John Cornforth first "put forward the idea of this publication as a primary resource for the interpretation of the historic interior".

[2] The inventories, compiled for a variety of purposes by professional appraisers in conjunction with family members or their stewards, are supplemented with a glossary and index to the items listed.

[17] This view was endorsed by James Miller when he wrote in the Times Literary Supplement, "It is to be hoped that more inventories will now be published as they are the bedrock of the understanding of the taste of a particular period.

"[18] Writing in the Burlington Magazine, Andrew Moore saw the book as "an important step in the wider recognition of archival studies in relation to the social and cultural history of England";[19] whereas John Harris writing in the Art Newspaper acknowledged the usefulness of the book's index, when he declared that it "demonstrates the value of inventories for an understanding of the furnished interior'.

[20] Reviewing the book for Studies in the Decorative Arts, the Bard Graduate Center's journal,[21] Simon Swynfen Jervis commented that "When inventories are reasonably comprehensive and are ordered room by room ... —and this applies to all those in Noble Households—they are difficult to surpass as documents of most aspects of interior decoration.