WIREDGOV

• Five New Rooms Revealed at Art Deco Masterpiece
• Eltham Palace Re-Opens on Friday 3 April

A luxury wartime bunker, a 1930s map-room - lost under decades of paint and wallpaper - and a walk-in wardrobe complete with vintage fashion are among the rooms at Eltham Palace & Gardens in Greenwich that English Heritage will reveal to the public for the first time this Easter. These revelations are part of a major £1.7m English Heritage makeover of one of the country's greatest Art Deco gems.

Dancing in the entrance hall at Eltham Palace

Visitors to Eltham Palace will be invited to step back in time to experience one of the legendary cocktail parties hosted by its 1930s owners, Stephen and Virginia Courtauld. A fully interactive children's tour will explore the story of the animals that lived at the palace - including Mah-Jongg, the Courtauld's pet lemur who enjoyed his own personal (and heated) bedroom.

Eltham uniquely combines a 1930s Art Deco mansion with a medieval and Tudor royal palace, of which the Great Hall still survives and where Henry VIII used to play as a child. When completed in 1936, the Courtauld's new house was at the cutting-edge of technology, boasting electric clocks, a loudspeaker system and a centralized vacuum cleaner.   

Laura Houliston, English Heritage's Senior Curator at Eltham Palace, said: "Eltham Palace is one of the finest examples of Art Deco architecture and design surviving in Britain today. It was also a decadent, fun place to visit. This April, we are opening up more fully furnished and new rooms, and inviting people to step back in time and experience one of the Courtauld's lavish parties. Visitors can try on vintage-inspired designs, play in the billiards room and explore the photographic dark room, as they learn about life in the 1930s."

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