As we discovered in this post here, Belton House in Lincolnshire was used for the setting of Rosings in the BBC’s 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. The interiors were also used for the interior scenes of Rosings, and they are the subject of today’s post.

I’m going to show you the interior as they appear in a tour of the house, and put them into context with stills from the series, because some of the interiors were in a slightly confusing manner, especially if you are aware of the layout of the house. Shall we proceed? On we go, then….

The first room we encounter on the house tour is the Marble Hall, the most important room on the south side of this floor of the house. We see this room in the series of shots when Darcy angrily returns to the house having been rejected by Elizabeth Bennet at Hunsford Rectory, which is of course, in its turn, supposed to be  near the church in the park (which we learnt about in this post, here)

This would have been the route that Darcy would have taken after coming in from the Dutch Garden via the Saloon. Here is a plan of the ground floor of Belton House

(Plan ©National Trust)

and here it is again, this time annotated with Darcy’s route.(  Do click on these images to enlarge them. All will become clear soon,I promise!)

Darcy then pauses in the open doorway that connects the Marble Hall and the Staircase Hall.

Which you can see below. And this is where matters begin to get confusing…

Darcy begins to run up the staircase….clearly seeking the refuge of his own room…

but then pauses to talk to Colonel Fitzwilliam, who has been wondering where he has been…as has Lady Catherine

But the door by which they enter the Staircase Hall leads from the Tyrconnel Room, not the Hondecoeter Room, which is where Lady Catherine normally resides in this adaptation.

And matters begin to get even more confusing. He is next shown entering the Blue Bedroom, a room which has a marvellous example of a complex 18th century bed of amazing proportions,being over 16 feet high

This bed has only recently been re-covered and reassembled as it sadly suffered water damage a few years ago. It was most probably made by Francis Lapiere, a Huguenot craftsman  who worked in England in the early 18th century,and originally may have been upholstered in crimson damask.

The burr walnut  bureau cabinet, upon which Darcy wrote The Letter, is spectacular, and dates from 1715.

But despite the evidence of Darcy running upstairs…this magnificent bedroom is not on the first floor, but the ground floor.

As we can see when Darcy stops to look out of his window…..

The Blue Bedroom windows are shown above- and are clearly on the ground floor (also see the floor plan of Belton House, above)

And as the floor plan of the first floor reveals, there is no Blue Bedroom, but a Yellow Bedroom in that position on the First Floor

(Plan © National Trust)

Back to Pride and Prejudice.…..The next room used in the adaptation is back on the ground floor, the Ante Room, where Elizabeth Bennet plays the piano, to the derision of Lady Catherine

…who can be seen sitting in state, with the other guests in the  Hondecoeter Room

So called because it is the setting for  three vast canvases painted by Melchior d’Hondecoeter, all dominated by depictions of birds,dead and alive…something the costume designers picked up on and used as a theme for lady Catherine’s clothes,as is explained below by Barbara Leigh Hunt,who played Lady Catherine in the adaptation, as quoted in The Making of Pride and Prejudice by Sue Birtwistle and Susie Conklin:

(Photograph ©NatinalTrustPL/Mark Feinnes)

“There were these huge paintings of birds on the wall, some live and others after they had been slaughtered in various attitudes of death. …in the later scene where I confront Elizabeth and forbid her engagement to Darcy, there in my hat is a small dead bird.

It’s a delightful witticism, I think, as well as a visual comment on the predatory mature of Lady Catherine’s world.

Sadly I couldn’t take my own photographs of the Hondecoeter Room, now set as a dining room, because of a loan exhibit there this year. So I have an excuse to go back next year….which, of course, I will ;-)

And that ends the Pride and Prejudice tour…but there is much more to be seen at Belton House.

The Chinese Bedroom was used in the BBC’s recent adaptation of Jane Eyre, as the Parisian hotel where Celine Varens betrays Rochester, and the Queen’s Bedroom, a room where one of my favourite Queen Consorts,Queen Adelaide  stayed during her widowhood,

was used as the Red Room,scene of Jane’s terrifying ghostly visitation from her dead uncle.

And a wonderful kitchen

and scullery both dating from 1810,

and which excitingly are both going to be  renovated very soon.

So there you have it, a tour of the interiors of Belton House as seen in the 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, and I do hope you have enjoyed it.