The House

The following descriptions have been taken from the Historic Building Consultants' Report of 2002:

THE ENTRANCE HALL

The Entrance Hall is the major and best preserved Victorian interior in the sequence of rooms in the house. It should, in the view of English Heritage, be the first priority of a planned restoration campaign, and the current use of this room by the school would not prevent a full restoration to the Victorian appearance.

The Hall largely survives as designed by Samuel Whitfield Daukes. The architectural detail is surprisingly refined and largely Greek in style. The Ionic Order of the two screens of Siena scagliola columns, the cornice, and the shallow stucco beams are all derived from Athenian sources. The walls are articulated with blank arches and this arcade reflects the arched heads of the external ground floor windows. The five mahogany doors here and throughout the house are part of Daukes’ work and have handsome Grecian mouldings.

The later painted decoration has transformed the room. The palette is restrained, with olive, stone, pale blue and terracotta prevailing, and delicate stencilling and gilding. This scheme almost certainly dates from circa 1881, and is of very high quality. The black and white marble floor was no doubt introduced then, too, by James Lamb of Manchester, as were the oak chimneypieces at either end, and their bevelled mirrored overmantels. They have a Jacobean flavour, with marble, polished brass and tiled inset fireplaces, and projecting brass lights, originally for gas light. Old photographs show the original glass torch pattern shades. There are two framed bevelled mirrors on the north wall en suite with the overmantels, also part of the Lamb furnishings. The four inset painted panels in square frames between the arch heads, depicting Worcestershire occupations (such as china painting and hop-picking), are by an unidentified artist (though careful examination may produce a signature)

The room retains some of the Lamb furniture shown in late Victorian photographs (leather upholstered chairs and Italianate tables) as well as the stuffed animal heads. The boarded area in the middle of the floor was then covered with a large Turkey pattern rug also shown in the old photograph.

THE DRAWING ROOM

Samuel Daukes’ original room was extended to the south by addition of an extra bay circa 1881; this new area was carefully designed to match the 1840s dado, cornice and panelled ceiling in the main part of the room from which it is separated by an embellished downstand beam. The chimneypiece and overmantel, with oval mirror, and the matching architectural cabinet on the north wall, the small pedimented wall mirrors with lights, the pier glass and the original pelmets all form a Victorian ensemble of the highest quality. They are gilt and ebonised the cabinetwork, with superb ivory inlay and marquetry of pale coloured woods. They are typical of the best products of the Lamb firm in the 1880s, and their Graeco-Egyptian tone was relatively avant garde for the date as well as being sympathetic to Daukes’ 1840s architecture. The red marble and brass fireplace, as well as the joinery of its surround, is also by Lamb. Many other 1880s fittings survive in the room including the rich brass fender, and the wall mounted bracket gasoliers, (originally with glass bell shades) and the patent ventilators on the chimneybreast. Efficient ventilation of rooms was a Victorian architectural obsession, and several interesting examples survive at Abberley. The ceiling retains its beautiful 1880s paintwork, mainly blue, pink and gold, the large central flat being painted blue with gold stars.

All the Lamb fittings survive in very good condition (though the bracket gasoliers have lost their original glass shades). The 1880s wallpaper has a gilt filet in the corners. The wallpaper itself looks as if it might have been introduced in the 1950s but it is at least in part, 1880s. It is a silvery white and gold striped Neo-Adam design. It is certain that this paper is the original design, as it is visible through the open door from the library in the late Victorian photographs, which shows identical stripes.

THE LIBRARY

This well preserved room is one of the best documented in the house, as (like the Hall), its appearance is recorded in the late-Victorian photographs. Much that is shown in those views still, remarkably, survives today in situ, including the mahogany writing table, leather armchairs and even the heavy French bronze garniture on the chimneypiece. The mahogany doors and the well-designed plaster ceiling, with central circular panel surrounded by a band of scrollwork, are part of Samuel Daukes’ design of 1845 when the house, as we know it, was built. The rest of the room, however, is a show-piece of Lamb joinery and decoration: the superb fitted mahogany bookcases (carved with the Stag couchant crest of the Jones family who owned Abberley from 1867 to 1916), with gilt brass grilles and lettering (and Bramah patent locks); the chimneypiece in a Neo-Georgian taste; and the massive carved and pedimented overmantel framing a large looking glass with projecting brass ‘gas lights’ (originally with tulip shades).

