Remembering that I have to give a talk on the third Earl of Burlington some time in mid-January, I thought I would make an early morning expedition out to Chiswick House, the villa which he constructed in the late 1720s – it was completed in 1729 – as a weekend retreat, to house his art collection and demonstrate his knowledge and expertise in a strict form of Palladianism, drawn up and designed with reference to a detailed study of I quattro libri.
Unfortunately, the house is closed (I knew that) and the garden was full of oriental floats for a production of Cinderella. But it’s hard to resist the beauty of the house in the morning frost:-
| Charles | Saumarez | Smith | 
What a Corinthian capital !
Having struggled across London, did you look in on Marble Hill House, like Chiswick House an English Heritage building rather overlooked these days? It’s Colen Campbell at his most Palladian, in a lovely setting. It also has some nice Paninis and a very good Richard Wilson. Worth a visit.
No, I had sausages and baked beans in the Caruso St. John pavilion. Charles
Chiswick House and park is a fascinating example the new pattern of patchwork support: a lot of very hard working volunteers and fund raisers carefully restoring the outstanding gardens, as Hounslow handed over responsibilities for the landscaped park to a private trust several years ago; this means opera, pop, weddings etc and etc and a very important event, the great annual dog show with local celebrity judges. The canine visitors almost outnumber the humans and there is also a cricket field. And commissioning Caruso St John to do the refreshment pavilion which years ago caused upset as the dilapidated but much loved hut which had served as the café and its enterprising proprietors had to go. Is the house English Heritage? The Chiswick High Road is also fascinating with lots of quite fine architecture obscured by shop fronts, and still quite a collection of independent shops, and some of the finest plane trees left standing, and of course the street names: Burlington, Heathfield, Duke etc and etc with suburban Dukes Avenue once the sweeping entry way to the estate, now cut off by the A4.
I liked the Caruso St. John pavilion, but not the fact that the park was strewn with irrelevant decorative clutter – maybe only temporarily. Charles
re Mark’s re marks, methinx Marble Hill more Morris than Campbell…?
Doesn’t Colvin follow Walpole in attributing the design to the 9th. Earl of Pembroke and only the construction to Roger Morris, who described himself as a bricklayer in 1724 when work on Marble Hill began ? Charles
Beautiful !!!
and a happy new year
xxxxxx