Stairs
Harrington Hall, Lincolnshire
When Harrington was gutted by fire, the decision was taken to rebuild the rooms as they had been, where the original detail was accessible, as was done at Uppark. Where it was not, the new rooms were to be contemporary in style. The interior designer, Christopher Nevile, played a dominant role in co-ordinating the designer or architect assigned to each room: our part was the design of the staircase.
Our options were to design a new staircase; reproduce the one modified in the 1760s; or reproduce the original 1680s staircase. Photographs from 1974 show the stair had been modified; a geometric handrail had been forced into the older newels to replace the 1680 sweeps. We felt that the evidence from fragments of scorched moulding and documents of earlier work was sufficient to reinstate the original. We decided to return the stairs to the earlier style for which the stairhall was originally designed.
Contractor: Bowman of Stamford
