ABSTRACT
In the year 1762, the Duke of Northumberland came to the resolution of fitting up the apartments of Sion House, in a magnificent manner. Some inequality in the levels on the old floors, some limitations from the situation of the old walls, and some want of additional heights to the enlarged apartments, were the chief difficulties with which Robert Adam had to struggle. The inequality of levels has been managed in such a manner as to increase the scenery and add to the movement, so that an apparent defect has been converted into a real beauty. A proper arrangement and relief of apartments are branches of architecture in which the French have excelled all other nations: these have united magnificence with utility in the hotels of their nobility, and have rendered them objects of universal imitation.
