36 
CHISWICK HOUSE, MIDDLESEX. 
PLATE 61. 
TISWICK HOUSE, as it stands at the present time, partly occupies the site of a 
country seat purchased by the Earl of Burlington from the Earl of Somerset in 
the latter part of the seventeenth century, and the property still belongs to his 
descendant, the Duke of Devonshire. A view by Kip, published in the “Britannia 
Illustrata,” gives an excellent idea of the estate in those days, when fields stretched 
away to the northward, which have long since been entirely built over. Soon after 
becoming possessed of Chiswick House, Lord Burlington began to make alterations 
in the gardens, the character of which he almost entirely changed, and extensive groves were planted 
in place of the square parterres and low hedges of the Jacobean garden. Lord Burlington, himself a 
keen amateur in gardening, was assisted by Bridgeman, and in later years by William Kent, who 
returned from Italy in 1730. 
The plan on Plate 61 is taken from a survey by J. Rocque, and represents the gardens as they were 
previous to the year 1736, that is, in the period immediately preceding the landscape style. Some parts, 
indeed, away from the house, already show a tendency to the “ little gentle disorder, ’ the delight of the 
landscape gardener who was so soon to follow. It is hardly probable that Kent had much to do with 
the garden shown on Rocque’s survey, as the years immediately following his return from Italy he 
devoted to architecture. 
All through the eighteenth century, and until the commencement of the nineteenth, Chiswick 
House was in the heyday of its popularity, and a favourite resort of fashionable London. The gardens 
were kept with considerable care, but of late years they have lost much of their former magnificence, 
many vases and pieces of statuary having been removed by the Duke of Devonshire to his other 
gardens at Chatsworth. 
The House stands not far from the banks of the Thames, and formerly a broad gravel forecourt led 
from the road to the south front, with its handsome stone portico of Corinthian columns. The forecourt 
was bordered on either side by four cedar trees with antique busts between them, while on the west side 
of it was the flower garden, laid out as a formal parterre. 
On the north side of the house the “ Grande All£e,” about 350 yards long, led to a pavilion at the 
further side of the garden, while about midway other walks branched to right and left, the one to a 
summer-house in the north-east corner of the grounds, the other to a pavilion with a small court 
overlooking the lake. The intervening triangular spaces were laid out as wildernesses with tortuous 
paths. A broad grass walk, bordered on either side by groves of trees, regularly disposed, led from the 
north front of the Palladian villa to the “ Poets’ Corner,” a semicircular alcove ornamented with antique 
statues of Caesar, Pompey, and Cicero. There were also marble seats, brought by the Earl of 
Burlington from Adrian’s Villa, near Rome. 
On the east side were the kitchen gardens, and an orangery overlooking a grass plot. 1 This building 
no longer exists, but the floor may still be seen cleverly laid out with a mosaic of pebbles and the 
vertebrae of sheep. A long walk extends on the north front of the house, to the gateway brought here 
in 1737 from the gardens of Beaufort House, Chelsea. This gateway was designed by Inigo Jones, and 
1 In the summer time the orange trees with their tubs were disposed in tiers round the circular pond, overlooked by a little classic 
temple. 
