The Grand Staircase, with its iron-work railing, originally described as being “curiously wrought and gilt in the shape of crowns, with tassels hanging down between them from cords twisted in knots and festoons,” has stained-glass windows, and is enriched with a number of portraits and other paintings. Among the portraits are Pitt, Thomson, Scott, Southey, Campbell, King George II., Queen Caroline, Prince Rupert, Dante, Cowley, and Hatton; and among the other paintings are examples of Snyders, Westall, Van Oss, Andrea Sacchi, Lely, Shackleton, Diepenbeck, and others.
The other apartments—the Breakfast-room, Billiard-room, Smoking-rooms, Ante-rooms, and what not—as well as the bed-room suites, are mostly elegant in their fittings, convenient in their appointments, and replete with choice works of Art. We, however, pass them over, simply remarking that among these Art treasures are striking examples of Gainsborough (the “Beggar Boys”), Gerard Douw, Poussin, Borgognone, Neefs, Van der Meulin, Carlo Dolce (the “Marriage of St. Catherine”), Vandyke, Titian, Rembrandt, Breughel, Ruysdael, Teniers, Lely, Rubens (his wife), Andrea del Sarto, Salvator Rosa, Claude Lorraine, Wouvermans, Hogarth (portraits of himself and wife), Reynolds, Jansen, Holbein, Van Loo, Creswick, Dahl, Domenichino, Dobson, Rigaud, Cranach, Kneller, and others. Many of these are gems of Art of a high order of excellence.
At Clumber, too, are preserved four highly interesting Roman sepulchral altars, which were thus described by the Rev. Archdeacon Trollope, with the accompanying engravings:[53]—“No. 1 bears the following inscription on the two small front panels: M. CAEDICI . FAVSTI . NEGOTIATOR . DE . SACRA . VIA . CAEDICIA . SYNTYCHE . CONLIBERTA—one that is interesting as bearing reference to a tradesman of the celebrated Via Sacra at Rome. The birds pecking at a basket of fruit between them would seem to claim a Christian origin for this work of Art, had not the ox’s head and pendent sacrificial garland in addition to the heads at the angles—apparently of Jupiter Ammon—pointed to heathenism; the garland intermixed with birds, below the inscription, is both rich and graceful. No. 2 rises from an enriched plinth, bearing, first, on the pediment of its coped lid, the inscription: D. M. M. IVNI . IVNIANI, and, on a panel below, D. M. ANTONIA . TARENTINA . CONIVGI . BENE . MERENTI . FECIT, forming a short but affectionate epitaph from a wife to a husband, worthy in these respects of modern imitation. Four masks are placed at the corners of the lid, and on another part of the lid appears a boar, for which animal Tarentum was famous. The figures sculptured in front perhaps represent one of the funereal games. No. 3 is a well-designed coped urn, both its form and details having received much careful attention. Within a long panel, surrounded by an enriched moulding, is the inscription, TI . IVLIO . FELICI . MANNEIA . TREPTEETTI . IVLIVS . PHILONICVS . HEREDES . FECERVNT. No. 4 is a longer and lower urn than the others, having two small panels prepared for inscriptions, which never appear to have been filled up. Small fanciful pillars, or candelabra, surmounted by birds, form the angles of the urn, from which depend rich garlands of fruit.”
Adjoining the mansion, but apart from it, is the unfinished Chapel—a design of much elegance, the work of Messrs. Hine, of Nottingham—which forms a prominent and pleasing feature from the grounds and lake. It consists of a nave and chancel, with chancel-screen and semicircular apse, and has on its north side an organ loft, and on its south a sacristy; and it has an elegant bell-turret and spire.
The Pleasure-grounds of Clumber are very extensive, and laid out with much taste. The terrace, which runs along by the lake, is of vast length, and is beautifully diversified with statuary, vases, lovely beds of flowers, and shrubs and trees; from it flights of steps lead down to the lake, and other steps give access to the Italian Gardens. A great feature of the grounds is the enormous size and singular growth of the cedars: some of these are said to be unsurpassed in England both for their girth and for their magnificently picturesque and venerable appearance. Some of the conifers, too, are of extraordinary size and beauty.
The Kitchen Gardens are extensive and well arranged, and the Park well stocked.
The Lake is one of the glories of Clumber. It is a splendid sheet of water, covering some eighty or ninety acres of ground, and beautifully diversified on its banks with woods of tall forest trees and rich verdant glades. On the bosom of the Lake rest two ships—one a fine three-master, forming a striking feature in the view.