Libraries in private houses were often the most private space in the house, sometimes situated on the upper floors, away from the semi-public state rooms (as at Longleat, Wiltshire and in the original library at Chatsworth, Derbyshire). Although these spaces from the late seventeenth century, were usually fitted rooms containing shelves of books. This may be a characteristic of the country house, with the family's metropolitan counterpart house using a smaller, but essentially moveable, large bookcase.

Besides books, libraries were often a sort of personal museum, and contained all sorts of curiosities. At Houghton in 1745, there was a box containing 'a model of the Gibraltar mountain'; pairs of globes and other scientific instruments were often considered appropriate implements for libraries. Curiously, at Nostell Priory one of the four library bookcases made by Thomas Chippendale for the Winn family's London house in St James's Square, was by 1805 used as a birdcage.

This classically-designed bookcase is close to designs published by Thomas Chippendale in his Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 3rd ed, 1762, plate 95 (XCV).