Description:The document above is entitled ‘Statement of Payments on Account of the Estimate of £50,000 to finish Stafford House State Rooms from 1st January 1834 to August 1837’. The document provides details about work which was required to complete the state rooms in Stafford House between 1834 and 1837, providing an insight into the famous architects and craftsmen involved in the design of the property.
The architect Benjamin Wyatt, ‘Mr. Wyatt’, is listed as requiring £300 for ‘Designs’ necessary to complete the rooms. Other famous craftsmen such as the Morant family are listed alongside the famous royal plasterer Francis Bernasconi.
The document tells us that on 2nd September a ‘Candelabre’ was purchased costing £388. On 3rd April ‘Looking Glasses’ amounting in cost to £224, 18s were purchased for the interior of Stafford House. Payments in July 1836 were made to the ‘London Marble Co’, and in March 1836 Wyatt was paid a further £500 for designs. Although large amounts of money were lavished on the completion of the State Rooms in Stafford House, the statement reveals that the rooms were completed under budget amounting to approximately twenty six thousand and seven hundred pounds. This left a sum of £23,303, 9s, 10d, which is tellingly annotated ‘still to expend’.