historic environment and is responsible for the listing of buildings. There are three available designations: Grade I, Grade II* and Grade II, with the first being applied to buildings of "exceptional interest". The house is a Grade I listed building. Ham was also given Accredited Museum status in 2015, having demonstrated compliance with UK industry standards for museums and galleries. The Park and Garden has a Grade II* listing. A number of the surrounding features have a Grade II listing: the Forecourt, the entrance gates and railings, the Garden walls and gatepiers to the south, the Orangery (now used as a tea room), the Ice House, the service yard to the west of the house and the Gatehouse. Plan Interiors and collections Introduction Ham House is unusual in retaining much of its original 17th-century interior decoration, offering a rare experience of the style of the courts of Charles I and Charles II. Ham House's rooms display collections of 17th-century paintings, portraits and miniatures, in addition to cabinets, tapestries and furniture amassed and retained by generations of the Murray and Tollemache families. Geoffrey Beard, in his study, The National Trust Book of English Furniture, noted the extraordinarily high quality of the Lauderdales' furnishing of the house, undertaken with "a lavishness which transcended even what was fitting to their exalted rank". Bridget Cherry, in the London: South volume of the Pevsner Architectural Guides suggested that, while the exterior of Ham was "not as attractive as other houses of this period", the "high architectural and decorative interest" of its interior should be recognised. John Julius Norwich considered the interiors, a "time machine – enclosing one in the elegant, opulent world of Van Dyck and Lely". Great Hall This room forms part of the original 1610 construction and is off-set from the centre, in the English Gothic and Tudor tradition. During this time, the hall may have been used for both dining and entertainment. The distinctive black and white marble chequerboard flooring is also believed to date from the original construction. By the early 18th century the room had been expanded upwards by opening the ceiling to the room above, now known as the Round Gallery. The room contains a number of large and notable paintings. Charlotte Walpole, Countess of Dysart (1738–1789), by Sir Joshua Reynolds, was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1775. John Constable, a family friend, was commissioned to make copies