The Study

In the context of William Johnston's occupancy of this house there is no historical precedent for the study. This room, created by joining three small utility rooms, is a reinterpretation. The olive-green interior, very much the fashion of the 1960s, was inspired by fabric which belonged to Johnston and was used to make the curtains. They are intentionally oversized, suggesting a use of old curtains from a grander house.

Among other interesting pieces often seen in the Study are a rare calamander wood table in the style of a portable military campaign table (c.1810); a reading desk with a baize covered reading slope and a beautifully fitted top drawer and glittering Rajasthani mirror frame. Occasionally this desk is replaced by an interesting piece - a multipigeonholed Estate desk with a pull-out writing surface and beautifully figured shaped and fielded doors. This piece contains secret compartments, whole banks of pigeonholes being removable to reveal spaces behind. Usually found in one of these pigeonholes is the small c.1811 London shape Minton coffee cup given to Johnston by his grandmother and which he claimed started him collecting.

Some of the more curious pieces in the Collection are often here - one, a small, ivory-inlaid, ebony table of Indian manufacture, doubtless proudly thought to look very English by its maker, and possibly purchased by an Englishman because it looked so exotically Indian. The other is an armchair made of samba antlers for an Indian Maharajah, with very Indian-looking brass tiger mask arm finials.

Sometimes in the Study is one of the more curious pieces in the Collection and one of which Johnston was very proud, a French Empire piece, formerly in the collection of Earl Ducie of Tortworth Court, Gloucestershire, purchased at a sale there, the Bureau Plat in the house and the cartonniere in the stables. It is very convincing, but close examination reveals a composite piece. It is almost certain that it did not start life as we now see it and is a marriage of a number of unrelated but similar elements.

The desk, in the Chinese Chippendale style, has a 19th-century top. On it is a changing arrangement of special things, sometimes including a marble obelisk, an exceptional 18th-century Indian Vizagapatam ivory and ebony box and a pair of splendid replicas of the ruins of the Temple of Vespasian at the Roman Forum, possibly souvenirs of a 19th-century grand tour of Italy.

Hanging high on the walls are two very fine 19th-century Chinese glass pictures made for the export market, and an interesting 18th-century oval portrait of an unknown lady with a Spanish hair comb. Also on the walls are two of a set of six 19th-century French gilt brass candle-sconces, and many small 19th-century castings of antique carved and engraved gemstones and medallions. These were very popular in the Regency period.

Giving an architectural dimension to the room is the mahogany breakfront bookcase, also a Murdoch piece, illustrated in the catalogue of that sale (English c.1790). Typically, this bookcase is crammed with beautiful things, in particular a green bordered dessert service (Samuel Alcock c.1845); a fine pair of Flight, Barr and Barr vases; a rare black transfer printed Worcester bowl (c.1758), and a Wood and Caldwell (1790-1818) figure of James Quin in the role of Falstaff.