In the lines of Kew Gardens& Eltham Palace is this another property called Chiswick House & Gardens. The house is actually a tiny little portion of the humongous expanse of land filled with greenery and blue waters!!!
To begin with, the house was pretty much a palatial home, but errr.... it actually has no kitchen or dining hall! This was built by the 3rd Earl of Burlington in 1729, who was very much inspired by the Italian & Roman architecture. But I actually didn't feel the Italian or Roman styling in the architecture, though I felt it in the art & sculptures.
As soon as you enter there isn't much! There are a few rooms filled with prints of old photographs. The central hall is octagonal shaped, again nothing in it. When the Earl lived here, he must have hosted his visitors in this room. On a path to a side leads to a smaller room which has a marble bust of Napoleon. Steps down from there leads to the wine/beer cellar which was definitely cool. Another path from there leads to a long corridor where there were 3 huge roman styled standing statues which lead to another chamber there was a sphinx styled sculpture. The details on how the restoration happened was explained here with samples of how it was & how was it renovated. Back to the room behind the octagonal hall, to the stairs to go up and there's where all the magic is!
Pic Courtesy: English Heritage
Pic Courtesy: Richard Bryant
The palatial effect is understood here. There is a Green Velvet room, a Blue Velvet room, a Red Velvet room, color coordinated with wall paper, furnishings & filled with paintings! The central octoganal saloon was a visual delight. Everything was intricately carved and gilded with gold! It was a visual delight and richness objectified. The dome shaped ceiling was just beyond awesome! A path here as well led to the link building where there were huge Greek styled pillars!!! So yeah, food was brought here from the link building in those days since this place has no kitchen!!! So it was also critically viewed when it was built!!!!!
Outside in this Garden premises, is a beautiful waterbody, a canal that goes from one end of the gardens to the other. The water has a slight current and at one end it actually falls like a mini waterfalls which makes the whole place so serene. The swans & ducks & pigeons were just enjoying the summer day and to watch them made my day!!!
There are only 2 bridges that connect the 2 banks of this canal on almost either sides of the garden. On one side somewhere at the midpoint of the 2 bridges is this Ionic Temple. It is accompanied by Mirror pond & Amphi-theatre which is generally not open unless on special event days.
There is an octagonal pond and a conservatory beside. The shape of this conservatory is pretty much similar to the main conservatory in Kew. Inside this the rare camellias are protected.
Just outside this is the Italian Garden. This was planned out by Lewis Kennedy in 1814. Set up in a semi circular shape with geometrical pattern with verbena, petunia, calceolaria, fuchsia, pansies etc.
To Get There:
Nearest Tube Station: Chiswick
Entry to the gardens: Free; Entry to the House: £6.70
Opening days & timings:
10:00 to 18:00 Sun-Wed from Mar-Sep;
10:00 to 17:00 Sun-Wed from Oct;
Closed from Nov-Mar