Having touched on the Regency libraries at Stourhead and Ickworth, I could not fail to show some of the Regency interiors at Castle Coole, in Co. Fermanagh.

Gilded couch supplied for the Drawing Room at castle Coole in about 1816. ©NTPL/Andreas von Einsiedel
The house was built by James Wyatt for Armar Lowry-Corry, 1st Earl of Belmore, between 1789 and 1797. The cost of building turned out to be so high that initially the house was only sparsely furnished.

The State Bedroom, said to have been prepared for a visit by George IV in 1821. ©NTPL/Andreas von Einsiedel
But when Somerset Lowry-Corry succeeded as 2nd Earl in 1802 he set about decorating Castle Coole in lavish Regency style, using the Dublin cabinetmakers and dealers John and Nathaniel Preston.

Chinoiserie cabinet, one of a pair supplied by the Preston firm and originally used as a bookcase, in the Morning Breakfast Room. ©NTPL/Andreas von Einsiedel
They supplied the massive gilt and mahogany furniture in the principal rooms, and also many of the curtains and upholstery materials.

The Bow Room, a private sitting room for the ladies of the house, decorated with chinoiserie wallpaper and chintz which was remade for the National Trust in 1979-80. ©NTPL/Andreas von Einsiedel
Apart from the goût grec running through much of the decoration, there is also a discernable strand of chinoiserie.
Although classical decoration is predominant in the more ‘serious’ rooms, and chinoiserie was used more in the ‘feminine’ areas of the house, the division was not absolute, as the japanned bookcases in the Morning Breakfast Room show.
As it happens, the BBC is currently broadcasting historian Lucy Worsley’s amusing and informative series about the Regency.