The State Rooms comprise all the rooms across the Front Wing along the First Floor, namely the Bed-chamber F1, the Red Dressing Room F2, the Inner Chamber F3, and the Great Chamber F4 (see below First Floor plans).

The Great Chamber F4 of the Jacobean house lay above the Hall and was reached by the Best Stair. Its size is the same as the original Hall before it was reduced by one bay to facilitate the creation of the Entrance Hall G3 in the 1740s. The principal lodgings lay to the north of the Great Chamber, and it is likely that originally there would have been an Inner Chamber and a Best Bed-chamber.

For specific alterations to a room, please review rooms details to be found on First Floor page.

 

The whole of the First Floor of the Front Wing was remodelled by Flitcroft in the 1740s. Each space was redecorated in Palladian fashion with enriched modillion cornices and characteristic chimneypieces. Plain walls were supported by a simple dado, but typical of the architect, the beams at the openings to the bay windows were supported by consoles above lion heads holding festoons. The Great Chamber F4 and Inner Chamber F3 were provided with decorative ceilings. It is possible that the north rooms were subdivided as part of Flitcroft’s alterations to provide the bed alcoves, a similar approach to his repositioning of partitions on the Ground Floor to enlarge the Entrance Hall. The arched entrances to both alcoves extend back under a barrel vault, that to the Inner Chamber F3 incorporating shallow coffers each containing an ornamental flower.

 

By the 1840s, the bed-alcoves had been reduced to only a nominal depth, and the space gained from each was converted to a dressing room namely the Red Dressing Room F2. The Inner Chamber F3 became the Red Room occupied by Lord and Lady Lilford; the Bed-chamber F1 became Lady Lilford’s boudoir; the room between being the Red Dressing Room F2. A plaster bas relief, presumably depicting the Lilford’s son Thomas (b.1861), by Lady Lilford’s relation, H.C. Brandling, was introduced at the centre of Flitcroft’s roundel above the door in the Red Room in 1865.

Flitcroft’s decoration remains insitu, but was embellished in about 1900 when the rooms were refurnished by Cowtan & Son. In the Great Chamber F4, a cacophony of decorative plaster and mirrors replaced the plain walling. One of the windows appears to have been boarded over at this time and the other windows were modified. The same refurnishing extended to Lady Lilford’s boudoir, the panelling was modified with enriched details and the windows on the north wall boarded over.