The estate and house came under ownership of the London County Council and was open to the public in 1903. It was the first eighteenth-century house in England to be preserved by a public body. Restoration by the Greater London Council (GLC) began in 1965 and after the dissolution of the GLC the freehold of the house and estate passed to English Heritage.[1][2]
Pembroke, then Lord Herbert, based the design of Marble Hill to a large degree on Andrea Palladio's 1553 Villa Cornaro in Piombino Dese, Italy, and thus incorporated a cubic saloon on the first floor or piano nobile.[4]Villa Cornaro also served as a model for plantation houses in the American colonies, examples being Drayton Hall (1738–1742) in Charleston, South Carolina, and Thomas Jefferson's initial version of Monticello (1768–1770). It was in other respects an adaptation of a more expansive design by Colen Campbell. It is set in 66 acres (2.67km2) of parkland known as Marble Hill Park. The Great Room contains lavishly gilded decoration and five capricci paintings by Giovanni Paolo Pannini. Marble Hill House also contains a loaned collection of early Georgian furniture and paintings as well as the Chinoiserie collection of the Lazenby Bequest.[5]
Both Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift were regular guests at the house during the lifetime of Henrietta Howard.
In the late 18th century the house was rented by the Prince Regent (the future king, George IV) for his mistress, Maria Fitzherbert, so the two could continue to meet in private.
King's Nympton Park, Devon, built as "New Place" by James Buller (1717–1765) between 1746 and 1749 to the design of Francis Cartwright of Blandford in Dorset, based on Marble Hill House
Marble Hill House soon became known from published engravings, and it was widely admired for its plan and tightly controlled elevations. Its design was much copied elsewhere, after 1750,[7] and provided a standard model for the English villas built throughout the Thames Valley and further afield, an early example being at New Place, King's Nympton, Devon, built between 1746 and 1749 to the design of Francis Cartwright of Blandford in Dorset.[6]
An archaeological investigation found evidence of what has been described as a bowling alley next to the house in 2017.[8] However, it is likely that game resembled boules as much as bowling and the "alley" (better described as a depression in the ground) does not resemble the modern concept of a bowling alley. The main evidence that the area was used for some sort of bowling rests on contemporary plans.
The house is now owned by English Heritage, which acquired it in 1986 following the abolition of the Greater London Council. Its extensive grounds are known as Marble Hill Park and provide many leisure facilities including rugby and hockey pitches, a cricket pitch and nets, tennis courts, and a children's play area.[9]
In 2015, English Heritage won a Heritage Lottery Fund grant to develop Marble Hill House and its park in order to improve its presentation and the associated leisure facilities. As part of this project Historic England made a range of landscape investigations, including geophysical surveys, aerial photography and lidar mapping, analytical earthwork survey, coring and vegetation analysis to create a clear picture of the development of the Marble Hill landscape from the 17th century onwards.[10] Restoration work on the house included the reinstatement of Georgian colour schemes and renovation of the furnishings and pictures. The works took seven years to complete and cost £8M. The chief execuitve officer of English Heritage, Kate Mavor, described the restored house as “one of the forgotten gems of Georgian London”.[11]
↑ Speaking of Chiswick, Marble Hill and Stourhead, "If we look round for imitations of these in the thirties and forties, there are not so very many", Sir John Summerson observed, (Architecture in Britain, 1530 to 1830 9th ed. "Palladian permutations: the villa", 1993:347).
Bryant, Julius (1988). Chinoiserie: the Rosemary and Monty Lazenby bequest presented through the National Art-Collections Fund to Marble Hill House. Marble Hill House (London: English Heritage)
Bryant, Julius (1993). London's country house collections (London: Scala Books in association with English Heritage)
Bryant, Julius (2002). Marble Hill (London: English Heritage)
Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington and 4th Earl of Cork, was a British architect and noble often called the "Apollo of the Arts" and the "Architect Earl". The son of the 2nd Earl of Burlington and 3rd Earl of Cork, Burlington never took more than a passing interest in politics despite his position as a Privy Counsellor and a member of both the British House of Lords and the Irish House of Lords. His great interests in life were architecture and landscaping, and he is remembered for being a builder and a patron of architects, craftsmen and landscapers, Indeed, he is credited with bringing Palladian architecture to Britain and Ireland. His major projects include Burlington House, Westminster School, Chiswick House and Northwick Park.
