Here, the entrance hall with columns of liver-coloured porphyry has within it a folding room. Hinged walls move and winding-cogs alter the space to create a colonnaded gallery, surely a unique feature of any house in England.
The light catches a green-painted door opening into a ground floor storage area, where one of a pair of splendid Regency torchères stands to attention.
Chalky green walls and gilt-heightened architraves are the perfect backdrop to a dense 19th-century picture hang in the library. Here, a view from the dining room through the library and into the drawing room.
The exquisitely worked Regency handrail of the grand staircase, punctuated by Sienna marble columns, frames a lush verdure tapestry. This upstairs gallery is lined with a rare set of six walnut chairs , their seats covered in gilt-heightened leather.
In an upstairs room, faded Japanese panels contrast against a 400-year-old brightly enamelled Chinese Ming Duck , which sits upon an 18th-century Chinoiserie decorated bureau . Its black japanned surface sparkles with gilt-painted motifs.
In the drawing room, a dove grey wall of a dusky hue has a dado rail surmounted by pierced gilt fillet, original to the room from 1820. Above this, early English and German embroideries with a sumptuous Dutch flower painting : pictures which reflect the passions of Spetchley’s Edwardian chatelaine.
Flame-patterned mahogany bookcases, a polished oak floor and a columnar pedestal all conjure the image of a 19th-century gentlemen’s club, perfect for the library at Spetchley. Here, a 19th-century vase – a copy of an ancient Greek example – creates an air of distinguished learning.
Hidden treasures emerge from the darkness of the attics. An 18th-century globe of the world, old lamp and billiard balls are guarded by a carved wooden 18th-century owl peeking out from behind a packing case.
Treasured objects acquired on travels crown a marble chimneypiece in the library. A large over-mantel mirror reflects book-lined walls, a testament to well-read Berkeley family members of the past.
A detail of the dining room, which includes an extensive set of 16 chairs , finely carved with clean neo-classical details, echoing motifs in the chimneypiece. Almost certainly supplied to Robert Berkeley in the early 1820s by Gillows, the best cabinet maker of the time.
The Regency mansion has always been an extraordinary place and Sotheby’s forthcoming sale of property from Spetchley Park shows just how special. Here, light is thrown on the magnificent interiors and details, last photographed in 1916, and some never captured by a camera before. There are grand spaces and some more domestic too, but all are rich in detail and reveal objects within, which tell many stories.