death in 1726.
The Chinese Drawing Room contains a mixture of classical, rococo, Chinese and Gothic motifs that are surviving fragments of a succession of superseded or incomplete decorative schemes. The room gets its name from the painted Chinese wallpaper that was hung in the early 19th century. The room also contains a pair of Italian guilded mirrors that were purchased from the Hotel Baldi in Florence in 1844.