William Kent was an English architect, landscape architect, painter and furniture designer of the early 18th century. He began his career as a painter, and became Principal Painter in Ordinary or court painter, but his real talent was for design in various media.
Chiswick House is a Neo-Palladian style villa in the Chiswick district of London, England. A "glorious" example of Neo-Palladian architecture in west London, the house was designed and built by Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington (1694–1753), and completed in 1729. The house and garden occupy 26.33 hectares. The garden was created mainly by the architect and landscape designer William Kent, and it is one of the earliest examples of the English landscape garden.
Robert Joseph Vila is an American home improvement television show host known for This Old House (1979–1989), Bob Vila's Home Again (1990–2005), and Bob Vila (2005–2007).
Vincenzo Scamozzi was an Italian architect and a writer on architecture, active mainly in Vicenza and Republic of Venice area in the second half of the 16th century. He was perhaps the most important figure there between Andrea Palladio, whose unfinished projects he inherited at Palladio's death in 1580, and Baldassarre Longhena, Scamozzi's only pupil.
Andrea Palladio was an Italian Renaissance architect active in the Venetian Republic. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily Vitruvius, is widely considered to be one of the most influential individuals in the history of architecture. While he designed churches and palaces, he was best known for country houses and villas. His teachings, summarized in the architectural treatise, The Four Books of Architecture, gained him wide recognition.
Palladian architecture is a European architectural style derived from the work of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). What is today recognised as Palladian architecture evolved from his concepts of symmetry, perspective and the principles of formal classical architecture from ancient Greek and Roman traditions. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Palladio's interpretation of this classical architecture developed into the style known as Palladianism.
Giacomo Leoni, also known as James Leoni, was an Italian architect, born in Venice. He was a devotee of the work of Florentine Renaissance architect Leon Battista Alberti, who had also been an inspiration for Andrea Palladio. Leoni thus served as a prominent exponent of Palladianism in English architecture, beginning in earnest around 1720. Also loosely referred to as Georgian, this style is rooted in Italian Renaissance architecture.
Villa La Rotonda is a Renaissance villa just outside Vicenza in Northern Italy designed by Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio, and begun in 1567, though not completed until the 1590s. The villa's official name is Villa Almerico Capra Valmarana, but it is also known as "La Rotonda", "Villa Rotonda", "Villa Capra", and "Villa Almerico Capra". The name Capra derives from the Capra brothers, who completed the building after it was ceded to them in 1592. Along with other works by Palladio, the building is conserved as part of the World Heritage Site "City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto".
Colen Campbell was a pioneering Scottish architect and architectural writer who played an important part in the development of the Georgian style. For most of his career, he resided in Italy and England. As well as his architectural designs, he is known for Vitruvius Britannicus, three volumes of high-quality engravings showing the great houses of the time.
Sir Edward Lovett Pearce was an Irish architect, and the chief exponent of Palladianism in Ireland. He is thought to have initially studied as an architect under his father's first cousin, Sir John Vanbrugh. He is best known for the Irish Houses of Parliament in Dublin, and his work on Castletown House. The architectural concepts he employed on both civic and private buildings were to change the face of architecture in Ireland. He could be described as the father of Irish Palladian architecture and Georgian Dublin.
Henrietta Howard was a British courtier. She is known as the mistress of King George II of Great Britain. She was the sister of John Hobart, 1st Earl of Buckinghamshire.
Marble Hill Park is an area of 66 acres (270,000 m2) of parkland in Twickenham, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. It is an English Heritage site that surrounds Marble Hill House, a Palladian villa originally built for Henrietta Howard, the mistress of King George II in 1724–29.
Villa Cornaro is a patrician villa in Piombino Dese, about 30 km northwest of Venice, Italy. It was designed by the Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio in 1552 and is illustrated and described by him in Book Two of his 1570 masterwork, I quattro libri dell'architettura. Villa Cornaro is an example of one of Palladio's designs whose influence can be seen in later architecture. In efforts on preservation, Villa Cornaro has not always remained in the possession of the state.
