When Princess Mary and her husband, the 6th Earl, came to live at Harewood in 1929, this room was part of a suite of rooms specially redesigned for her. Sir Herbert Baker (Lutyens’s assistant on the grand project of New Delhi in India) was asked to design certain new features and supervise the restoration of others. This room was his largest new undertaking and, in the ‘Robert Adam revival’ scheme he devised, he incorporated various decorative features taken from the demolished Harewood House in Hanover Square, London. The fireplace recess with its two cupboards containing some Princess Mary’s collection of amber, rose quartz and jade, has in the apse a nymph inspired by Botticelli and designed by Sir Charles Wheeler. To the left and right of it are the coat of arms of Princess Mary and the 6th Earl of Harewood, the latter featuring Canning quarterings. The clock is by Sarton of Liège.

The pictures in this room change, but usually will be either of Princess Mary and her husband or some of her personal favourites from Harewood’s collection.