This excursion will be back soon. In the meantime we’d be happy to organise a private tour for you. Please contact us on 020 7624 3978 | [email protected] to make a booking.
This excursion will be back soon. In the meantime we’d be happy to organise a private tour for you. Please contact us on 020 7624 3978 | [email protected] to make a booking.
Turnham Green tube station, London
Guided by Molly
Welcome to Classical London’s “pure serene.” Welcome to “an authentic piece of Renaissance Italy magically translated” to West London. Its facets – its many facets – fascinate. It’s London’s most surprising country house. It’s a Grade I listed architectural gem. It’s a Tuscan villa in an idyllic English landscape (its setting is one of the oldest landscaped gardens in this country). It’s arguably the most outstanding country house design in England. It’s perhaps the most elegant and intriguing private home in London. It’s “too small to live in, too big to hang on a watch” (as one Georgian aristocrat put it). It’s the Duchess of Devonshire’s “earthly paradise.” That said, it’s got its dark side. It’s where statesmen go to die. And its bizarre side: it’s been a fire station; and a mental hospital. It’s been “Handel’d.” And “Beatle’d.” (The king’s kapellmeister dedicated two operas to his host at Chiswick House. The Beatles did a film shoot in the Conservatory.) It’s had an elephant, emus, elks, giraffes and kangaroos roaming across its park. It wasn’t built to live in – it was built to display the Apollo of the Arts’ collections of furniture, books and art. Its incidentals, its passing delights – ranging from decorative temples and follies in the park to spectacular plasterwork and lavishly carved fire surrounds – are beyond compare. It caused a sensation in the 1730s. It causes one today. Anything else? Yes, the key to these two hours, to your experience at Chiswick House – your experience of Chiswick House – to what you’ll see and discover on this walk: it’s guided by gifted Blue Badge guide Molly, a specialist in the subject, an art historian.
The Chiswick House & Gardens tour takes place at 10.45 am on Sunday, August 23. The entrance fee to Chiswick House is £8 for adults and £5.50 for concs.
Meet Molly just outside the exit of Turnham Green Tube.
If you can’t make one of the regularly scheduled, just-turn-up, Chiswick House & Gardens it can always be booked as a private tour. If you go private you can have the Chiswick House & Gardens walk – or any other London Walk – on a day and at a time that suits your convenience. We’ll tailor it to your requirements. Ring Fiona or Mary on 020 7624 3978 or email us at [email protected] and we’ll set it up and make it happen for you. A private London Walk – they’re good value for an individual or couple and sensational value for a group – makes an ideal group or educational or birthday party or office (team-building) or club outing.
A private London Walk makes a fab gift – be it a birthday or anniversary or Christmas present or whatever. Merchandise schmerchandise (gift wrapped or not) – but giving someone an experience, now that’s special. Memories make us rich.
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