Charles Binns - Landscape Photography, Nature Photography, Travel Photography

Osterley Park

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Osterley Park is a mansion set in a large park of the same name. It is now in the western suburbs of London, but when it was built it was in the country. It was one of a group of large houses close to London which served as country retreats for wealthy families, but were not true country houses on large agricultural estates.

The original building on this site was a manor house built for banker Sir Thomas Gresham in the sixteenth century. It is known that Queen Elizabeth visited twice, on one occasion suggesting that a hedge would be a good idea in a certain location. It was built overnight! The stable block from this period remains at Osterley Park.

Two hundred years later the manor house was falling into disrepair, when it came into the ownership of Sir Francis Child, the head of Child's Bank, as a result of a mortgage default. In 1761 he employed Robert Adam, who was just emerging as one of the most fashionable architects in England, to remodel the house. When Sir Francis died in 1763, the project was taken up by his brother and heir Robert Child, for whom the interiors were created.

The house of red brick with white stone details and is approximately square, with turrets in the four corners. Adam's design, which incorporates some of the earlier structure, is highly unusual, and differs greatly in style from the original construction. One side is left almost open and is spanned by an Ionic pedimented screen which is approached by a broad flight of steps and leads to a central courtyard, which is at piano nobile level.

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Adam's neoclassical interiors are among his most notable sequences of rooms. Horace Walpole described the drawing room as "worthy of Eve before the fall." The rooms are characterised by elaborate but restrained plasterwork, rich, highly varied colour schemes, and a degree of coordination between decor and furnishings unusual in English neoclassical interiors. Notable rooms include the entrance hall, which has large semi-circular alcoves at each end, and the Etruscan dressing room, which Adam said was inspired by the Etruscan vases in Sir William Hamilton's collection, illustrations of which had recently been published. Adam also designed some of the furniture, including the opulent domed state bed, which is still in the house.

Robert Child's only daughter, Sarah Anne Child, married John Fane, 10th Earl of Westmorland in 1782. When Child died two months later, his will placed his vast holdings, including Osterely, in trust for his eldest granddaughter, Lady Sarah Sophia Fane, who was born in 1785. She married George Child-Villiers, 5th Earl of Jersey, and thus Osterley passed into the Jersey family. George Child-Villiers, 9th Earl of Jersey gave the house and much of the estate to the National Trust in 1949. It is now open to the public, and contains most of the original furniture in excellent condition.

The grounds of Osterley Park were used for the training of the first members of the Local Defence Volunteers, who later became the British Home Guard in 1940.

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