Lyme Park in Cheshire is, as the name suggests, not merely Lyme Hall but also a vast park comprising of woods and meadows, a Deer Sanctuary and conservation areas (the conservation areas are not open to the public).

Lyme Hall is some distance from the car park but there are special facilities for those who have difficulty with the steps to that lead to the Hall.

Dating back to the year 1398 when Lyme was granted to Piers Legh I the Hall has been extended and altered to reflect the changing times.

The first part of the building that the general public sees is The North Front which pictured below.  In the centre of the building is an Elizabethan frontispiece, which is unfortunately rather obscured in my photo by the gates.

By walking through the Palladian courtyard you reach the entrance to the Hall and fittingly the first stop on the tour of the house is The Entrance Hall.

Previously the Elizabethan Great Hall this room was remodelled by Leoni between 1732 and 1735 in a classical style.  Additions and alterations were made throughout the years to reflect the Edwardian styles and 20th Century decorating tastes.

The tour continues through the Drawing Room and the Stag Parlour.  In this latter room the Jacobite "Cheshire Gentlemen" met to plot the return of the exiled Stuarts in the 1690's and in the year 1745 abandoned the Young Pretender (Bonnie Prince Charlie) in his ill-fated attempt to obtain the throne of England from the George I of the House of Hanover.

The next stop is The Dining Room which is laid out for dinner and then on to the Ante-Room which was used as a servery and was linked by a staircase behind the south wall to the Kitchen below.  (The Kitchen is not open to the general public).

The Library is the next port of call and was created by Wyatt in the early 19th Century.  The Legh family had long since been collectors of books but it was not until this time that the library was built specifically to house them.

The Saloon, a lavish receiving room is again a room which Wyatt had a hand in furnishing introducing amongst other things the Gibbons carvings.

The Grand Staircase occupies the same place as its 17th Century predecessor and was built between 1734 and 1736 and is believed to have been designed and produced by John Moore.

The Long Gallery, like most galleries was used as a way for exercise in bad weather and to display the family portraits.  At Lyme Hall it has also been the setting for theatrical productions of the family.

And it is not just the family who have acted at the house.  As recently as the 1990's the exterior of the Hall was used in the filming of the BBC production of Pride and Prejudice (the version with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle).  The house is the setting for Pemberley and in the walk around the lake the visitors can take in the view through the trees in much the same way that Elizabeth Bennett did.

Away from the theatre and filming, the tour continues along the East Corridor to the Oak Bedroom, the Knight's Bedroom and the Knight's Dressing Room.

After leaving these rooms the North Corridor leads you along to another staircase (the North Stairs) and the Yellow Dressing Room which, when they are restored, will be hung almost entirely with tapestries.

The Yellow Bedroom, the Morning Room and the Bright Gallery bring us towards the State Bedroom and Dressing Room which were fitted in the early 18th century.  Today these two rooms are known as The Clock Rooms and contain a large collection of clocks dating from the 17th and 18th centuries.  Arranged in display cabinets and around the rooms the history of the clocks from the 1650s onwards is set out within the display.

The Servant's Hall is now the Reserve Tea- Room and the last interior part of the Hall is The Chapel.

However there is much more to see here and the tour of the gardens finds much more to see including The Cage and the Lantern which unfortunately I did not have time to visit due to a lack of time.

Finally for Lyme Park I would like to say that the guidebook is well worth the price of purchase, as it contains information about each of the rooms, guides you on your tour (there is no human guide) and gives detailed information about the furniture and portraits around the building.