Tag Archive | Chiswick House

Third Time Lucky—At Chiswick House Finally!

Jul29


Sunday, July 28, 2013
London
Third Time Lucky—At Chiswick House Finally!
            Today’s excursion occurred quite by chance. In fact, when the day dawned, all that struck me was that it was Moving Day again—this past week seemed to have flown! But my friends Chris and Raquel were returning from the States late in the evening and I intended to move out by 7. 30 pm. With most of my packing done yesterday, I awoke at about 6. 30 am today, blogged for a bit, then finished up the last odds and ends of my packing before planning out my day.
Sunday Service at St. George’s, Bloomsbury:
            Regular readers of this blog will know that on Sundays in London, I usually seek out a historic church in which to attend Service as I love the variety of services that the various churches offer and because it permits me to peruse the gorgeous ecclesiastical architecture of this city. Having seen St. George’s Church at Bloomsbury merely from the outside on my walk around Bloomsbury, the other day, I decided to attend the 10. 30 am service there (I discovered the timing of the service from the church’s website).
I left my place on Abbey Road at 10.00 am and by 10. 25am, I was at Bloomsbury. The church gates were open and I found myself inside a space that exemplified English Baroque to the T. This church is the work of Nicholas Hawksmoor, a pupil of Christopher Wren, who had learned everything he knew from Inigo Jones. Well, there it was—plainly visible to the eye: the classical discipline of Inigo Jones and the Baroque exuberance of Wren brilliantly combined in a space that was imposing yet austere. Anyone familiar with Hawkmoor’s work will recognize his style: I have seen his work at St. Alfrege’s Church in Greenwich and at Christ Church, Spitalfields—so it was easy for me to recognize his signature touches: broad Greek columns (his were Corinthian), classical proportions and 18th century symmetry, marquetry around the altar in woods of many colors, simplicity without too much color. The church was recently refurbished and it is a grand space indeed. The service was equally interesting. It didn’t have the full choral grandeur of the services I have attended these past two Sundays (at St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Queen’s Chapel at St. James Palace respectively) but it was still absorbing. The Rev. David Peebles preached a very stirring sermon, the Lectors were wonderful—clear and full of expression. As always, the pastor made it a point to introduce himself to me at the end of the service and say “Welcome”. I was invited to stay for coffee after the service but I had been on an empty stomach and it was 11. 45am. I needed something more than coffee—much more than coffee!
A Full English Breakfast at the Bloomsbury Café:
            It was time to go out in search of sustenance—big time sustenance! A Full English Breakfast, I thought, would be in order. It would be my Brunch since I was unlikely to eat anything again until dinner time. Bloomsbury—being the home of the British Museum and always crawling with visitors—has no dearth of places offering this most nourishing of meals. So it was not surprising that I found my way to the Bloomsbury Café on Bloomsbury Street to partake of the Full English Breakfast that was advertised on the blackboard on the sidewalk. That and an Americano coffee, I told the proprietor, would be my order.
            A few minutes later, it arrived—my Full-Blown Heart Attack on a Plate! Two scrambled eggs, 2 sausages, 4 rashers of bacon, baked beans, 2 slices of white buttered toast (yes, yes, I know the grilled tomatoes and mushrooms were missing, but this was still pretty humongous!) It took me a good half an hour to savor all of it and by 12. 30 pm (as Bloomsbury slowly came to tourist life), I paid my bill (8.25 pounds), thanked the owner for his excellent meal and made my way to my office at NYU to get some material printed—only to realize that it is no longer open on Sundays. Oh well!
Off To Victoria for a Ticket to Oxford:
            When I spied a 74 bus coming along with the sign stating that it would terminate at Victoria, I jumped into it to run my next errand: the purchasing of my return ticket to Oxford (as I will be heading there on Wednesday). I thoroughly enjoyed the bus ride along Oxford Street and into Mayfair and Belgravia before we arrived at Victoria Bus Station where I changed into another bus to get to the Coach Station. Thankfully, the queue was short and I ended up getting a return ticket at a cheaper fare than was being offered on the website; plus I did not need to pay the delivery charges that I simply could not get rid of on the site—I ended up saving nearly four pounds on my ticket and this pleased me absurdly!
Finally Getting to Chiswick House:
            It was about 1. 30 by then and quite suddenly, I decided that this would be the time to make a trip to Chiswick (pronounced ‘Chizzik’) to get inside Chiswick House, a grand 18th century mansion on the outskirts of the city. On two occasions in the past when I have made the trip there, my intentions of visiting the house were thwarted. Maintained by the English Heritage, a not-for-profit organization that preserves heritage properties in the UK, it is only open three days a week. When I had visited with my friend Amy, five years ago, we had arrived on a day when it was closed. Three months ago, when I arrived there with another friend Raquel, there was a Camellia Festival on that had closed down the house temporarily for a week. I crossed my fingers and hoped it would be third time lucky. And indeed it was!
