Harris highlights the imperfection in the overall layout of the house, particularly evident in the first (principal) floor, as it does not allow for a complete circuit of the reception rooms, as was typical of Adam’s town house schemes. The inclusion of a private bedroom and dressing room created an obstacle, which required visitors to the third drawing room to retreat back through the second and first, in order to return to the main stair. Adam, however, makes ingenious use of the asymmetrical plan and the irregular spaces to the eastern side with his design for a grand staircase set within an oval compartment. Adam volume 32/99 shows how the elliptical staircase, complete with its columned screens, adapts the traditional order, with a Corinthian screen for the ground floor, and Ionic and Tuscan screens at first and second. Harris highlights similar breaks from the traditional order in Adam’s designs for the staircases of Culzean Castle (SM Adam 37/03, 37/04), Lansdowne House and Osterley. Adam’s staircase for Apsley was subsequently removed during Wyatt's extensive alterations (1828 - 1830). Significantly Lea notes that the ground floor Corinthian screen is still shown to have been in situ in a survey dating to 1828, and therefore Canova’s statue of Napoleon, presented to the Duke of Wellington in 1817, was originally installed in Adam’s stairwell, not Wyatt’s.

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