The Grade I [1] listed building Walpole House is the largest, finest, [2] and most complicated of the grand houses on Chiswick Mall, a waterfront street in the oldest part of Chiswick. Both the front wrought-iron screen and gate, and the back boundary wall, are Grade II listed.
The house was started in the Tudor era, with internal features surviving from the 16th and 17th centuries; the river frontage was built around 1730. The 0.5 hectares (1.2 acres) garden is listed in the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens.
Among Walpole House's famous inhabitants have been: Barbara, Duchess of Cleveland, mistress of King Charles II; Thomas Walpole; Daniel O'Connell; William Makepeace Thackeray; and Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree.
The building that became Walpole House was built late in the Tudor era; internal features survive from the 16th and 17th centuries. The garden front was constructed around 1700, while the river frontage and the extension on the northwest side were added around 1730. It has three storeys, of brown bricks with red brick dressings. The front door is in a round-arched porch with Corinthian pilasters standing on plinths; above is an entablature. Its windows have double-hung sashes topped with flat arches. [3] [4] [5]
The house is private and there is no access for the public. [6]
In front of the house is an elegant [5] Grade II* listed screen and wrought iron gate; [5] the brick gateposts are topped with white globes, ball finials. [4]
Walpole House garden is listed in the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens. [4] It is L-shaped and of some 0.5 hectares (1.2 acres); it runs northwest from the house to the boundary wall at Netheravon Road, and is bordered by the back garden walls of The Tides and Thamescote House to the west, and Strawberry House to the east. At the back of the house is a terrace of York stone which occupies the full width of the house, as designed around 1926 by Mrs Robert Benson. Three steps rise to the lower lawn; a wide path paved with flagstones runs northwest across the lawn. The lower lawn is bordered by raised curved flowerbeds edged with flagstones; to the west of the stone path is a large mulberry tree. Five steps rise to the upper lawn, and the path crosses the upper garden. Above the stone wall separating the lawns are rosebeds. The upper garden has a pair of large poplar trees from Mrs Benson's design, and a large pond surrounded by flagstones and raised flowerbeds. The lawn ends at a 1997 yew hedge the full width of the garden; behind it, reached through two gaps in the hedge, is a wild garden containing large eucalyptus and Snakebark maple trees. Under the trees are flowers including cyclamens, euphorbias, and hellebores. [5] [7] [8] [9]
The back boundary wall is Grade II listed; it is described as "of plum-red brick about 9-10 ft high" with "some black headers". It tapers at the top and is capped with brick. The listing states that it is the remaining part of the boundary of College House, where the scholars of Westminster School came to escape the plague starting in 1557. [10]
Walpole House was the last home of Barbara, 1st Duchess of Cleveland, a notorious royal mistress of King Charles II, until her death in 1709; she is buried in St Nicholas Church nearby. The house was later inherited by Thomas Walpole, a Member of Parliament and banker, for whom it is now named. [3] [5] From 1785 to 1794, it served as a boarding house; one of its lodgers was the young Irish politician Daniel O'Connell while he was studying law. [2] [3]
In the early 19th century, the house became a boys' school, its pupils including William Makepeace Thackeray. [5] Walpole House most likely provided the model for the fictional academy for young ladies in his 1847–48 novel Vanity Fair , [6] which begins with the words "While the present century was in its teens, and on one sunshiny morning in June, there drove up to the great iron gate of Miss Pinkerton’s academy for young ladies, on Chiswick Mall, a large family coach, with two fat horses in blazing harness, driven by a fat coachman in a three-cornered hat and wig, at the rate of four miles an hour. ... as he pulled the bell at least a score of young heads were seen peering out of the narrow windows of the stately old brick house." [11]
The actor-manager Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree owned the house at the start of the 20th century. [5] It was then bought by the merchant banker Robin Benson; over several generations the Benson family designed and then restored the garden. [5] The house was reacquired by the Walpole family at the end of the 20th century.[ citation needed ] [12]
William Makepeace Thackeray was an English novelist and illustrator. He is known for his satirical works, particularly his 1847–1848 novel Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of British society, and the 1844 novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon, which was adapted for a 1975 film by Stanley Kubrick.
Chiswick is a district in the London Borough of Hounslow, West London, England. It contains Hogarth's House, the former residence of the 18th-century English artist William Hogarth; Chiswick House, a neo-Palladian villa regarded as one of the finest in England; and Fuller's Brewery, London's largest and oldest brewery. In a meander of the River Thames used for competitive and recreational rowing, with several rowing clubs on the river bank, the finishing post for the Boat Race is just downstream of Chiswick Bridge.
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.
Buckingham Palace Garden is a large private park attached to the London residence of the British monarch. It is situated to the rear (west) of Buckingham Palace, occupying a 17-hectare (42-acre) site in the City of Westminster and forms the largest private garden in London. It is bounded by Constitution Hill to the north, Hyde Park Corner to the west, Grosvenor Place to the south-west, and the Royal Mews, Queen's Gallery, and Buckingham Palace itself to the south and east.
