Gainsborough Old Hall

The original hard-packed earthen floor, with its regular top-dressing of ox-blood, has been covered over with tiles more palatable to modern feet.

The kitchen itself is a superb example of its type. Built of brick, rather than timber, to minimise fire risk, it may originally have been a separate building, with what is now the Servery acting as a fire break.

Passing back through the Servery, into the West Range, there is a series of rooms of combined brick and timber construction, on two floors. These rooms are used for temporary, and permanent, exhibitions.

Emerging from this room, and continuing north, you enter the Inner Chamber. This houses the oak beamed louvre that originally stood atop the Great Hall to draw out smoke.

Continuing along the East Range corridor (allegedly haunted by a Grey Lady, reckoned to be Katheryn Howard) is the Tudor Bedchamber, decorated in the style of the late 16 ^th century.

There is very little left of the original grounds. A small knot garden is in the centre of the U and there are lawns with mature trees surrounding the whole.