Country Life's 'unusually hurried and ill-composed photographs' of a curious home eviscerated by The Blitz
Radnor House was unfashionable... until it wasn't.
John Robartes, the 4th Earl of Radnor, was not a fashionable man.
He lived at Radnor House, in between Horace Walpole's (Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford) Gothic wonder that is Strawberry Hill and Alexander Pope's Villa on a highly desirable stretch of the River Thames in Twickenham. In the Georgian era, the then village west of London was very fashionable and the place to see, be seen in and, ideally, live.
Lord Radnor remodelled the riverside building in 1745 in an ornate Gothic style, which drew mild mockery from Walpole. The British politician nicknamed the neighbouring property Mabland — a reference to the overly ornamented and tacky public gardens in London's Marylebone. Rumour has it that he was also upset that someone had built in the Gothic style before he'd had a chance to bring Strawberry Hill to life.
The Teddington Room with its mahogany veneer walls and impressive stucco ceiling. Note the incongruous 1930’s bakelite electric fire.
Radnor’s miniature battlements framed the sprawling gardens, which ran all the way down to the river's bank. In the middle, Lord Radnor constructed a double-storey, Chinese-inspired summerhouse. He drew further ire from his neighbours by choosing to decorate the house's insides in a jumble of classically-inspired styles. There was a Baroque ceiling on the ground floor, by French artist Jean Francois Clermont, a Rococo-style one in the dining room and a bay window in the Teddington Room decorated with some interesting decorative plasterwork.
It was in these richly-decorated rooms that Lord Radnor desperately sought the company of the cream of London society. However, he wasn't the best of hosts.
A Baroque ceiling by Clermont on the ground floor.
An ornate bay window in the Teddington Room. Unfortunately, the photographer's flash guns are visible on either side.
In 1749, actor David Garrick, who lived in nearby Hampton, wrote: 'My Lord Radnor plagu’d our hearts to dine with him, we at last agreed (for we hate to dine from home) & he had invited the Parson’s Wife to meet Mrs. Garrick—but such a Dinner so dress’d & so serv’d up in unscour’d Pewter, we never Saw; the Wine was worse, but made somewhat better by the dead flies, in Short, we were soon both sick & unsatisfy’d; & we rattled the one horse chair home as fast as we could, where we recruited our Spirits again, with a clean Cloth, two roasted Pigeons, and the best currant Pye in ye Kingdom, the county of York excepted.'
Radnor died in 1757 and the curious house passed through the hands of multiple owners until, in 1903, it was purchased by Twickenham Borough Council. They had little interest in the house, and wanted, instead, to open up the garden to the public.
Another rushed photograph of a room known only as ‘Room D’. The photographer’s camera is reflected in the door on the left. The clumsiness shows the urgency of the campaign to save the building. A reshoot would normally have been demanded by the magazine’s Editor for such lack of attention to detail.
By 1937, the house — sad, unloved and used only occasionally as an office — was in a state of disrepair. Rain had made its way through the roof, damaging some of the painted ceilings, and the threat of demolition reared its ugly head.
At the last moment, it was recognised by someone as a building worthy of redemption.
Queen Mary declared Radnor’s retreat to be 'unique among the small houses of England', and was an early donor to a campaign to raise £1,000 towards the cost of repairs. Imagine how proud Lord Radnor would have been to see a member of the Royal Family declaring his home so fashionable.
The house's elegant hallway.
Country Life rallied to the cause, publishing unusually hurried and ill-composed photographs of the interiors to illustrate the desperate need for further donations. The council happily handed the house over to the newly-formed Radnor House Preservation Society.
By early 1939, enough money had been raised to begin the preservation works, but Radnor House was not to have the Cinderella-style, fairytale ending it deserved.
A year after the works began, on the 10th day of The Blitz, the house was eviscerated by one of the thousands of bombs dropped on the British capital.
Today, a school stands on the site of the stricken house; its neighbour, Strawberry Hill, remains in fine fettle. And Radnor Gardens are, still, a public park for everyone to enjoy.
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