Screen in Dining Room, Kirklees Hall

Slide 14 – Now let us enter by the North Porch, which leads into a passage, and on the right of this we go through a door into the Dining Room. The screen in this room is the finest decorative feature of the house. It dates from the time when a Hall was almost invariably entered from a porch behind a screen and this sometimes had a gallery over it. This was not in accordance with the tastes prevailing in the 18th Century, when Kirklees Hall, under the 3rd Baronet, was being converted from a Jacobean into a severely Classic House. In order to make his Dining Room conform to the taste of the times, he put up a lath and plaster partition in front of this fine Oak Screen. This after being in hiding for over a century was accidentally found by the late owner, Sir George J. Armytage, and needed very slight repair to bring it back to its original state. Its period is that of the closing years of Elizabeth or the early ones of James. It was therefore, probably made for its present place by the builder of the North Front.