Mansion House is one of the grandest surviving Georgian town palaces in London, with magnificent interiors containing elaborate plasterwork and carved timber ornament. It provides living and working space for the Lord Mayor and rooms for large ceremonial entertainments and banquets. A fashionable Palladian style with a large classical portico was chosen. Built around a central courtyard it contained a cellar, a ground floor for the servants and the kitchen, a grand first floor of offices, dining and reception rooms, including the Egyptian Hall where banquets were held, a second floor with a gallery for dancing and chambers for the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress, and a third floor of bedchambers. The Egyptian Hall is so named because its form was thought to replicate the dining halls used in Egypt in Roman times, with giant columns supporting a narrower attic area. There is nothing Egyptian about the decoration, which is classical in style. Mansion House retains much of its original character, there have been changes - one of the most important of which was the covering of the internal courtyard to form what is now known as the Saloon to provide a large reception area.