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Oak Screen in Banqueting Hall. 
In the oak-panelled room contemporary with the main 
hall is a collection of cc bygones ” in pottery, glass, iron 
and pewter, representative of domestic life of the time 
when the manufacture of these utensils required the skill of 
craftsmen. A room beyond has been set apart for the 
exhibition of cooking appliances such as turnspits, smoke- 
jacks and bottle-jacks in a large variety of forms. Here, 
too, may be seen a Baker’s patent mingle—a huge box, 
filled with heavy stones, moved on rollers over a slab of 
solid mahogany by means of an ingenious contrivance of 
wheels and chains. 
Descending the stairs into the Sotherton Room, the 
visitor is in a typical Tudor Room with a heavily-moulded 
oak ceiling and stone floor strewn with the sweet smelling 
rush (Acorus calamus). The fireplace is spanned by a 
magnificent carved oak beam with the arms of Nicholas 
Sotherton and his merchant’s mark. 
Descending again is a fourteenth century crypt or strong¬ 
room, built of stone, for the storage of valuables. This 
formed the base of the timber-built house of Roger Herde- 
grey, Burgess in Parliament in 1358 and Bailiff of the city of 
Norwich in 1360—an erection which eventually made way 
for the present superstructure. Ascending the opposite 
staircase we reached the courtyard and see the windows 
depicted in the illustration. 
The main staircase with its carved drop pendants 
leads from the hall to the Brereton Room in which are 
shown beautiful patchwork bed-hangings and covers, 
the work of a member of the Brereton family in late 
Georgian times. The story is told on an engrossed 
parchment framed and hung just inside the door. 
At the end of the gallery is a room known as the Sports 
Room in which is exhibited an early billiard table, and a 
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