Burlington Lane, Chiswick
London W4 2 RD
Thursday April 26 2018
Both of us had visited this property before in weather fine
enough to be able to picnic but that was not to be the case today. It was a
pleasant walk from Chiswick Station and when we had wavered on the platform as
to which exit to take a woman had helpfully indicated the main exit – adding we
were not to miss the Conservatory.
Passing some well-heeled SW London properties and also some
delightful WW1 Almshouses (restored), we arrived at the Burlington Gate, which
gives you a clue as to whom the property originally belonged. Richard Boyle,
third Earl of Burlington , who inherited
at a the age of 10 years, lived when in London at Burlington House which is now the Royal
Academy of Art. Like many of his age he
embarked on the Grand Tour which in his case seemed mainly to be a ‘gap year’
spent shopping: he returned with no fewer than 878 trunks of purchases, and
then needed somewhere to put them. On his second tour he did focus more on the
sights and sites and fell in love with the classical Palladian villas he
visited round Vicenza, Italy. He also wanted ‘somewhere in the country, near
the Thames’ to entertain friends and continue supporting the Arts, by now home-
grown ones, hence Chiswick. By the time the house was rebuilt to this design
(the previous wooden structure having burnt) he had acquired a wife, and
eventually there were three girls.
Chiswick was used for fun and pleasure and summer entertaining. Since it
is seemingly without a kitchen, presumably the food was brought in ‘Deliveroo’
style?? Other artistic folk were nearby – such luminaries as Pope and John Gay, author of the Beggars’ Opera.
During our visit marquees were being erected in the garden,
presumably for some corporate or private function, and we thought it must have
been little different in Burlington’s day. His stroke of genius was to get , William Kent, whom the Earl met in Italy, to design the house, the garden and some of the
contents. Kent had started as a painter but then became the architect
and interior designer who came to define early Georgian England , a style that
many still feel is the most quintessentially English – it isn’t of course but
it has lasted well and with its classical symmetry is very soothing. So in Chiswick
he gave Burlington, and ultimately the Nation a classical gem.
The actual house entrance was not very well marked and we
must have walked round what felt like 1½ times before finding the right door as
of course one is not permitted to enter via the grand staircase.
The downstairs of the villa housed both a salon and the
Duke’s library, though none of that remains, and some of his larger ‘souvenirs’.
On the whole he did better with the statuary than the paintings, we thought,
and quite enjoyed the randomness of a Sphinx here and a Napoleon there, but
with little light and no furniture the general impression is of a rather
grandiose cellar; cold in both the physical and the emotional sense.
Lack of signs, again, meant we did a few circuits looking
for the stairs – one of the drawbacks of symmetrical buildings, we discovered,
was that all four corners look alike internally and the stone (presumably
servants’) stairs are well tucked away.
However, the climb is rewarded with a some very ornate
rooms, and at this level with generous windows overlooking the landscaped
gardens complete with modern marquees. Five /six rooms surround the central
domed salon, which as can be seen from the exterior views has a grand and
glorious domed roof/ceiling decorated with both paintings and plasterwork. The gallery
especially, where the colour palette is restricted to white and gold really
shows up the workmanship of the apse niches and ceiling. The introductory film
had alerted us to the two side/console tables, which had been restored and
photos of which I seem to have found from a previous visit. (Photography is not
now allowed on this level.)
The surrounding rooms
are respectively the Red, Green and Blue Velvet rooms – the latter has a pile/flock wallpaper in a deep intense blue.
In the Domed Saloon (if careless with my double vowels I
could call it the doomed salon) we dutifully namechecked the various paintings
and confirmed that most were indeed ‘after Van Dyck’ or ‘after Reni’ with some
bona fide Knellers. We felt perhaps the
Italians saw all these money rich/time poor Brits coming and sold on some hack
works... On the other hand much of the original contents of this house were
relocated to Chatsworth.
Through marriage this property became part of the Devonshire
Estates and while successive Dukes did live here it was never a main residence.
In some ways this was probably a good thing as the main interior rooms were
spared too many ‘makeovers’ and were left as we find them today. The 5th
Duke added a side building and made several changes in the garden going for a
more informal look – winding paths rather than too many straight vistas. His is the pretty bridge. His
wife, Georgiana, portrayed in the film 'The Duchess'
did some of her partying here. English Heritage had added some placards to
celebrate the ‘Women of Chiswick’ which of course included Georgiana, Anne
Venables, a Chiswick housekeeper and Eleanor Coade, who devised a secret formula stone suitable for statuary and
building. While she was not local to Chiswick there are several samples of
Coade Stone work within the garden, so perhaps a suitable place to remember
her.
Various less illustrious, though no less moneyed, tenants
followed and by the twentieth century the house was in some disrepair and
shortly before the Second World War it and the park were passed over to what is
now English Heritage and Hounslow Local Authority. Much restorative work was
needed with many of the later additions removed and the garden restored to a
more Burlington /William Kent era lay out.
The park is a joy with mature trees, water (originally the Bollo brook)
and points of interest – bridge/ columns, lions etc – dotted throughout. It is
also very well used by the whole range of park people: runners, dog walkers,
families.
We had left the Conservatory to last, excited by the thought
of a collection of historic camellias only to find there was a private function
with no admission for Jo Public . At this point
April did its thing and dumped a very cold shower on us when we were
furthest from shelter so we cut our
losses and headed briskly back to the station and the restorative warmth of a
SW train (I never thought I would say that) and central London after a somewhat muted morning out.
PS The photo shows some ‘home-grown’ camellias…
