The great chamber was the second most important room in a medieval or Tudor English castle, palace, mansion or manor house after the great hall. Medieval great halls were the ceremonial centre of the household and were not private at all; the gentleman attendants and the servants came and went at all times. The great chamber was at the dais end of the hall, usually up a staircase. It was the first room which offered the lord of the household some privacy from his own staff, albeit not total privacy. In the Middle Ages the great chamber was an all purpose reception and living room. The family might take some meals in it, though the great hall was the main eating room. In modest manor houses it sometimes also served as the main bedroom. The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times, beginning with the Renaissance. ... Allegory of the Tudor dynasty (detail), attributed to Lucas de Heere, ca 1572: left to right, Philip II of Spain, Mary, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Elizabeth The Tudor period usually refers to the historical period between 1485 and 1558, especially in relation to the history of England. ... A manor house is a country houses, which historically formed the centre of a manor (see Manorialism). ... A great hall was the main room of a royal palace, a noblemans castle or a large manor house in the Middle Ages, and in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries. ... The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times, beginning with the Renaissance. ...

By the seventeenth century communal meals in the hall had been abandoned and the great chamber was the best dining room. There was often a more modest room called the parlour where the family took its meals when eating alone. Large houses gradually acquired a greater range of specialised living rooms, such as libraries, drawing rooms and music rooms. By the early 18th century great chambers had been replaced by rooms called "saloons" and these soon lost their function as dining rooms. In British society, a drawing room is a room in a house where visitors may be entertained. ...

Many great chambers survive. Hardwick Hall has a very large and little altered example from around 1600. In many other cases they were redecorated and given more specialised functions as drawing rooms or ballrooms or libraries. Hardwick Hall, in Derbyshire, is one of the most significant Elizabethan country houses in England. ...