This is what was the dining room at Cliffe Castle in Keighley, West Yorkshire, and was my destination for a day out last Tuesday.
Cliffe Hall was built between 1828 and 1833 for a local lawyer. It was later rented and then bought by the Butterfields, a textile manufacturing family.
In 1878 Henry Isaac Butterfield began the process of converting the Hall into a Gothic castle, and renamed it Cliffe Castle. He used it as a summer residence, dividing his time between here and other houses in New York, Paris and Nice.
By 1950 the building had been purchased by Sir Bracewell Smith, a locally born former MP and Lord Mayor of London, and given to the people of Keighley. Many changes were made to the building to convert it to it's new role as the town museum, and it opened as a museum in 1959.
A number of rooms on the ground floor have been restored as period rooms, and the room in this shot was the dining room.
Other rooms are used to house a wide range of displays of local interest, and form a fascinating place to explore.
Wow, lots of texture in this shot. Not a dull space in that room, is there! I guess there is something to be said for living in a country where there are historical places everywhere you turn. :-) We don't have that around here.
Thank you all for your comments and favs - it's lovely to hear from you!
The thing that particularly caught my attention was the French influence here - hints of a very small version of Versailles?
Ian