Hogarth's House is the former country home of the 18th-century English artist William Hogarth in Chiswick, adjacent to the A4. The House now belongs to the London Borough of Hounslow and is open to visitors as a historic house museum free of charge. Chiswick is now one of London's western suburbs, but in the 18th century it was a large village or small town quite separate from the metropolis, but within easy reach of it. Today the house is a Grade I listed building.
The London Borough of Ealing, one of the outer London boroughs although not on the periphery, has over 100 parks and open spaces within its boundaries. These include allotments, cemeteries, playgrounds, and golf courses in addition to the larger open spaces such as nature conservation areas.
Broxbourne is a town in the Borough of Broxbourne district, in Hertfordshire, England, with a population of 15,303 at the 2011 Census. It is located to the south of Hoddesdon and to the north of Cheshunt, 17 miles (27 km) north of London. The town is near the River Lea, which forms the boundary with Essex, and 5 miles (8.0 km) north of the M25 motorway. To the west of the town are Broxbourne Woods, a national nature reserve. The Prime Meridian runs just east of Broxbourne.
Boston Manor House is an English Jacobean manor house built in 1622 with internal alterations, intensively restored in later centuries. It was the manor house of one of the early medieval-founded manors in Middlesex. Since 1965 the manor's small part of the parish of Hanwell has been part of the London Borough of Hounslow in west London. Boston Manor Park is the publicly owned green space, including a lake, which adjoins the house.
Strand-on-the-Green is one of Chiswick's four medieval villages, and a "particularly picturesque" riverside area in West London. It is a conservation area, with many "imposing" listed buildings beside the River Thames; a local landmark, the Kew Railway Bridge that crosses the River Thames and the Strand, is itself Grade II listed. Oliver's Island is just offshore.
Turnham Green is a public park on Chiswick High Road, Chiswick, London, and the neighbourhood and conservation area around it; historically, it was one of the four medieval villages in the Chiswick area, the others being Old Chiswick, Little Sutton, and Strand-on-the-Green. Christ Church, a neo-Gothic building designed by George Gilbert Scott and built in 1843, stands on the eastern half of the green. A war memorial stands on the eastern corner. On the south side is the old Chiswick Town Hall.
Chiswick Eyot is a 3.266-acre (1.3 ha) narrow, uninhabited ait of the Thames. It is a tree- and reed-covered rise on the Tideway by Chiswick, in London, England and is overlooked by Chiswick Mall and by some of the Barnes riverside on the far bank.
Arley Hall is a country house in the village of Arley, Cheshire, England, about 4 miles (6 km) south of Lymm and 5 miles (8 km) north of Northwich. It is home to the owner, Viscount Ashbrook, and his family. The house is a Grade II* listed building, as is its adjacent chapel. Formal gardens to the southwest of the hall are also listed as Grade II* on the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. In the grounds are more listed buildings, a cruck barn being listed as Grade I, and the other buildings as Grade II.
Walpole Park is a 28 acres (110,000 m2) Grade II municipal park, situated in Ealing, England. Currently governed by Ealing Council, it was initially the grounds of Pitzhanger Manor, the early 19th-century country home of Sir John Soane. It was acquired by Ealing Council in 1899 and opened to the public for the first time on 1 May 1901.
Linton Park, formerly Linton Place or Linton Hall, is a large 18th-century country house in Linton, Kent, England. Built by Robert Mann in 1730 to replace a much earlier building called 'Capell's Court', the estate passed through the ownership of several members of Mann's family before coming into the Cornwallis family. The house was enlarged to its current size in 1825.
The Bull's Head is a Grade II listed public house at 15 Strand-on-the-Green, Chiswick, London, England. The building is 18th century with later additions; the architect is not known. It is a two-storey white-painted brick building, and still has its pantile roof with two dormer windows. The entrance has a moulded doorhood resting on brackets. Inside, the pub's bar and drinking area consists of numerous rooms on different levels; the lowest room is the "Duck & Grouse" restaurant.
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Chiswick Mall is a waterfront street on the north bank of the river Thames in the oldest part of Chiswick in West London, with a row of large houses from the Georgian and Victorian eras overlooking the street on the north side, and their gardens on the other side of the street beside the river and Chiswick Eyot.
Old Chiswick is the area of the original village beside the river Thames for which the modern district of Chiswick is named. The village grew up around St Nicholas Church, founded c. 1181 and named for the patron saint of fishermen. The placename was first recorded c. 1000 as Ceswican. In the Middle Ages the villagers lived by fishing, boatbuilding, and handling river traffic. The surrounding area was rural until the late 19th century.
Little Sutton was one of the four constituent medieval villages of Chiswick, in what is now West London, and the site of a royal manor house, Sutton Manor, later Sutton Court. The great house was accompanied by a small hamlet without a church of its own.
Chiswick High Road is the principal shopping and dining street of Chiswick, a district in the west of London. It was part of the main Roman road running west out of London, and remained the main road until the 1950s when the A4 was built across Chiswick. By the 19th century the road through the village of Turnham Green had grand houses beside it. The road developed into a shopping centre when Chiswick became built up with new streets and housing to the north of Old Chiswick, late in the 19th century. There are several listed buildings including public houses, churches, and a former power station, built to supply electricity to the tram network.