parish of Nether Tabley, therefore Sir Peter decided to build it nearby in the estate, higher on the ground sloping down to the Moat. He appointed John Carr of York as architect; building began in 1761 and was completed in about 1769. Carr designed the house in Palladian style, even though by the 1760s this style was becoming less fashionable. His design consisted of a rectangular building in three storeys, with a projecting portico on the south front, and two pavilions on each side, which were set back and approached by curved corridors. On each side of the portico was a curved stairway leading to the main middle floor, the piano nobile. As the house was originally planned, it had a central staircase, with three rooms on the south front. The middle of these rooms was the entrance hall, to the west of it was the drawing room, and to the east was the dining room. Behind the drawing room was the library, and behind the dining room was a room known as the common parlour. Across the back of the house, on this floor, there were two bedrooms and three dressing rooms. The western pavilion contained the servants' bedrooms, and in the eastern pavilion was the kitchen. The interior of the house contained craftsmanship of a high quality. The plasterwork was created by Thomas Oliver of Warrington, the woodcarving of the doorcases and staircase was by Mathew Bertram, assisted by Daniel Shillito. Much of the furniture was made by Gillow of Lancaster. Sir Peter also commissioned a number of paintings, which included full-length portraits of himself and his wife by Francis Cotes, and landscapes of the grounds and the halls by J. M. W. Turner and Richard Wilson amongst others. An interest in paintings continued in the family's next generation. Sir John Fleming Leicester, later the 1st Lord de Tabley, built a collection of modern British art that was hung in a gallery in his London house at Hill Street, Berkeley Square. In 1823 Sir John offered his collection to Lord Liverpool to form the basis of the planned National Gallery, but the offer was declined. After Sir John's death in 1827 the best works were sold by auction and the remainder moved to Tabley, where most of them are today. Between 1808 and 1810 the three original rooms on the west side of the first floor of the