Foxlease 03
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. . . of taste, by certain brothers of repute, named Adam. In particular the drawing-room there took Sir Phillip's fancy. That was what he wanted for his own new house; none of your dark, low-ceilinged, old- fashioned boudoirs, but a room where a man could move at ease and his ladies would have space for their hoops and furbelows; a white room with a touch of gold and windows opening to the garden as at Strawberry Hill.
So the house took on a new shape under the builder's hands; doors all moulded and decorated, windows, cornices, fireplaces and ceilings in the style now known as Adam. The drawing room was the chief work. "An imitation of Strawberry Hill," says an old print, "The walls are minutely divided into tasteful Gothic compartments; the ceiling is also very richly wrought." This room led through folding doors into an elegant and cheerful morning room. These two rooms were Adam-Gothic and the pride of Sir Phillip's heart. The dining-room across the hall was pure Adam, a "well-proportioned apartment". Over the mantelpiece Sir Phillip placed an alto relief in terra cotta, representing the sacrifice of Iphigenia, which he had brought from Italy. It was described as an "extraordinary piece of workmanship" and the verdict still stands today.
By 1775 the house stood completed, changed from a keeper's lodge into a mansion, not too large for comfort, with wide casement windows and two wings stretching westward with a cobbled yard in between. The new, straight, shallow staircase led to the best bedrooms, each with its dressing room. A rounded window looked down the yard and a long passage with little rooms over the kitchen premises was discreetly hidden from sight. For twenty years Sir Phillip lived there. The new house ceased to be new. Roses grew up the south wall and creepers over the front. The whiteness mellowed to a natural tint and the oak in the old panelled study turned deeper and deeper brown. . . .
