Battersea Rise in Clapham, a large Georgian house with a core of Queen Anne rooms and set in 40 acres of land, is long gone. It was the home of the Quaker Thornton family, politicians and bankers, whose intimate circle included William Wilberforce, who lived in the house for five years, William Pitt, who gave his name to the 'Pitt' room as the library was known, and Zachary Macaulay, father of the eminent historian. The main rooms of the house and the garden are described in fullest detail by a member of the family, Dorothy Pym in Battersea Rise, published in 1934. Of the library the author wrote 'The shape of the Pitt room was somewhat unusual in that its two end walls were curved into a bow'. She remarked on the busts on top of the bookcases, one of them of Pitt himself, the double doors, 'high and narrow and of lovely proportions', and the ottomans, one of which can be seen in the centre of the room. By the time the author knew Battersea Rise from her visits in the early years of the present century there were no children living in the house, and so she does not identify a schoolroom. The nurseries were upstairs, but the height of the room in this drawing suggests that it was on the ground floor.