Chiswick House & Gardens

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Chiswick House & Gardens

There are several properties in London which are under the care of English Heritage. Chiswick House & Gardens is one of them.

We decided to visit there on 4 May. Like when we go to Kew Gardens, we took the Piccadilly Line and transferred to the District Line for Richmond at Hammersmith. We got off at Turnham Green. Mark had checked the location and led me to Chiswick House and Gardens. There were a lot of elegant residential houses and stylish cafes and restaurants. We also noted the statue of Hogarth standing on the centre of High Street. We learnt that there is Hogarth's museum in the vicinity of Chiswick House.

After walking for 15 minutes, we reached the entrance gate for Chiswick House and Gardens. A large part of the property was under the construction and restoration work on 4 May, and it meant that we were unable to explore a large part of the parkland. Nevertheless, we were still able to see the charming landscape garden with the river, cascade, bridge, obelisk, and a sizeable green space. We had a picnic lunch at the lawn near where children were playing football.

After the lunch, we walked to the House. We showed our membership cards, and were offered audio guides.

We firstly watched the video showing comprehensive background and history of Chiswick House with details of why the Palladian mansion was built, life of the 3rd Earl Burlington and William Kent, and how the collections of Italian statues and paintings were transported to the UK, and the ongoing restoration work for the House and Gardens.

Secondly, we looked round the three interconnecting rooms along the north side of the ground floor, which were used as Burlington's library.

In the Lower Tribune octagonal-shaped there were paintings of the rooms and gardens at Chiswick in the beginning of the 19th century.

There were a number of ancient Greek and Roman statues and sculptures displayed in the former library rooms and corridor, e.g. lead sphinx, the Roman Emperor. The panel information included the descriptions of how those statues have been maintained and preserved, whilst identifying that the lines of their faces and bodies have been deteriorated, broken, or vanished due to the pollution, vandalism, or being neglected.

The corridor led us to the Summer Parlour, which was thought to be added in 1716, and interior was redesigned by William Kent. We were impressed with the very artistic ceiling which contains the heraldic owl of the Savile family.

One of the outstanding architectural features of Chiswick House is there are different geometrical shapes - square, circle, rectangle, and octagon, all of them are arranged around the Octagonal rooms in the centre of the house both on the ground and first floors.

After looking round the ground floor rooms, we strolled through the principal rooms at Chiswick House on the first floor. There were scores of mythological paintings, landscape pictures, portraits, ornaments, and treasures containing gold and ornate carvings and decorations in the Tribunal or Saloon, Gallery, Blue, Green, Red Velvet rooms, and Bedchamber on the first floor. Velvet walls made the paintings and artworks look even more striking. On top of that, there were many outstanding allegorical paintings, golden carvings on the ceilings. As a typical Palladian Villa, there were many richly decorated fringes on the walls, columns, and Venetian windows. Most of the artworks and paintings were designed and completed by Inigo Jones and William Kent. I certainly agreed with the fact that the owner spent a lot of time decorating the first floor rooms to entertain visitors and made their space simple on the ground floor rooms. We overlooked the backyard space with lines of Roman statues, which have been currently under the restoration from the window.

We hope to come back to Chiswick and explore the parkland in the near future after the restoration work has been completed.

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