Furniture in Leicestershire

Planning a tour of furniture in Leicestershire.

Stoneywell 
Ernest Gibson's design for his brother Sydney in 1899.  Newly acquired by the National Trust, it will be the first National Trust property in Leicestershire.  http://ntstoneywell.wordpress.com/

A large Cottage in Charnwood Forest

 

 

Kelmarsh Hall

A Palladian Villa situated south of Market Harborough.  Currently houses the Croome Court Furniture while this property is being restored.

Kelmarsh Hall - Northamptonshire

The Croome Court Exhibition (From Kelmarsh Hall Website)

The 6th Earl of Coventry identified the skills of the then young Robert Adam, who was

engaged in 1760 to update the interior of the house. Adam’s designed a range of garden

buildings, fireplaces, furniture and tapestries, resulting in a fabulously furnished house

which reflected the changes in fashion of the day and the 6th Earl’s stylistic ideals.

The 6th Earl was greatly influenced by French neo-classicism and started collecting in

Paris in 1763. However he was also inspired by these designs and commissioned very

many pieces from important London cabinet-makers, British designers and craftsmen.

He retained the leading London cabinetmakers of the period, most of them grouped in

and around St. Martin’s Lane, and their accounts are in the main extant, a rare survival.

The Earl was amongst the first to cross the Channel in August 1762, immediately after

the Treaty of Paris ended the Seven Years War.

He returned to London imbued with the first flush of French NeoClassicism and a love of

everything French, having purchased remarkable tapestries and porcelain and, through

the marchand mercier, Simon Phillippe Poirier, furniture and objects.

Some of the furnishings which served in creating a very prestigious and impressively

furnished home at Croome Court, are now on exhibition at Kelmarsh Hall. Now as with

the archive, it awaits a wider audience.

The collection on display includes furniture from Mayhew and Ince, France and

Bradburn, Vile and Cobb, Chippendale, Chippendale and Seffrin Alken; paintings by

Filipo Lauri, Allan Ramsey, Richard Wilson, Francesco Zuccarelli.