Tatton Hall

The Entrance Hall

The Dining Room

The Music Room

The Main Staircase

The Drawing Room

The Library

The Entrance Hall is in three bays. It is decorated in neoclassical style with a marble floor, red porphyry Ionic columns and a geometric coffered, tunnel vaulted ceiling. The furniture includes two late-17th-century Italian chests of drawers and a walnut chest dating from around 1730, and a 19th-century walnut table and chairs. On each side of a central niche are marble busts of the Duke of Wellington and William Pitt the Younger on columns. The largest painting in the entrance hall is The Cheshire Hunt, 1839 by Henry Calvert.[7][9] To the west of the entrance hall is the Card Room (where calling cards were left – not for playing cards, as in other Card Rooms). This room has a neoclassical cornice and fireplace. A set of open arm chairs are English in the Adam style which date from around 1785. Other furniture dates from the 19th century in Louis XVI marquetry style. In a showcase is a rare silver filigree Horn Book. Paintings in the room include La Gouvernante by Chardin, The Head of an Old Man, 1639 by Abraham Bloemaert, A Farrier's by Philips Wouwerman, and Head of Nicodemus after Rogier van der Weyden.[3][10]

On the other side of the Entrance Hall is the Music Room whose walls are decorated with cherry-coloured silk damask. Much of the furniture is in the French Boulle revival style (with brass inlays in the style of André Charles Boulle). An alcove was intended to be occupied by an organ but it contains a rosewood bookcase in boulle work. The circular table, couches and chairs are also in boulle style, made by Gillows. The fireplace is made from white marble and is decorated with images of musical instruments and motifs. Two vases on the mantelpiece are 19th-century Meissen. The harpsichord was made by Kirckman's and is dated 1789. The paintings include pieces by Gaspard Dughet, Aernout van der Neer, Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem, and Guercino, and two still life paintings by Jan Davidszoon de Heem and Cornelis de Heem.[11] To the south of the music room is the Drawing Room which is decorated in a similar style. The ceiling is gilded and coffered and is decorated with rosettes. Together with its elaborate furniture it is the "most impressive and ostentatious room in the house".[12] The paintings include two views of Venice by Canaletto, The Sacrifice of Noah by Poussin, The Martyrdom of St. Stephen by Van Dyck, and paintings by Annibale Carracci and Giovanni Battista Cimaroli. A full-length portrait of Samuel Egerton is by Bartolomeo Nazari.[13]

Behind the portico on the south front of the house is the Library. The furniture in this room is practical rather than decorative, most of it again having been made by Gillows. The bookcases date from 1811 to 1812. The pair of globes, terrestrial and celestial, were made by the Cary family. On top of the bookcases are Dutch Delft vases and jars from the 17th–18th centuries. The room contains over 8,000 books, many in their original covers and in mint condition. The earliest book is dated 1513. Some of the books are unbound and in their original paper covers, including first editions of two novels by Jane Austen. Other than a portrait of Charles II, all the paintings in the library are portraits of members of the Egerton family.[14] To the west of the Library is the Dining Room. This is a survival from the original house and is decorated in rococo style designed by Thomas Farnolls Pritchard. The white marble fireplace dates from 1840 and was designed by Richard Westmacott. Most of the furniture in the room is made in mahogany by Gillows. The paintings in the room are all portraits of the Egerton family.[15]

In the centre of the building are the main stairs. These rise from the Staircase Hall which is lit by a domed oval skylight. To east of this hall, through two pairs of marble columns, is the Cupola Hall. On its floor is an Axminster carpet with an unusual design showing celestial objects and the signs of the Zodiac for the winter months. The halls contain English furniture in Adam style and items of oriental ceramics.[16]

The walls of the Upper Landing

On the walls of the upper landing are ten full-length portraits known as The Cheshire Gentlemen. They portray ten of the leading gentlemen of the county who met together at Ashley Hall to decide whether to support King George I or James Stuart in the Jacobite rising of 1715. They decided to support the king, which probably saved their lives and their estates.[17]

The bedrooms are named mainly after the type or colour of the original drapery. All the bedrooms, except the Lemon Room, have adjoining dressing rooms. The furniture in all the rooms was supplied by Gillows.[18] The Silk Bedroom is above the Entrance Hall and was one of the principal guest rooms. It contains furniture of mahogany inlaid with ebony. The bed is a cut-down four poster bed. The Silk Dressing Room contains a large tin bath on castors.[19] The other bedrooms are the Chintz Bedroom, which is furnished as a sitting room, the Lemon Bedroom, and the Amber Bedroom, which is furnished as a Victorian day nursery. Most of the paintings in the bedrooms depict family members.[20] The Egerton Room was originally the Blue Bedroom but, with its dressing room, is now used for an exhibition about the Egerton family. In addition to family portraits, the paintings in these rooms include schemes for the design of the house by the architects, and paintings of architectural features by J. C. Buckler. There are also three paintings of excavations for the Manchester Ship Canal by Benjamin Williams Leader.[21] Wilbraham Egerton, 1st Earl Egerton was the second chairman of the Manchester Ship Canal Company from 1887 to 1894. The dressing room includes paintings by Vasari and Tosini.[22]

The Kitchen

Entering the family wing from the hall, the first room on the left, beyond the garden entrance, is the Yellow Drawing Room. This has a more intimate atmosphere and contains a collection of satinwood furniture made by Gillows. This includes a bookcase dated 1795 and a pair of cabinets on each side of the fireplace. The paintings are family portraits.[23] Opposite this room is the Family Entrance and opposite the garden entrance is the Oak Staircase which was moved here from Hough End Hall.[24] The Servants' Quarters occupy two floors, the ground floor and basement. These contain the usual rooms required to service a mansion and many of these are furnished with the equipment and utensils formerly in use in the house. One room, known as the Maurice Egerton Exhibition Room, houses a collection of items from around the world which were collected by Maurice Egerton on his travels.[25]

Decauville railway in the cellar of Tatton Hall

In the basement of Tatton Hall is a 400 mm gauge coal railway supplied by Decauville. It was used to transport coal to the boilers of the heating system. The railway may date from the time of the 1884 conversion, when an entrance hall was added to the north side and a smoking room to the west side.[26]