It was just one large, square room, a sort of great hall.

It had stood roofless for many years and then been covered in by the old Duke's father, and contained a splendid stone chimney piece of colossal proportions.

It had also been floored, and had the raised place still, where the family had eaten "above the salt." The rest of the old castle was a complete ruin, and at the Restoration the new one had been rebuilt about a mile further up the park.
Lady Ethelrida had collected several pieces of rough oak furniture to put into this great room which in height reached three stories up, and the supports of the mantelpieces of the upper floors could be seen on the blackened stone walls.

It was here she gave her school treats and tenants' summer dances, because there was a great stretch of green, turfy lawn beyond, down to the river, where they could play their games.
And on a wet day it was an ideal picnic place.
A bright wood fire was already blazing on top of the ashes that for many years had never been cleared out, and a big jack swung in front of it--for appearance sake! What fun every one seemed to be having, Zara thought, as from an oak bench she watched them all busy as bees over their preparations for the repast.

She had helped to make a salad, and now sat with the Crow, and surveyed the rest.
Jimmy Danvers had turned up his sleeves and was thoroughly in earnest over his part; and he and Young Billy had gathered some brown bracken, and put it sprouting from a ham, to represent, they said, the peacock.
For, they explained, a banquet in a baronial hall had to have a peacock, as well as a boar's head, and an ox roasted whole! And suddenly Zara thought of her last picnic, with Mimo and Mirko in the Neville Street attic, when the poor little one had worn the paper cap, and had taken such pleasure in the new rosy cups.