This part of the manor house features designs by legendary 19th century architect and designer Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, whose genius for the Gothic Revival style left a trail of beauty across the British Isles and Ireland. Countless magnificent churches, colleges, schools, and private houses bear his unmistakable signature, perhaps most notably the interiors of the new Palace at Westminster. Pugin was hired by the 3rd Earl of Dunraven as he strived to fulfill his father’s vision, and though progress was slow, the results of the collaboration are magnificent.
The spectacular scale of this room is the first thing you notice: soaring ceilings, vaulted arches, and enormous windows. This ecclesiastical style celebrates the Dunraven family’s love for grand cathedrals and the architect’s prodigious talent for such monumental spaces. Even at this size, however, there is an unmistakable air of warmth and welcome in the room, something that was as important to its first inhabitants as it is to us today. Lady Caroline said of The Great Hall that it was: “…peculiarly adapted to every purpose for which it may be required. It has been frequently used with equal appropriateness as a dining-room, concert room, ballroom; for private theatricals, tableaux vivants, and other amusements. At the same time, when only one person is seated at the ample fireplace, where on medieval fire-dogs huge logs of wood are blazing, the coup d’oeil is so perfect, and the whole aspect of the room so comfortable, that one could not wish it in any way changed or diminished, notwithstanding its great size.”
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