The Drawing Room

The walls are covered with the original silk, hung after the rebuilding of the New Wing and the Carrara marble fireplace came from Montague House in London. The furniture is of varying dates and styles; it includes Hepplewhite sofas and chairs, a Chinese-style Chippendale table with clustered column legs, a Dutch seventeenth-century inlaid table and a Chippendale silver table on which lies the book on Buckingham Palace that was presented to Lord Richard Cavendish by Queen Mary after her visit to Holker in 1937.

The pictures in the drawing room are by both English and Continental artists, including some from the notable collection formed by Sir William Lowther before his death in 1756. To the left of the Billiards Room doorway is Storm at Sea, which was painted in Rome for Sir William by C.J. Vernet (1714-89); its companion Calm Sea was destroyed in the 1871 fire. Right of the doorway hangs an exceptionally fine battle scene by Salvatore Rosa, who, in addition to being a painter, was a poet, actor and musician. The large contemporary work painted by Douglas Anderson in 1961 shows a view from above the garden of the Leven estuary and the hills of Furness. In the foreground are the present owner Lord Cavendish, his younger brother Edward and, behind them, their mother and father.