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Lot Essay
The estate of Mere Hall, originally the seat of the Royalist de Mere family, was acquired by Peter Brooke in 1652. Following his knighthood in 1660 and appointment as High Sheriff of Cheshire in 1668 and Lancashire in 1674, Sir Peter Brooke rebuilt the house in the Carolean style. However owing to his preference for his other estate at Astley in Lancashire, Sir Peter allowed his heir Thomas to take up residence at Mere. Successive generations of the family thrived here (see lots 112-115 & 212 in this collection) and in 1784 Sir Thomas Brooke combined his mother's maiden name of Langford to his to form the new family surname Langford-Brooke. This coincided with his commissioning of Samuel Wyatt (d. 1807) to draw up plans to rebuild the house. The renovations were delayed and building work did not take place until 1813, under the direction of Samuel Wyatt's nephew Lewis Wyatt (d. 1853).
MERE HALL & GILLOWS OF LANCASTER
Like many of their neighbours, notably the Egertons of nearby Tatton Hall, who also commissioned Samuel and Lewis Wyatt to transform their house in the neoclassical style, the Brooke family turned to the Lancaster & London family firm of Gillow for many of the furnishings acquired for Mere in the late 18th and early 19th centuries (N. Goodison, 'Gillows at Tatton Park', Furniture History, Leeds, 1970). Amongst the most noteworthy items supplied by the firm to Mere was the celebrated suite of bookcases, desks and cabinets for the Library, as well as numerous other smaller and more utilitarian items throughout the house. A detailed account of the making of Thomas Langford-Brooke's bookcases in May 1815 is provided by Messrs. Gillows' Estimate Sketch Books in the Westminster Public Library.
These richly carved bed-posts are designed in the George III 'antique' manner, such as feature in Thomas Malton's Compleat Treatise on Perspective, 1788 pl. xxxiv fig. 134. One pair is carved with reeded shafts springing from the flowered-and-fluted neckband of palm-and-acanthus-wrapped pedestals, the other with ribbon-guilloche neckbands. Now united with an early 19th century hollow-cornered panel, they originally formed part of two beds, supplied by Messrs. Gillow to Peter Brooke (d. 1783). The transformation is likely to have been carried out for Peter Langford Brooke (d. 1840) as the present bed can probably be identified with the 'Four post mahogany Bedstead', listed in the 1840 Inventory in Chamber no. 6 at Mere Hall.
MERE HALL & GILLOWS OF LANCASTER
Like many of their neighbours, notably the Egertons of nearby Tatton Hall, who also commissioned Samuel and Lewis Wyatt to transform their house in the neoclassical style, the Brooke family turned to the Lancaster & London family firm of Gillow for many of the furnishings acquired for Mere in the late 18th and early 19th centuries (N. Goodison, 'Gillows at Tatton Park', Furniture History, Leeds, 1970). Amongst the most noteworthy items supplied by the firm to Mere was the celebrated suite of bookcases, desks and cabinets for the Library, as well as numerous other smaller and more utilitarian items throughout the house. A detailed account of the making of Thomas Langford-Brooke's bookcases in May 1815 is provided by Messrs. Gillows' Estimate Sketch Books in the Westminster Public Library.
These richly carved bed-posts are designed in the George III 'antique' manner, such as feature in Thomas Malton's Compleat Treatise on Perspective, 1788 pl. xxxiv fig. 134. One pair is carved with reeded shafts springing from the flowered-and-fluted neckband of palm-and-acanthus-wrapped pedestals, the other with ribbon-guilloche neckbands. Now united with an early 19th century hollow-cornered panel, they originally formed part of two beds, supplied by Messrs. Gillow to Peter Brooke (d. 1783). The transformation is likely to have been carried out for Peter Langford Brooke (d. 1840) as the present bed can probably be identified with the 'Four post mahogany Bedstead', listed in the 1840 Inventory in Chamber no. 6 at Mere Hall.