Yelverton Lodge is an 18th-century hunting lodge on Richmond Road, Twickenham in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Situated opposite Marble Hill Park and Marble Hill House, it was acquired for Henrietta Howard, Countess of Suffolk, who was a mistress of King George II.
Roger Morris was an English architect whose connection with Colen Campbell brought him to the attention of Henry Herbert, 9th Earl of Pembroke, with whom Morris collaborated on a long series of projects.
Chiswick House is an example of English Palladian Architecture in Burlington Lane, Chiswick, in the London Borough of Hounslow in England. Arguably the finest remaining example of Neo-Palladian architecture in London, the house was designed by Lord Burlington, and built between 1727 and 1729. The architectural historian Richard Hewlings has established that Chiswick House was an attempt by Lord Burlington to create a Roman villa, rather than Renaissance pastiche, situated in a symbolic Roman garden. Chiswick House is inspired in part by several buildings of the 16th-century Italian architects Andrea Palladio (1508–1580) and his assistant Vincenzo Scamozzi (1552–1616). The house is often said to be directly inspired by Palladio's Villa Capra "La Rotonda" near Vicenza, due to the fact that architect Colen Campbell had offered Lord Burlington a design for a villa very closely based on the Villa Capra for his use at Chiswick. However, although still clearly influential, Lord Burlington had rejected this design and it was subsequently used at Mereworth Castle, Kent. Lord Burlington was not just restricted to the influence of Andrea Palladio as his library list at Chiswick indicates. He owned books by influential Italian Renaissance architects such as Sebastiano Serlio and Leon Battista Alberti and his library contained books by French architects, sculptors, illustrators and architectural theorists such as Jean Cotelle, Philibert de l'Orme, Abraham Bosse, Jean Bullant, Salomon de Caus, Roland Fréart de Chambray, Hugues Sambin, Antoine Desgodetz, and John James's translation of Claude Perrault's Treatise of the Five Orders. Whether Palladio's work inspired Chiswick or not, the Renaissance architect exerted an important influence on Lord Burlington through his plans and reconstructions of lost Roman buildings; many of these unpublished and little known, were purchased by Burlington on his second Grand Tour and housed in cabinets and tables the Blue Velvet Room, which served as his study. These reconstructions were the source for many of the varied geometric shapes within Burlington's Villa, including the use of the octagon, circle and rectangle. Possibly the most influential building reconstructed by Palladio and used at Chiswick was the monumental Roman Baths of Diocletian: references to this building can be found in the Domed Hall, Gallery, Library and Link rooms.
Pope's villa was the residence of Alexander Pope at Twickenham, then a village west of London in Middlesex. He moved there in 1719 and created gardens and an underground grotto. When Baroness Howe of Langar (1762–1835) purchased the house, she demolished it in 1808 and built a new house next to the site. The house and grotto were topics of 18th- and 19th-century poetry and art. In about 1845, a neo-Tudor house known as Pope's Villa was built on approximately the same site; it has been used as a school since the early 20th century. Pope's Grotto, which is listed Grade II* by Historic England, survives, and is open to the public on 30 weekends each year.
Kendal House was a historic property located near the River Thames in Isleworth, then to the west of London. It was constructed for the use of Melusine von der Schulenburg, Duchess of Kendal, who had been the long-standing mistress of George I. After the King's death in 1727 she could no longer live at royal residences such as Kensington Palace. It was built as riverside villa in the fashionable Palladian style. One of many such buildings located in the area including Marble Hill House, built around the same time for Henrietta Howard, the discarded mistress of George II.
Twickenham War Memorial, in Radnor Gardens, Twickenham, London, commemorates the men of the district of Twickenham who died in the First World War. After 1945, the memorial was updated to recognise casualties from the Second World War. The memorial was commissioned by Twickenham Urban District Council in 1921. It was designed by the sculptor Mortimer Brown, and is Brown's only significant public work. The memorial is unusual for its representation of a jubilant soldier returning home. It became a Grade II* listed structure in 2017.
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