The house itself, however, was not large enough to seat the whole party. Instead, while the gentlemen sat in the main hall, the ladies dined in the octagonal room roughly opposite, which had been newly built to designs by the Scottish-born architect James Gibbs, perhaps the most fashionable designer then working in London.
A plan drawn up by the Johnstons’ butler records that guests in the Octagon feasted in a grand style. The main course saw the table piled with delicacies, including game birds, fish, oysters and chicken served with peaches. Queen Caroline sat at the head of a U-shaped table and, charmingly, the children served the food.
The focal point of the evening was when, as the plan records, between the main course and the desert ‘Mr Johnston Come in & Paide his Honers to the Queene all was very merrie & highlie pleased’.
This was not the Hanoverians’ first visit to the Octagon. This had come at least as early as 1724; Daniel Defoe noted that ‘the King was pleased to dine in… a pleasant Room which Mr Johnston built, joyning to the Green House; from whence is a Prospect every way into the most delicious Gardens’ (Fig 1). Writing later, Gibbs noted that ‘he designed it for an entertaining Room, the house being too small for that Purpose’.
This story is from the September 25, 2019 edition of Country Life UK.
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This story is from the September 25, 2019 edition of Country Life UK.
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