CIRCA 1755

Descended from one of the leading Ascendancy families, Brabazon Ponsonby (d.1758) was elevated as Earl of Bessborough in 1739. Following his second marriage to the wealthy Elizabeth Sankey, which brought in '£10,000' in ready money, the Earl swept away the old house at Bessborough and replaced it between 1744-53 with a noble Palladian mansion designed by Francis Bindon. It is likely that these tables were acquired for the new house in the 1750's, as the connoisseur 2nd Earl returned from his exotic Grand Tour to live in England, making his home to Chamber's design at Parkstead, Roehampton - and the 4th Earl himself calculated that the family had spent just five weeks and two days at Bessborough between 1760 and 1825! Although the house was tragically burnt to the ground during the Troubles, much of the original Irish furniture commissioned for the house had already been brought to England. Following the purchase of Stansted Park, Sussex in 1923, the Ponsonby family collections from Cavendish Square, Parkstead, and Bessborough were concentrated there.