London Historic Houses

Apsley House & Wellington Museum 

Home to the first Duke of Wellington, this is one of London’s finest houses. It has  sumptuous interiors and house the Duke’s collection of paintings, silver, porcelain and sculpture and was recently voted London Tourist Board Small Visitor Attraction of the Year 2001

Hyde Park Corner, W1J 9NT  Tel: 020 7499 5676

Burgh House

Built in 1704 during Queen Anne’s reign.  Its first occupants were Henry and Hannah Sewell . Now used as an attractive venue for Weddings (licensed for Civil marriages), parties, receptions, anniversaries, baby namings, memorial events, book launches, and corporate events

New End Square, Hampstead, NW3 1LT    Tel: 020 7431 0144   Email

Carlyle’s House 

An early-18th century terraced house which was the home of the historian and philosopher Thomas Carlyle and his wife Jane. The house has three storeys and a basement, furnished with Victorian pieces and filled with the Carlyle’s books, pictures and possessions.
 
24 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, SW3 5HL  Tel: 020 7352 7087  Email

Chiswick House 

Internationally acknowledged as one of the first and finest English Palladian villas. Built by Lord Burlington between 1725 and 1729. Has fine collections of art  and an excellent library. Surrounded by magnificent gardens with statues, temples, urns and obleisks

Burlington Lane, Chiswick, W4 2RP   Tel: 020 8995 0508

Fenton House 

Built about 1693, taking its name from the Baltic merchant who purchased the property in 1793. Now contains the Benton Fletcher collection of early keyboard instruments and the Binning collection of embroidery, porcelain and furniture.

Windmill Hill, Hampstead, NW3 6RT  Tel: 020 7435 3471  Email

Forty Hall

Jacobean Hall and Gardens once the home of Sir Nicolas Rainton,  Lord Mayor of London 1632 with period walled gardens.

Forty Hill, Enfield, EN2 9HA Tel: 020 8363 8196  Email

Ham House 
 
The home of the Duke and Duchess of Lauderdale in the late 17th Century who decorated and furnished it in a lavish style. Decendants of the Duchess made very few changes, making Ham a rare and important example of its period. Grounds restored to their 17th century form

Ham, Richmond, TW10 7RS    Tel: 020 8940 1950  Email

Kenwood House 

A neoclassical building, remodelled by the architect Robert Adam between 1764-79, and has one of the most important Adams interiors in the country. Now famous for the internationally important collection of paintings bequeathed to the nation by Edward Guinness 1st Earl of Iveagh including works by Rembrandt, Vermeer Gainsborough and Turner. The house sands in 112 acres of landscaped gound on the edge of Hampstead Heath.  

Hampstead Lane, Hampstead, NW3 7JR   Tel: 020 8348 1286

Keats House & Museum

John Keats lived here from 1818 to 1820 and it was here that he wrote some of his most inspired poetry.  

Keats Grove, Hampstead, NW3 2RR   Tel: 020 7435 2062  Email

Lambeth Palace

The last survivor of the great London seats of the Bishops along the south bank of the Thames. The Archbishop of Canterbury has owned it since about 1200. Behind the walls is a complex of domestic buildings, largely medieval and wholly picturesque, which is of great interest and merit.

SE1 7JU  Tel: 0207898 1400

Linley Sambourne House

A late Victorian town house of the Punch cartoonist, Edward Linely. Recently restored and refurbished, the house provides a unique insight into life in the late 19th century of an artistic middle-class family.  

18 Stafford terrace, Kensington, W8 7BH   Tel: 020 7602 3316   Email

Marble Hill House 

Palladian Thames-side villa with a 66 acres of  parkland. Enter into its Great Room and see the lavishly gilded decoration and architectural paintings by Panini. You can see a collection of early Georgian paintings and furniture and the Lazenby Bequest Chinoiserie display

Richmond Road, Twickenham  TW1 2NL  Tel: 020 8892 5115

Osterley Park 

Originally built in 1575, the house was redesgned into an elegant villa by Robert Adam in the 18th century. Of particular interest is the entrance hall with an extraordinary portico, the long gallery, which is 130 ft long with an unrivalled collection of later 17th and 18th century venetian painting, the tapestry room with a set of Boucher medallion tapestries. The  house is set in 357 acres acres of beautiful parkland with three long lakes in the serpentine fashion with a pleasure ground and garden house along with farmland.

