STAFFORD HOUSE.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 57, 7 March 1913, Page 5

STAFFORD HOUSE.

ACQUIRED FOR' PRINCE OF WAXES. (Received 10.20 a.m.) LONDON, March 6. The VPall Mall Gazette" states that Stafford House has been acquired as a residence for the Prince of Wales. It was recently announced that Sir William Lever had purchased Stafford House, the, famous palace of the Duke of Sutherland", and that it was to be devoted to some public or national purpose, but so far no announcement has been made. In an article upon Stafford House in the " Daily Mail" Mr. C. Lewis Hind wrote:— But the heart is a little timorous before the portals of Stafford House. The front is so different from the little dwelling that modest people call a home. The doors open to the chaste inner pillared hall, and facing them is a wall of mirrors. These glass door 3 are thrown wide only on rare occasions—for the passing of royalty or the passing out of a bride; behind them is the vast central hall. To enter this central hall on ordinary occasions one has to voyage through dim corridors, crowded with objects of art, in which you can easily lose your way. Suddenly there is light. Mou are in the Veronese central hall, which Etty described as the " most magnificent room in any palace or mansion an England." Rising nobly to the gallery is the great staircase, where, on imposing occasions, liveried footman stand ujwn every second step, and down which the family have been known to descend five times in the course of the evening to greet five different groups of Royalties. The Picture Gallery on the first floor is 136 ft. long, a noble room hung with masterpieces, some of them removed from Trentham, when the Duke gave up his Staffordshire residence. Romney is splendidly represented, and there are works by all the well-known masters — Titian, Van Dyck, Durer, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Lawrance, and one by Mr. Sargent of the present duchess, which hanga in the dining-room. Wherever one walks — through the State drawing-room, upstairs, downstairs the green library, the ante-dining-room, the recess room, the corridors —there is always something to delight the eyes — pictures, furniture, hangings, ricmes, garnered from the climes. And heirlooms that wall never be severedsfrom the family. And if you grow tired of looking at the works of man, you may gaze from the tall windows on the garden, and you will try to figure out how such a garden, so large and quiet, can be tucked away, hidden in the heart of London.