Marble Hill House
| Marble Hill House | |
| Middlesex | |
|---|---|
front.jpg) Marble Hill House, river front | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | TQ173737 |
| Location: | 51°27’2"N, 0°18’46"W |
| Town: | Twickenham |
| History | |
| Country house | |
| Information | |
| Owned by: | English Heritage |
Marble Hill House is a Palladian villa built between 1724 and 1729 in Twickenham in Middlesex. The compact design soon became famous and furnished a standard model for the Georgian villa and for plantation houses in the American colonies.
Though now the town has encroached even this far across Middlesex, Marble Hill House remains a country house, and a reminder of former, greener days.
Description
front.jpg)
Marble Hill House was built in 1724–1729 by Henrietta Howard, Countess of Suffolk, the mistress of King George II,[1] to the designs of the architect Roger Morris (1695–1749) in collaboration with Henry Herbert, 9th Earl of Pembroke, one of the "architect earls".
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.[2] 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.
The house is set in 66 acres 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.[3]
Notable guests
Both Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift spent many happy hours at Marble Hill as Henrietta Howard's guests.
The house today
The house is now owned by English Heritage, which acquired it in 1986 following the abolition of the Greater London Council. The house with its extensive grounds are known as Marble Hill Park and provide many leisure facilities including a cricket pitch and nets, tennis courts, a putting green and a children's play area.
Hammerton's Ferry links the gardens to Ham House on the opposite bank of the River Thames in Surrey.
Outside links
 |
("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Marble Hill House) |
References
- ↑ Marie P. G. Draper and W.A. Eden, Marble Hill House and its Owners 1970.
- ↑ RIBA "Palladio and Britain"
- ↑ John Jacob and Elizabeth Einberg, Marble Hill House, Catalogue
- Julius Bryant, Marble Hill (English Heritage, 2002)
