The Entrance Hall

Inside the great wooden doors you enter a pure gothic entrance hall. The columns and vaulting make it quite unlike any other room at Highclere. It was believed to be designed in 1870 by George Gilbert Scott who was also rebuilding the parish church in Highclere.

Victorian architecture...

Scott was the architect of other buildings such as the Albert Memorial and St Pancras Station in London. The polychrome floor was designed by William Butterfield, another well known Victorian architect and laid in March 1864 by William Field of London. The latter also installed an early but sophisticated central heating system.

The marble bust by Bartolini is of the 2nd Earl of Carnarvon. It was commissioned in Florence in 1819, while the family was on a Grand Tour.

The linked "C's" in the ceiling and the floor stand for the Latin phrase "Comes Carnarvon", (the Latin for Earl of Carnarvon). These two intertwined "C"s are used by other Earldoms such as Cawdor and Cadogan.

Winged Dragons

A fine pair of terra cotta wyverns (winged dragons with two legs and a scaly tail, the heraldic beasts of the Carnarvon family) made in 1850, standing 45 inches (114cm) high, on tall oak pedestals, flank the doors leading to the Saloon

More wyverns are carved on the ceiling amidst the heraldic shields (made in 1861 by Mr Outhwaite of London), and also appear throughout the House on carvings, firedogs and decorations.