The Blue Bedroom

Although this room is now called 'The Blue Bedroom' we are not sure what the Bourchiers used it for. On the north side of the house, tucked away without adjacent dressing rooms or closets, it has very plain panelling. The Bourchiers may have used it as a Common Parlour, an everyday family living room for eating and sitting ­ although not in great comfort. If so, there may have been an informal side entrance to the house just along the corridor, where the Dawnays put the conservatory in the late nineteenth-century. We know they used this room for billiards and, in the twentieth century, the Chesterfields used it as a study.

The bed is a pair to that in the State Bedchamber, with blue damask hangings copied from the originals, which had disintegrated beyond repair. The portraits here represent the last two families to own Beningbrough Hall. Over the fireplace is Lady Victoria Dawnay, who married Lewis Dawnay in 1877. Together they reestablished Beningbrough as a family home and added modern services, like toilets and heating. Either side of Lady Victoria are Lord and Lady Nunburnholme, Lady Chesterfield's parents.

Portraits from the National Portrait Gallery on display:

Go to a large print, text-only version of this site

All images and text are subject to copyright protection. 22 November 2008