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Osterley Park in 1668: the probate inventory of Sir William Waller

Michael Reed


Sir William Waller, a successful parliamentary general during the Civil Wars, died in 1668. His probate inventory, printed here in full, provides much information about Osterley Park as it was before the alterations of Robert Adam (1761-80).

The inventory lists 44 rooms but is clearly incomplete. The domestic rooms include a nursery, dining room and withdrawing room. There is a chapel and 11 service rooms, including brewhouse and dairy, and the integration of the house into its agricultural setting is apparent. There is no indication of the order of the rooms, and it is difficult to establish any close relationship between the house revealed in this document and that revealed in a post-Adam inventory of 1782.

[Transactions 42 (1991), pp 115 – 20; published abstract, slightly modified]

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