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THE GREAT HALL
The mahogany door on the south side
of the Gallery opens into the Great Hall, which, although designed
in the Renaissance style, is essentially Tudor in plan. It was
Lord Astor's living room and private office, for meetings, arbitrations,
lectures and entertaining.
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Extending the whole length
of the building on the river front, the Great Hall measures
7I feet by 28 feet 6 inches, and stands 35 feet high to
the ridge. It is open
to the roof, which is of hammer-beam type and a fine example
of modern Gothic timber work, being all of richly carved
Spanish mahogany.
The bearings of the hammerbeams
are brought down on fluted mahogany pilasters to the level
of the floor, which is laid in solid panels of various kinds
of polished hard woods.
The walls are elaborately
panelled in irreplaceable pencil cedar, 'attractive alike
by its delicate grain and surface as by its fragrance'.
The panelling is finished by a frieze in which are fifty-four
portraits, modelled and carved by Hitch in low relief and
gilded, of the heads of characters famous in history and
in fiction. |
They include authors, artists,
and patrons of literature and art; soldiers, statesmen, and explorers,
and women who loved deeply or inspired that passion in others.
Amongst some of the names to be noticed are Bismarck, Jessica,
Alfred the Great, Henrietta Maria, Macchiavelli, Anne Boleyn and
Voltaire. An annotated list of the characters depicted by these
gilt portraits is given in an Appendix (Great Hall Frieze). Above
this frieze, standing within traceried canopies under the roof
principals, are twelve carven figures from 'history's play-book',
Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe. These figures, an adequate description
of which is forbidden by considerations of space, include Robin
Hood, Maid Marian, Gurth, Wamba and Friar Tuck. They were carved
in mahogany by Hitch, to whose sorrow, however, they had to be
gilded because they were almost invisible to Lord Astor in the
darkness of the lofty roof, the depths of which are scarcely penetrated
either by the lighting from the two large oriel windows or from
the heavy twin candelabra.
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There is at either end of
the Hall a carved pencil cedar chimneypiece, each specially
modelled and differently designed. The East and West Windows,
in the wide recesses next to the chimneypieces, are filled
with valuable painted glass. They represent Swiss landscapes
at 'Sunrise' and 'Sunset', and are the work of Clayton and
Bell. The two recesses contain some finely carved seat-ends
by Hitch, which are frequently passed unnoticed. Towards
the western end of the Hall is a concealed panel giving
access to the great steel door of a large strong room, the
work of Chubb & Son, whilst a similar panel at the other
end opens into the Council Chamber.
The inside of the mahogany
entrance door to the Great Hall has a beautiful carved head
and nine decorative panels in silver-gilt by the late Sir
George Frampton, R.A., the sculptor of the Peter Pan statue
and the Cavell Memorial. The panels were exhibited at the
Royal Academy, and depict in low relief nine heroines of
the Arthurian Legend, to Malory's version of which a new
interpretation was given by Tennyson. |
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These panels in order are, the 'Lady
of the Isle of Avelyon' and 'Elaine', recalling those lines of
Tennyson which run:
Elaine the fair, Elaine the
loveable,
Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat
Then rose the dumb old servitor,
and the dead
Steer'd by the dumb went upward with the flood-
In her right hand the lily, in her left The letter-
all her bright hair streaming down-
. . . and that clear-featured face
Was lovely, for she did not seem as dead
But fast asleep, and lay as tho' she smiled.
Next come the 'Lady of the
Lake', 'Morgan le Fay', and 'Guinevere', for whom
A man had given all other bliss,
And all his worldly worth for this,
To waste his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips.
Then there are 'La Beale
Isoude', 'Lyonors', and 'Enid', who
. . but to please her husband's eye,
Who first had found and loved her in a state
Of broken fortunes, daily fronted him
In some fresh splendour . . .
The last panel is given to 'Alis
la Beale Pilgrim'.
The fine proportions, the exquisite
carving, the meticulous finish, the beau-tiful materials and the
historical and literary associations of the Great Hall, tend to
cause forgetfulness of the pleasing view from its windows, from
which may be seen the Temple and Embankment Gardens, the old and
the new; 'hoary Father Thames', busy with craft; the Surrey side
with its churches, wharves and houses, and, in the dim distance,
the Crystal Palace.
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