Long gallery

File:Astley Hall, Chorley (48471238301).jpg]]

File:The Long Gallery at Ham House.jpg; this only has windows at the ends.]]

In architecture, a long gallery is a long, narrow room, often with a high ceiling. In Britain, long galleries were popular in Elizabethan and Jacobean houses. They were normally placed on the highest reception floor of English country houses, usually running along a side of the house, with windows on one side and at the ends giving views, and doors to other rooms on the other. They served several purposes: they were used for entertaining guests, for taking exercise in the form of walking when the weather was inclement, for displaying art collections, especially portraits of the family and royalty, and acting as a corridor.

A long gallery has the appearance of a spacious corridor, but it was designed as a room to be used in its own right, not just as a means of passing from one room to another, though many served as this too. In the 16th century, the seemingly obvious concept of the corridor had not been introduced to British domestic architecture; rooms were entered from outside or by passing from one room to another.

File:The-long-gallery-hardwick-hall-derbyshire-1811-2.jpg's long gallery, 1811, David Cox the Elder]]

Later, long galleries were built, sometimes in a revivalist spirit, as at Harlaxton Manor, an extravagant early-Victorian house in Jacobean style, and sometimes to house a large art collection, as at Buckingham Palace, which has a long interior space lit from above, called the Picture Gallery.

Examples

File:Long Gallery, Haddon Hall - Bakewell, Derbyshire, England - DSC02798.jpg's long gallery]]

Notable long galleries in the United Kingdom can be seen at:

Althorp, Northamptonshire
Apethorpe Hall, Northamptonshire
Aston Hall, Birmingham{{cite web|title=The Long Gallery|url=http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/GenerateContent?CONTENT_ITEM_ID=2653&CONTENT_ITEM_TYPE=0&MENU_ID=1762|work=Birmingham.gov|access-date=9 September 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060226152754/http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/GenerateContent?CONTENT_ITEM_ID=2653&CONTENT_ITEM_TYPE=0&MENU_ID=1762|archive-date=26 February 2006}}
Astley Hall, Chorley
Blickling Hall, Norfolk
Burghley House, near Stamford, Lincolnshire (converted into separate rooms in the late 17th century such as rooms known as Queen Elizabeth I Bedroom and Blue silk Dressing room)
Broughton Castle, Oxfordshire
Burton Agnes Hall, Yorkshire
Burton Constable Hall, Yorkshire{{cite web |url=http://www.burtonconstable.com/thehouse/house-sub.php?id=8 |access-date=13 May 2014 |title=Long Gallery |publisher=Burton Constable Foundation |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140514064027/http://www.burtonconstable.com/thehouse/house-sub.php?id=8 |archive-date=14 May 2014 }}
Castle Ashby House, Northamptonshire, now 18th-century in style.
Charlton House, London{{cite web|url=https://www.greenwichheritage.org/|title=The home of Charlton House and Greenwich Heritage Centre - Royal Greenwich Heritage Trust (RGHT)|website=www.greenwichheritage.org}}
Croome Court, Worcestershire, Adam interior
Haddon Hall, Derbyshire{{cite web |url=http://www.places-to-go.org.uk/haddon_hall_longgallery.htm |access-date=13 May 2014 |title=Haddon Hall, The Long Gallery |work=Places to Go |publisher=David Ford |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924073825/http://www.places-to-go.org.uk/haddon_hall_longgallery.htm |archive-date=24 September 2015 |url-status=dead }}
Ham House, London – compact and running from front to rear
Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire – one of the largest
Harewood House
Harlaxton Manor,
Hatfield House, Hertfordshire{{cite web |url=http://www.hatfield-house.co.uk/content.asp?id=1&p=14&The-Long-Gallery |access-date=13 May 2014 |title=The Long Gallery |series=The House |publisher=Hatfield House |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140428001901/http://www.hatfield-house.co.uk/content.asp?id=1&p=14&The-Long-Gallery |archive-date=28 April 2014 }}
Hever Castle, Kent
Little Moreton Hall, Cheshire
Longleat House, Wiltshire – the long gallery is now called the Saloon
Lyme Park, Cheshire
Montacute House, Somerset
Osterley Park, London
Parham Park, West Sussex
Penshurst Place, Kent
Powis Castle, Welshpool, Wales
Scone Palace, Perthshire
Sudbury Hall, Derbyshire
Syon House, London{{cite web |url=http://www.syonpark.co.uk/explore/about-syon-house/long-gallery/ |access-date=13 May 2014 |title=Long Gallery |publisher=Syon House}}
Temple Newsam House, Yorkshire – Jacobean long gallery, later modified and now called the picture gallery
Welbeck Abbey
Windsor Castle – Elizabethan long gallery; later converted by William IV, along with adjacent rooms, to house the Royal Library

Long gallery

Examples

References

Further reading