The Globe Room Panels

The Globe Room, one of the most celebrated of early seventeenth century English rooms, formed part of the Reindeer Inn, Parson's Street, Banbury, from about 1637 until 1912, when it was sold by the Hook Norton Brewery Company to the London dealers Lenygon and Morant. Its chief features, described in a number of standard architectural textbooks, were the oak panelling, particularly the cherub-capped overmantle, and the ornate plaster ceiling. In 1964, Banbury Borough Council purchased the panelling for the planned new Civic Centre in Banbury, where it would be accessible to the public. Although the ceiling is believed to have been destroyed by enemy action during the Second World War, there is a copy in the Victoria and Albert Museum.