            By the time I got to Chiswick High Street on the Tube (getting off at Tunham Green), it was about 3. 30 pm but I could not resist poking around the thrift shops that are plentiful in the area. I did find a lovely shiny bracelet and I was delighted with it. Then, fairly racing along Devonshire Road to the venue (which I remembered well from my last visit), I reached Chiswick House at 4. 00 pm. This left me one hour to see the house (I did not wish to spend time in the gardens which are free to the public). I paid the entry fee of 5. 40 pounds and began my tour of the house. But first, I think, a little historical information might be in order.
            Chiswick House was the brain child of Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington (known as Lord Burlington), who was born with a golden spoon in his mouth, the son of landed gentry. His parents already owned vast property in Piccadilly including Burlington House (which became the Royal Academy of Arts). At the age of 21, as was the custom at the time, Lord B undertook the Grand Tour—a long journey through Europe which was felt to complete the education of any young aristocrat of the time (this was the early-18th century). This experience was life-changing for him as, in Italy, he became introduced to the work of Andrea Palladio whose showpiece city of Vicenza took his breath away. He resolved to build himself a villa similar in form and substance to the great work of Palladio and was fortunate to come upon the English architect Inigo Jones who had just returned from Italy himself and been completely swept away by Palladio’s genius.   
            Teaming up with Jones, Lord B created Chiswick House, a mansion that is plainly inspired by Villa la Rotunda in Vicenza: anyone who had visited the latter in Italy will easily spot the similarities at Chiswick House. Indeed as someone who was completely taken by Palladio’s work at Villa La Rotunda in Vicenza, I was profoundly interested in Chiswick House. There was a short audio-visual presentation that introduced Burlington’s vision and led one into the secrets of this amazing home.
An audio guide ably led us on a self-guided tour that I found intensely fascinating. The ground floor is a series of rooms that once accommodated Lord B’s library and his smoking room and led into the original home that his parents had owned (destroyed by the fifth Earl in the 19th century). We were also led into the basement cellar with its numerous kegs of wine.         But the true glories of the house are on the top story where room after room simply dazzles the eye—for Lord B was an avid collector who returned from the Grand Tour with 870 wooden crates containing Italian art including two priceless porphyry (rare purple marble quarried in Egypt) vases and two gilded wooden table bases with Florentine pietra dura (inlaid) marble tops. There are a multitude of paintings in the rooms—of which the Red Velvet Room and the Green Velvet Room are the most sumptuous. There is also a Blue Velvet Room which is much smaller and which served as Lord B’s private study. The paintings include contemporary portraits by Van Dyke and Stephano Ricci, landscapes and scenes depicting classical mythology. An abundance of gilding, grand brass chandeliers, innumerable marble busts of Greek and Roman personages punctuate the home. It is simply glorious and I am delighted, just delighted, that I was finally able to feast my eyes upon this home. Considering that it is so easily accessible from London (the No. 190 bus from Hammersmith stops right outside the main gate of the property from where the house is only a few steps away—so much simpler to get to it this way than walking all the way from Tunham Green Tube statin as I had done), I simply can’t believe that it has taken me so long to see Chiswick House. 
I did stop to buy a drink (Elderflower and Grape Juice) at the famous café attached to the house as I badly needed a cool drink. Then I felt ready for the journey back home.
Indeed, I found the bus stop (190) right outside the main gate and when I reached Chiswick High Street, I realized that bus No. 27 went all the way to Chalk Farm past Baker Street. Well, it was a grand evening for a long drive and on it I hopped. It took me about an hour to reach Gloucester Place from where I hopped into the 189 bus to get to Abbey Road. I was dropped just opposite my building, Neville Court.
Moving To and Settling In Battersea:
            By 6.45 pm, I was home. It took me about half an hour to settle the last of my stuff and to clean and tidy up behind me as I did want to leave the place looking welcoming for my friends upon their return (I did leave them a bunch of gifts with a Thank-you card). I also left my suitcase behind with the intention of picking it up tomorrow. By 7. 15 pm, I took my backpack with me and left the house on the Tube to Vauxhall headed to my friend Roz’s place at Battersea.
            In under an hour (at 8. 10 pm to be precise), I was ringing Roz’s doorbell. We sat in her garden and ate a lovely meal of chicken fingers with couscous and a salad of lettuce and tomatoes with the last of the delicious Elderflower water that I really enjoy here in the UK. She showed me up to my room and I settled down with a nice hot shower and made myself comfortable in her darling three-level home that is filled with paintings, sculpture and other wonderful art work. Although I will only be here for two days before I leave for Oxford, I am looking forward to some great times with her. My room overlooks her garden and the train tracks and occasionally I hear a train steaming into the night as I type this. It is wonderfully comforting to be in the company of a good friend and I know I will have a very happy time here.
            Until tomorrow, Cheerio!            