The painted decoration here is a particularly handsome scheme and well-preserved. Above the book-cases is a deep frieze painted in a masculine classical taste with dark rectangular panels containing swags of laurel. The central ceiling panel is painted in a fan pattern in pale pink, gold and blue and the surrounding area with gold rosettes on cream. The only major loss in this room is the large brass central gasolier shown in the late Victorian photographs; the original carpets and curtains have also disappeared.

THE DINING ROOM

The Private Dining Room on the ground floor of the main house is part of the hugely impressive scheme of Victorian classical decoration at Abberley Hall.

The ceiling and mahogany doors survive from the work of Samuel Whitfield Daukes in the mid-1840s when Daukes was commissioned to rebuild the house. Much of the other decoration was provided by James Lamb: the green marble chimneypiece (and brass and tiled fireplace), the carved and mirrored mahogany overmantel and surround, the panelled dado, the carved overdoors and, not least, the Pollard oak sideboard with high mirrored backdrop (Lamb No 5740). James Lamb’s work at Abberley is the most extensive and best preserved of his work to survive. The ceiling painting, in pale blue, pink, cream and gold also survives from the 1880s. The room contains a number of other interesting Victorian details, notably the ventilators in the ceiling coffers over the sideboard (to extract food smells) and the extraordinary brass obelisk-pattern gas lamps projecting on either side of the chimneypiece.

The original wall covering has disappeared. Traces of the original wallpaper, however, survive behind the sideboard mirror, and show that this room, like the Boudoir and the Study, was papered with Lamb’s Lincrusta with an overall pattern. It has been painted over, however, so the original colour is not clear. As a dining room, it is likely to have been sombre-hued, perhaps a reddish tone which was the nineteenth century favourite dining room colour. One original Lamb curtain pole survives.

THE MORNING ROOM

The Morning Room, sometimes called the Boudoir is now the office. The basic architecture of this small square room is as designed by Samuel Daukes in 1845 with skirting, dado, door and window architraves, fluted frieze, cornice, and plaster panelled ceiling, and the splendid Grecian mahogany door. The room was transformed, however, by James Lamb’s redecoration of circa 1882. The dado was covered with Lincrusta paper in green, buff and gold of an Adamesque pattern. The walls were enlivened with thin framed panels of gilt and pale blue Lincrusta paper with all-over scrolled pattern, and anthemion, paterae and urns. There is a subfrieze of delicate New-Adam design with festoons of husks, paterae and other Neo-classical motifs. The ceiling, too was embellished with a large panel of diapered white Lincrusta in the centre and painted paper borders of classical design, the decoration altogether forming a gentle harmony of pinks, buffs, blue-green and gold. The whole is a tour de force of Victorian Lincrusta and a reminder of the quality of Lamb’s Lincrusta range introduced in 1878. The chimneypiece and large and elaborate mirrored overmantel with bracketed shelves for china also formed part of Lamb’s 1882 embellishment and redecoration. The window pelmets are also a Lamb survival.

THE MAIN STAIRS

The architecture of this space is by Samuel Whitfield Daukes who designed the Hall in 1844 and is a continuation of the Greek Revival style of the Entrance Hall, to which it is the continuation. (The glazed dividing doors are a modern introduction to comply with building regulations). The stone cantilever staircase has simple brass balustrade. Brass is a comparatively rare (and expensive) feature for banisters of staircases in England. The lower walls have blank arches, one with decorative plaster tympanum depicting a river god and perhaps representing the Sabrine stream or the Severn.. The upper part has a rich Greek Revival plaster cornice similar to the Entrance Hall ceiling. The harmonious polychrome paintwork mainly in blue and pink dates from the Jones period (1867-1916). The window wall above the half landing is particularly richly decorated, with a central pedestal which once obviously supported a marble bust. The upper rectangular frieze panels containing grisaille paintings of putti on a gold ground are probably by the same (unidentified) artist as those in the Entrance Hall. They are similar to the Grünner paintings in the Pennethorne galleries at Buckingham Palace. The large pollard oak dresser facing the front of the stairs is another piece supplied by Jamies Lamb and is carved with the Jones crest. (The Jones arms were granted in 1847). The Victorian picture-hang on the walls is also a rare survival.