Spencer House

Visitors enter Spencer House through the impressive Entrance Hall to be met with a larger-than-life marble sculpture of the Roman emperor Lucius Verus. With its paved flooring, stone chimneypiece, and muted colour scheme, this room is designed to feel more like an extension of the house’s exterior than an interior space. The frieze around the top of the room is copied from the ancient Temple of Vespasian and Titus in Rome, featuring instruments of sacrifice and war. The oval plaster cast above the chimneypiece represents Antinous, the favourite of the Emperor Hadrian. The chimneypiece is one of only two originals left in the State Rooms. The doorcases are also original, but the ceiling was probably remodelled in the Victorian era. The mahogany storm porch was another nineteenth-century addition.