by dry rot and the death watch beetle. The ground and top floors of the house, and the wings, have been converted into nursing accommodation, leaving the appearance of the exterior virtually unchanged. In 1990 the first floor was opened to the public under the care of the Tabley House Collection Trust. The original entrance by the stairway on the south front was re-instated for this purpose. In 2007 the university sold the estate - but not the house - to the Crown Estate in a deal worth "over £35m". Its 3600 acres included 18 tenanted farms, 18 farmland lettings, 52 residential properties and 13 commercial leases generating a total rent roll of £0.5m. Architecture Tabley House was designated as a Grade I listed building on 5 March 1959. Its architectural style is Palladian, the only 18th-century Palladian country house in Cheshire. The house has three storeys; the bottom storey is constructed in rusticated stone, with the upper storeys in Flemish bond brick with stone dressings. A Doric frieze runs around the whole building below the eaves. The roofs are in green slate with lead flashings. The south front has nine bays, the central three bays projecting forward. On each side of the central projection is a semi-circular stairway leading to the middle floor. The stairway is built in rusticated stone and it has a moulded balustrade. From the top of the stairway a portico rises through the top two storeys. It consists of four columns in Doric style constructed from red Runcorn sandstone. Its tympanum contains the arms of Sir Peter Byrne Leicester and his wife, Catherine. All the windows in the ground floor are sashes with 3×2 panes and over each window there are splayed voussoirs. The central bay of the middle storey contains a doorway with an architrave and a segmental pediment carried on brackets. On each side of the door is a window with similar architraves and segmental pediments, but not carried on brackets. In the lateral three bays on each side are sash windows with 3×5 panes over which are architraves and triangular pediments. The top floor windows are also sashes, these having 3×3 panes, and architraves with scrolls at the top and bottom. The north front is also symmetrical and is in seven bays, with the central three projecting slightly forwards. Over the bays is a pediment containing the arms of the 2nd Baron