Charlecote House – Dining Room

I think it’s quite intriguing to see a room in a National Trust property looking like this. This is the dining room at Charlecote House and it’s a key room in the property, reached from the Great Hall. This section of the property isn’t part of the Elizabethan core, it’s part of the west wing extension that was added in the 1830s by George Hammond and Mary Elizabeth Lucy.

And here’s the problem, they’ve had a leak. As the signage notes, there was a small leak from a gutter which led to a leak that went unnoticed until the wallpaper started to peel off the wall and mushrooms started to appear. I was visiting the property with Richard, who is on his big diet, and reading that managed to make him hungry. He’s distracted by anything even vaguely food related at the moment….

That’s their issue. Although it’s worth noting the rather impressive ornate plaster ceiling in the room.

They’re on the second stage of fixing the rather sub-optimal arrangement.

I rather like that they’ve decided to keep the room open so that visitors can see the work that is ongoing. The wallpaper is by Thomas Willement, it’s all a bit opulent for me, but I think that was likely the intention at the time.

It’s a huge undertaking to fix a relatively small problem, although such is the challenge in historic buildings. If this building was in private hands, the cost of the repairs would perhaps be too onerous, but it certainly looks like the National Trust are doing a thorough repair job.