SINCE Chiswick House was taken into guardianship by the then Ministry of Works in 1948 a great deal of research has been undertaken to establish its place in architectural history. This has not concentrated, however, on the interior decorations or on its domestic use during the life of the 3rd Earl of Burlington. For many years it was assumed that Chiswick House was a 'temple of the arts' and used only infrequently by Burlington. It is the intention of this article to show, on the basis of previously unpublished documentary evidence, that the first floor of the house formed a suite of principal apartments to an old late- Tudor building, now demolished, and that to look at the present building without reference to its original contents and to its relationship to the Old House is therefore misleading (Fig.2).

EDWARD Smith-Stanley, the twelfth Earl of Derby, has long been recognised as one of the Adam brothers' most opulent patrons. As Lord Strange he commissioned the magnificent Féte Pavilion at The Oaks, Woodmansterne, Surrey in which some hundred and fifty guests were entertained two weeks before his marriage to Lady Betty Hamilton; and, as a fit residence for his bride, old Derby House in Grosvenor Square was reconstructed between 1773 and 1775. Both works offered examples of Adam taste at its most elaborate and both have now gone. The Fete Pavilion, though rumoured to have cost £5,000, was used for one summer's night and was then apparently dismantled. Derby House survived almost a century longer, until the succession of the Earl's grandson in 1869, who sold it to be demolished. Some fittings from the house were then transferred to New Derby House in St James's Square, from where a few appear to have moved again to the Oriental Club in Stratford Place. Yet these bits and pieces, even including the spectactular bow-fronted com-mode recently identified at Knowsley, are a poor substitute for what was once a sumptuous neo-classical interior. What Adam did for Lord Derby is now known only by repute or by the plates in the brothers' published Works.

IN recent years the researches of several scholars have done much to bring understanding to the complex activities of architects working on the erection of the great English and Scottish houses. While fully documented accounts de-voted to one house are rare, there is a growing awareness of the financial structure underpinning the fever of building which often gripped the landed classes. Fuller details than hitherto have also been published about the work of craftsmen of several trades, sometimes associated with the commissions of only one or two architects, sometimes ranging across a variety of skilled tasks for many masters. Numbered among these are the craftsmen who worked in wood, and specifically, as discussed in this article, some carvers of outstanding ability - Jonathan Maine of Oxford and his team, James Richards, Richard Lawrence and Sefferin Alken. Their contribution to the embellishment of the English country house in a period of about one hundred years (1680-1780) merits consideration, as they were leaders among the competent majority. Within the field of English interior decoration there is of course need to recognise the influence of foreign engraved sources, the infiltration of talented craftsmen from elsewhere in Europe, particularly painters, silversmiths and sculptors, and the standards set, if not always attained, by those employed on the King's Works.