The Suburb of Chiswick and its Historic Houses

Mar29

Tuesday, March 19, 2013: On the Outskirts of London


A Daytrip Ahead:
I had devoted this day entirely to my new friend Raquel, a fairly-new American expatriate in London, and our plans to see some spots in Chiswick on the outskirts of the city. We have a mutual friend named Amy based in New York who brought up together in cyberspace. After my oatmeal breakfast and a shower at Amen Court, I intended to join up with Raquel but she called to inform me that she had an urgent doctor’s appointment and would be delayed.

Food Shopping and A Brief Visit to the National Gallery:
No problem, I thought. This lull in my unceasing activity would give me pause to get to the National Gallery which is one of my favorite places in London and where I always go, on every single visit, to say hello to my favorite canvasses. I would also be able to do some of my food shopping for I hadn’t accomplished much in that department thus far.

After 8 am, Mass, I took the bus and went directly to Sainsbury at Holborn to pick up masses of Bourbon Chocolate Biscuits and to Marks and Sparks for my Fruity Flapjack Biscuits. A quick nip into Waitrose at Holborn to buy Ainsley Herriot’s powdered packaged soups drew a blank—I realized I would need to get to a larger Waitrose for those. Back at Amen Court, I deposited my shopping and sped off by bus to the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square where I spent the next couple of hours visiting my favorite works (Zurbaran’s haunting Portrait of St. Francis, Constable’s rustic Haywain, Stubbs’ Whistlejacket, Gainsborough’s Mr and Mrs, Andrews, Caravaggio’s Christ at Emmaus, Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire, the Execution of Lady Jane Grey by Paul DelaRoche, The Graham Children by William Hogarth, the room devoted entirely to works by Renaissance Italian artist Carlo Crivelli and finally my favorite work in the entire museum, Pieter de Hooch’s Courtyard of a House in Delft). I also spent a while in the museum shop looking for a particular bookmark—Rogier van der Weyden’s Magdalen Reading. What a bummer to discover that it is now out of stock! Oh well! At least I did see much-loved works and although I would have loved to stay longer, Raquel did call to tell me she was ready to keep our date.

Off to Chiswick House and Gardens:
I hopped on to the Tube at Charing Cross to get to Turnham Green Tube Station where Raquel and I planned to connect. What a coincidence to discover that we were on the same train! The plan of action was to get to Chiswick House, a grand Palladian manor in the town of the same name and to explore its fabulous gardens.

Only we discovered as we got out of the Tube station that there were snazzy shops galore to tempt us on Chiswick High Street and, before we knew it, we were dallying in and out of our favorite places—mainly the charity shops which I find endlessly fascinating. Raquel kept exclaiming at the opportunity to survey these shops for although she lives in Central London, she is nowhere close to the main shopping arcades.

