The Front Drawing Room
After dinner, during this period, it was common for men to remain at the table for port, cigars, and numerous toasts, where, as Congreve observed, women ‘retired to their tea and scandal after dinner. This presented the men with the opportunity to use the chamber pots provided in the dinning room. The first floor, or piano nobile, was the most important public room and it was here that any works of art possessed by the family would have been displayed. This room would have been used for entertaining on a grand scale.
