Beningbrough Hall - Smoking room



The builder of Beningbrough, John Bourchier, probably used this as his business room. In the cornice are some of the bold wood carvings for which the house is justly famous.

The portraits relate to the 1688 Revolution, which deposed the Catholic James II from the throne and replaced him with the Protestant William of Orange. The seven bishops who opposed James II's Catholic religious policy, and were imprisoned in the Tower of London for their pains, are commemorated in the painting to the left of the entrance door. Between the windows is a fine late seventeenth-century Boulle bureau Mazarin of ebony, inlaid with brass.

Download: In focus
Portraits on display in this room