Isleworth, TW7 4RB  Tel: 020 8232 5050   Email

Pitzhanger Manor House  

A restored Georgian villa once owned and designed by John Sloan, architect and surveyor to the Bank of England. Today, the whole site is being developed as a major cultural venue incorporating the historic house and PM Gallery, now the largest public art gallery space in West London exhibiting contemporary professional art .

Walpole Park, Mattock Lane, Ealing, W5 5EQ   Tel: 020 8567 1227   Email

Red House 

Commissioned by William Morris in 1859 and designed by Philip Webb, Red House is of enormous international significance in the history of domestic architecture and garden design. The building is constructed of warm red brick, under a steep red-tiled roof, with an emphasis on natural materials and a strong Gothic influence

Red House Lane, Bexlyheath, DA6 8JF  Tel: 01494 755588

Southside House 

Built by Robert Pennington in 1665, in the old Dutch-Baroque style after the great palgue of London. The house has connections with Queen Anne Boleyn, the Duke of Wharton, Frederick, Prince of Wales, Marie Antoinette, Admiral Lord Nelson, Lady Hamilton and others. The gardens are as fascinating as the house, with a series of sculptural ’rooms’ linked by water and mysterious pathways 

3 Woodhayes Road, Wimbledon, SW19 4RJ  Tel: 020 8946 7643  Email

Spencer House 

The only nearly intact surving palace of the 18th century, belonging to the ancestor of the late Diane, Princess of Wales.

27 St James’s Place  SW1A 1NR Tel: 020 7499 8620

Somerset House

A Neoclassical palace occupies the same site as the original Somerset House, an imposing mansion built in 1547 by Edward Seymour. Following his downfall, the building became royal property, serving as a residence to the Queens of England from Elizabeth I to Catherine of Braganza, wife of Charles II.

By 1776 because of its increasing state of disrepair, Sir William Chambers, one of the country's leading architects, was commissioned to design the present day masterpiece in the Palladian style.

Over the next 200 years Somerset House became the nerve centre of the nation's naval power and a focal point for its administration and at one time housed The Surveyor General to Births, Marriages, and Deaths

At the end of the 20th century there was saw a major refurbishment to the complex of buildings,   and is now a major cultural hub.

Strand WC2R 1LA  Tel: 0207 845 4600   Email

Strawberry Hill

Britain’s finest example of Georgian Gothic architecture and interior decoration. It began life in 1698 as a modest house, built by the coachman of the Earl of Bradford. It was transformed into ’a little Gothic castle’ by Horace Walpole, the son of England’s first Prime Minister. Between 1747 and 1792 Walpole doubled its size, creating Gothic rooms and adding towers and battlements in fulfilment of his dream

Waldegrave Road, Twickenham TW1 4SX  Tel: 020 8240 4224

Syon House
  
Home of the Duke of Northumberland. It is built on the site of a medieval abbey dissolved by King Henry VIII. The present house has Tudor origins and contains some of Robert Adam’s finest interiors. The private apartments and state bedrooms are available to view. The house is surrounded by 40 acres of Capabilty Brown designed gardens with a spectacular Great Conservatory . Within the grounds but a separate entity is the London Buttefly House containing some 1,000 colourful, live butterflies on the wing.

Syon Park, Brentford, TW8 8JF  Tel: 020 8560 0882  Email

Sutton House 

A Tudor red brick house built in 1535 by sir Ralph Sadleir, a courtier in the Houise of King Henry VIII. Oak-panelled rooms and carved fireplaces survive intact

2 & 4 Homerton High Street, Hackney, E9 6JQ  Tel: 020 8986 2264   Email