Marble Hill House
Encyclopedia
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River Thames
The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...
in southwest London, situated halfway between Richmond and Twickenham
Twickenham
Twickenham is a large suburban town southwest of central London. It is the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and one of the locally important district centres identified in the London Plan...
. The architect was Roger Morris
Roger Morris (1695-1749)
Roger Morris was an English architect whose connection with Colen Campbell brought him to the attention of Henry Herbert, 9th Earl of Pembroke, with whom Morris collaborated on a long series of projects.-Biography:...
, who collaborated with Henry Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, one of the "architect earls", in adapting a more expansive design by Colen Campbell
Colen Campbell
Colen Campbell was a pioneering Scottish architect who spent most of his career in England, and is credited as a founder of the Georgian style...
.
Marble Hill House was built in 1724-1729 for Henrietta Howard, Countess of Suffolk
Henrietta Howard, Countess of Suffolk
Henrietta Howard was a mistress of King George II of Great Britain.She was the daughter of Sir Henry Hobart, 4th Baronet, a Norfolk landowner who was killed in a duel when Henrietta was aged eight...
, the mistress of King George II
George II of Great Britain
George II was King of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Archtreasurer and Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire from 11 June 1727 until his death.George was the last British monarch born outside Great Britain. He was born and brought up in Northern Germany...
. It is set in 66 acres (2.67 km²) of parkland, the Marble Hill Park. The Great Room has five architectural capricci
Capriccio (painting)
In painting, a capriccio , means especially an architectural fantasy, placing together buildings, archaeological remains and other architectural elements in fictional and often fantastical combinations, perhaps with staffage of figures. It fits under the more general term of landscape painting...
by Giovanni Paolo Pannini
Giovanni Paolo Pannini
Giovanni Paolo Panini or Pannini was a painter and architect, who worked in Rome and is mainly known as one of the vedutisti ....
and lavishly gilded decoration. The Marble Hill house also hosts a collection of early Georgian
Georgian era
The Georgian era is a period of British history which takes its name from, and is normally defined as spanning the reigns of, the first four Hanoverian kings of Great Britain : George I, George II, George III and George IV...
furniture and paintings as well as the Lazenby Bequest Chinoiserie
Chinoiserie
Chinoiserie, a French term, signifying "Chinese-esque", and pronounced ) refers to a recurring theme in European artistic styles since the seventeenth century, which reflect Chinese artistic influences...
collection.
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...
and Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...
spent many happy hours at Marble Hill as Henrietta Howard's guests. Marble Hill House was widely known through engravings; its compact plan and tightly controlled elevations, after the interval of a generation, furnished a standard model for the English villa
Villa
A villa was originally an ancient Roman upper-class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became small farming compounds, which were increasingly fortified in Late Antiquity,...
s built throughout the Thames valley and further afield, as well as a model for plantation houses in the American colonies, where such a house was a "mansion
Mansion
A mansion is a very large dwelling house. U.S. real estate brokers define a mansion as a dwelling of over . A traditional European mansion was defined as a house which contained a ballroom and tens of bedrooms...
".
English Heritage
English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...
, which acquired it upon the abolition of the Greater London Council
Greater London Council
The Greater London Council was the top-tier local government administrative body for Greater London from 1965 to 1986. It replaced the earlier London County Council which had covered a much smaller area...
in 1986. The house along with its extensive grounds are known as Marble Hill Park
Marble Hill Park
Marble Hill Park is an area of of parkland in Twickenham, Middlesex. Located within the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, it is an English Heritage site that surrounds Marble Hill House, a Palladian villa that was originally built for Henrietta Howard, the mistress of King George II in...
and provide many modern facilities including a cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
pitch and nets, tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
courts, putting green
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
and a children's play area.
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Hammerton's Ferry
Hammerton's Ferry is a pedestrian and cycle ferry service across the River Thames in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, London, England. The ferry links the northern bank near Marble Hill House in Twickenham with the southern bank near Ham House in Ham...
links the gardens to Ham House on the opposite bank of the river.