Author: Harmony Kinnear
Directions: Exit the room and turn right into the Cleves Room.
Transcript
As a guest, you would find yourself funnelled inside here, the drawing room- perhaps to greet the lady of the house, Ellen Stanford. However, that is not before you had been allowed to take in the grandeur of the entrance hall. The two rooms work succinctly in presenting a certain image of the newly wealthy Stanfords.
Ellen in particular, would be found in here. Perhaps, perched on that sofa waiting to call for some tea. Or at a more formal social event, you would be brought here and shown to a seat. This would be in accordance to your social status. The more important of a guest you were, the closer you would be sat to Ellen.
”Think of the room as a sort of orbit and Ellen being the sun,’ a guide once said to me. I’m sure that’s how Ellen would have liked to have thought about it, too. As a woman of her stature and time, she would be deeply focused on with her individual and family’s image and the details of this room- its heavy focus on gold- would have been very deliberately chosen, specifically curated, to reflect the idealistic image put forward.