Henrietta Howard was a Woman of the Bedchamber to the Princess of Wales. Her husband, who was Groom of the Bedchamber to the King, had disowned their marriage when the King and the Prince of Wales fell out and she moved with the Prince's household to Richmond Lodge. The Prince whose mistress she became about 1720, made a settlement on her of £11,500 and gifts of jewellery, furniture and furnishings.

A trustee of the settlement was Archibald Campbell, Earl of Ilay and later 3rd Duke of Argyll. At this time he was the new owner of Whitton Place near Twickenham and he acquired for Henrietta the land on which the house stands. The estate was extended over the years from the 11.5 acres he first bought to the present 66.5 acres of Marble Hill Park. Mrs Howard was also helped by a Lord Herbert. His Lordship had had a house built by Colen Campbell who prepared a sketch design for the house which, in a slightly amended form, appears in his Vitruvius Britannicus. The builder was Roger Morris who was one of the considerable number of speculative builders fashioning 18th century London. He started in June 1724 and received his last payment in 1729. The house is double fronted. At the time of its building and initial occupancy the majority of arrivals would have been through the south front. It is rectangular with three main stories below a pyramidal roof. Each frontage has a width of five windows whilst the sides are three The central three windows of both north and south fronts are in a projection topped by a pediment. They differ mainly in that the north front projection carries four flat Ionic pilasters.

Mrs Howard became Countess of Suffolk in 1731 and following the death of her husband she married the Hon George Berkeley in 1735. This involved her in a family household for whom the refined Palladian design was not very accommodating. She therefore had the cottage, which had originally been built as the china room, attached as a service wing to the house. This extension was demolished in 1909.

In 1901 the house was in the ownership of the Cunard family who were in the process of constructing roads and sewers for a speculative development on the site. A conference of various local authorities in that year resulted in its purchase and vestment in the London County Council. On the magma of local authority change it has now passed via the Greater London Council, who carried out a major restoration in 1965-6, to English Heritage.

O/S Co-ords:1727.7364
Source(s):

Marble Hill House

Rural Walks around Richmond

This is the only ice house extant in Twickenham (capacity is 6-8 tons) but there was almost certainly one in every major house by the late 18th cent.

O/S Co-ords:1730.7360
Source(s):

Twickenham Past