This inventory is the fourth in a volume in the possession of the Earl of Cardigan, by whose kind permission it is published, entitled “The Inventorys of Household Goods at the Severall Seates within Mention’d of the Rt. Honble the Lord Bruce’s, 1728”. The book is bound in vellum and consists of 144 paper pages measuring 6½ in. x 15¾ in. It contains copies of inventories for Warwick House in London, Tottenham Park, Savernake in Wiltshire, and Tanfield in Yorkshire, dated between 1725 and 1727, and an undated inventory for Houghton House. It is probable that this also was made a few years before 1728, for notes opposite several items mention their transfer to London in 1726 or 1727, presumably after the original inventory.

Houghton House, near Ampthill, Bedfordshire, built c. 1615 for Mary, Countess of Pembroke, the sister of Sir Philip Sidney, had passed after her death to the Bruce family, who became Earls of Ailesbury and Elgin. After the Restoration it was the favourite residence of Robert, 1st Earl of Ailesbury (d. 1685), and of his son Thomas, 2nd Earl (1656-1741). The latter was Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Charles II, and remained loyal to James II in the Revolution of 1688. He suffered imprisonment in the Tower, and was forced, from 1698 until his death forty-three years later, to live in exile in the Low Countries. His younger brothers, Robert (1666-1728) and James (1669-1736), remained in England, as did his only son and heir, Charles, Lord Bruce, for whom these inventories were made.

Until nearly the end of his life, Thomas Earl of Ailesbury kept Houghton House, “that beautiful habitation with all its appertenances that I doated on”, as he described it in his memoirs, in the hope of one day being allowed to return. His brother Robert, who never married, lived there, for “Mr. Robert Bruce’s room” appears in the inventory. The family fortunes, however, had been badly shaken as a result of Lord Ailesbury’s political downfall; economies had to be made, and Charles, Lord Bruce, after his marriage, settled at Tottenham Park in Wiltshire, which had been part of his mother’s inheritance.