Denford Park, Kintbury - Hungerford Virtual Museum

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The Rose Room, part of the former Library
DenfordPark. Kintburv. Berkshire
To the west of the Saloon, but not connected with it, is the room recently known as
the Rose Room. It is reached off a corridor connecting the Entrance Hall and the
West Wing (Building Bl). The corridor was clearly carved out of the once larger
Library as part of the 1939 changes by building a fairly thin partition wall parallel to
the main spine wall that formerly separated the room from the Stair Hall.
The remaining section of the room is reached through a doorway through that new
wall - though the door is a veneered mahogonay one of some antiquity virtually
identical to those leading into the Dining Room (see above). The room is lit by a
single window in the south wall and two in the west wall; these have full-height
reveals with pedestalled architraves and simple panelled shutters - though enriched
with beading.
The room has a boarded floor, a skirting board and a dado rail interrupted by the
window architraves. The plaster cornice, with its floral frieze, respects the present
parameters of the room, but the northern run along the wall of the inserted corridor
1 ^ has to have been carefully reset - and probably came from the original north wall of
the room.
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There are indications of the original fireplace towards the northern end of the eastern
wall but no, unfortunately, sign of the 'White Marble Mantlepiece of Adam design'
mentioned in the 1924 Sales Particulars. There is now a plain framed recess where
this used to be.
The same Sales Particulars also state that the original Library had two doorways - one
L - evidently off the Entrance Hall, the other leading into the adjacent Drawing Room -
i.e. the Saloon. Given the position of the two fireplaces in the wall between these
rooms it is unclear where such a doorway could have been.
The West Corridor
The west corridor was created in 1939 when the northern part of the former Library
was partitioned off from the rest to enable separate access from the Entrance Hall into
the new West Wing.
Once created, it was carefully detailed to fit into the house - with a stone floor,
moulded timber skirting board and enriched plaster cornice similar to those in the Hall
and a reset door into the remaining part of the Library.
At the west end of the corridor is the doorway in to the main ground-floor room of the
" r ,, West Wing, presumably in the position of an original window opening. In the north
wall, there is an inserted opening protected by a balustrade looking into the adjacent
Stair Hall. This was presumably added when the corridor was created to provide
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borrowed light from the Stair Hall into what would otherwise be a very dark space.
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Richard KMorriss & Associates, Historic Buildings Consultants, Bromlow House, Bromlaw, Shropshire, SYS OEA