The parlour is furnished for sitting and reading or talking quietly. A number of comfortable armchairs and several stools are grouped around the room, each with a low table nearby, and there is also a scatter of very large cushions piled in one corner. Somewhat unusually for the Tower, the three windows are curtained and not shuttered, and the walls are covered with hangings. A closed door to one side of the stairs leads to the upper bedroom.

A folding workbox stands by one of the chairs, and the seat of the neighbouring armchair carries a prosaic heap of mending; darned socks, loose buttons, and a jumper with an unravelling sleeve. Judging by the graded wools laid out across the broad arm of the chair, however, the unfinished mending was abandoned in favour of a somewhat more creative activity. A square of canvas laid aside nearby, stretched on a home-made frame, betrays the nature of that occupation.

The canvas itself bears no design — only unfinished areas of stitched colour — but the shape of the finished picture can be guessed at from the sheet of squared paper rolled up alongside. The legs and tail of some mythological creature can be glimpsed, marked in with coloured pencil against a carefully shaded background. Other tapestry pictures can be seen framed on the walls. Huntsmen chase a unicorn through a brightly-detailed wood; a spray of roses is depicted in an oval frame; and a traditional sampler, worked on finer cloth, surrounds the alphabet and a verse of Tennyson with interlocking borders intended to represent the rich skies and snowy summits, while curved post-horns stand in for the bugles' wild echoes.

There are also various framed certificates and documents on display. These include a collection of film reviews which have been printed out, and an inscribed copy of that invaluable vade mecum, the Gentleman's Guide to Usenet.