Beningbrough Hall - Hall

The Entrance Hall was designed to impress. Rising clear through two storeys to a vaulted ceiling, it is the focal point of Beningbrough, from which all the other principal rooms radiate. The plaster keystones over the doorways, painted to resemble stone feature grotesque masks vomiting a string of husks from their mouths.

On the massive chimney-piece sits Christopher Hewetson's bust of Pope Clement XIV, a souvenir of Margaret and Giles Earle's Grand Tour to Italy in the 1770s. The portraits celebrate the rulers of early eighteenth-century Britain: Queen Anne, the last of the Stuarts; George I, the first of the Hanoverians; George II, and his eldest son, Frederick, Prince of Wales, who died before he could become King. Painted by the French-trained, Belgian artist - Philip Mercier, this portrait of the Prince is an altogether different image of royalty, one heralding the great taste and patronage of George III's reign.

Entrance Hall, Beningbrough Hall
© NTPL/Andreas von Einsiedel

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Portraits on display in this room