'A Maudlin and Monstrous Pile': The Mansion at ... - English Heritage

100 Transactions of the Ancient Monuments Society
Fig. 14
The Mansion, Bletchley Park, the Main Staircase
© English Heritage. NMR, AA044338, photograph by Patricia Payne
The billiard room (Fig. 16) was inherited from Seckham, but it was surely Leon
who added a series of solid arched trusses, with corresponding responds and matching
panelling, all in pine, underneath its ceiled collar. From a plain, functional space, the
room came to resemble a medieval great hall. Beyond this, the ballroom was larger and
more ornate, with a coved ceiling and oak linen-fold panelling. Back on the south front,
the principal room was the dining room (Fig. 17), greatly enlarged around 1906, with
substantial mahogany columns superseding the weight-bearing function of the original
south wall. These were removed in 1937 (see below), but similar columns of the same
date survive in the window bays of the adjoining drawing room. While the drawing
room received a new fireplace c.1906, the Jacobean-style oak chimneypiece in the dining
room may have been reused. Many other original features such as panelling, fireplaces
and doors (of varying status, suitable to the rooms they occupy), survive throughout the
house. The greatest losses have been to the bathrooms and service rooms, most of which
were stripped of their fittings during the Second World War.
Leon did much to improve the grounds around the house, planting hundreds of trees,
creating a large kitchen garden, a new rose garden, rockeries, lawns, a maze, grottoes