Fifteen minutes of a brief walk later, we were skirting the vast acreage of Chiswick House and Gardens. Its dome and Palladian rotunda came into sight as we passed by smartly-attired suburbanites walking their dogs in the garden. Inspired by Andrea Palladio’s Villa La Capra near Vicenza in Italy, the house was built by Lord Burlington, an avid traveler and collector of Neo-Classical art. Sadly, when we got to the main entrance, we discovered that a Camellia Festival was on throughout the month of March which would leave the house open only at the weekends. I was frustrated and annoyed as this is the second time I have made the pricey journey to Chiswick House only to find entry prohibited—three years ago, I was there with my friend Amy and we had drawn a similar blank.

However, since Raquel and I were starving and the Chiswick Café is well reputed, we sat down to have lunch: Spinach Quiche with a Salad, a Fruit Scone with Butter and Strawberry Jam (how can you visit England and not eat a scone, right?) and a lovely Mixed Nut Tart washed down with Elderflower cordial—all of which were simply scrumptious. Over lunch, we got to know each other and discovered that we have so much in common. Don’t you just love it when you hit it off instantly with a new friend?

Lunch done, we strolled at leisure through Chiswick Gardens taking in the follies dotted all over it from ornate gateways designed by Inigo Jones to stone bridges over lilting streams filled with mallard life. While we explored, the sun actually came out to play peekaboo for just a few minutes—a sight that so lifted poor sun-deprived Raquel’s heart that she wished to sit put on a bench and simply bask in it! More photo ops were provided by obelisks and sculpture in the park and although the flowering bushes were still dormant, we had little doubt that summer would soon bring lush color to the space.

Hogarth’s House:
Knowing that the 18th century painter, William Hogarth, lived only a hop, skip and jump from Chiswick House, we asked for directions and used Raquel’s I-phone to find our way to the home of Hogarth along quiet suburban streets with the occasional passing car and giddy uniformed school girl getting home for tea. About fifteen minutes later, we found the spot and entered the brick-walled enclosed garden with its legendary 300 year old mulberry tree.

William Hogarth, one of the most merciless satirists of his time, lived in this late 17th century house from 1749 until his death in 1764. Entry to the house is free and we were also free to wander at will through the rooms that were filled with prints of his many series of engravings such as Marriage a la Mode, Gin Lake, The Rake’s Progress and Beer Street (the originals are in Sir John Soanes House in Holborn) and some items of 18th century domestic life.

A visit to Hogarth’s House would not be complete without a short walk to the church yard of St. Nicholas on the banks of the Thames where his grave might be visited. But Raquel was already exhausted and I had been there before (with Amy). We, therefore, elected to stroll back to the Tube station but not before dallying one more time in the enticing shops and stopping for a cuppa at Starbucks.

More Food Shopping at Waitrose:
Raquel and I parted company on the Tube at Earl’s Court where we needed to make our respective connections. I intended to get to Knightsbridge to pause for a bit at Harrods’s but when I alighted at Gloucester Road, I found myself outside a gigantic Waitrose that carried the Ainsley Herriot soups I’d coveted. So with many of those packets in my bags, I jumped on a bus headed to Ludgate Hill and reached home by 8.00 pm.

Dinner at Has Turkish Restaurant:

As it turned out, I was just in time to accept an invitation from Mark, a mutual friend, to join him and the Colcloughs for dinner. I was delighted as I had no other plans. With the Colclough sons, Aidan and Edward, we made our way towards Cheapside where we found the lovely Turkish restaurant called Has. At the recommendation of Cynthia and the boys, I opted for the Mixed Grill platter which contained grilled chicken, lamb and beef steak—all served with a piquant yoghurt sauce and flat bread. Cynthia’s decision to go for the Mixed Mezze platter was brilliant for she had a variety of offerings from which to nibble. However, my dessert, Kadefi, a sweet treat to which I had become introduced during my Middle Eastern travels in Jordan and Egypt was very good indeed. It was a great way to catch up with all the doings in the lives of my dear friends as well as to find out about Mark’s work in London (he was visiting from New York). By 10.00 pm, we were all back home and I could collect my thoughts and decide how I would spend my last few days in the city.