Pope's villa
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Pope's villa was the residence of
Alexander Pope Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, ...
at
Twickenham Twickenham is a suburban district in London, England. It is situated on the River Thames southwest of Charing Cross. Historically part of Middlesex, it has formed part of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames since 1965, and the boroug ...
, then a village west of London in
Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, historic county in South East England, southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the Ceremonial counties of ...
. He moved there in 1719 and created gardens and an underground
grotto A grotto is a natural or artificial cave used by humans in both modern times and antiquity, and historically or prehistorically. Naturally occurring grottoes are often small caves near water that are usually flooded or often flooded at high ti ...
. When Baroness Howe of Langar (1762–1835) purchased the house, she demolished it in 1808 and built a new house next to the site. The house and grotto were topics of 18th- and 19th-century poetry and art. In about 1845, a
neo-Tudor Tudor Revival architecture (also known as mock Tudor in the UK) first manifested itself in domestic architecture in the United Kingdom in the latter half of the 19th century. Based on revival of aspects that were perceived as Tudor architecture ...
house known as Pope's Villa was built on approximately the same site; it has been used as a school since the early 20th century. Pope's Grotto, which is
listed Listed may refer to: * Listed, Bornholm, a fishing village on the Danish island of Bornholm * Listed (MMM program), a television show on MuchMoreMusic * Endangered species in biology * Listed building, in architecture, designation of a historicall ...
Grade II* by
Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked wit ...
, survives and is occasionally open to the public.


Alexander Pope's villa

Alexander Pope moved in 1719 to Twickenham, where many wealthy Londoners had houses. From Thomas Vernon, a local landowner, he leased a piece of land close to the water on a stretch of the
River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...
known as Cross Deep; there were two cottages on the site and Vernon added a third. Pope demolished one cottage and part of a second and employed the architect
James Gibbs James Gibbs (23 December 1682 – 5 August 1754) was one of Britain's most influential architects. Born in Aberdeen, he trained as an architect in Rome, and practised mainly in England. He is an important figure whose work spanned the transi ...
to create a house in
Palladian style Palladian architecture is a European architectural style derived from the work of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). What is today recognised as Palladian architecture evolved from his concepts of symmetry, perspective and ...
, which became known as Pope's villa. He had it extended with a portico by
William Kent William Kent (c. 1685 – 12 April 1748) was an English architect, landscape architect, painter and furniture designer of the early 18th century. He began his career as a painter, and became Principal Painter in Ordinary or court painter, but ...
in 1733. Contemporary drawings and paintings of Pope's villa show a fairly conventional classical 18th-century
English country house An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these peopl ...
rather than a faithful reproduction or pastiche of a Palladian villa. The house was on three floors, with a central
corps de logis In architecture, a ''corps de logis'' () is the principal block of a large, (usually Classical architecture, classical), mansion or palace. It contains the principal rooms, state apartments and an entry.Curl, James Stevens (2006). ''Oxford Dict ...
of three bays under a hipped roof, flanked by two lower wings of only one bay each with roofs concealed by a closed parapet. The flanking bays had
ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...
quoins Quoins ( or ) are masonry blocks at the corner of a wall. Some are structural, providing strength for a wall made with inferior stone or rubble, while others merely add aesthetic detail to a corner. According to one 19th century encyclopedia, t ...
. The only decoration to the facade consisted of a pedimented window at the centre of the principal floor, and a stone urn at each termination of the closed parapet. An unusual feature of the facade was at its centre on the ground floor—a large elliptical arch with dominating
voussoir A voussoir () is a wedge-shaped element, typically a stone, which is used in building an arch or vault. Although each unit in an arch or vault is a voussoir, two units are of distinct functional importance: the keystone and the springer. The ...
s. The arch, flanked by small Florentine Renaissance style windows, is redolent of a water entrance to the portico of a Venetian palazzo. Bearing in mind the proximity of Pope's Villa to the River Thames, this resemblance is unlikely to be coincidental. The arch, or portal, was contained in a ground projection of the corps de logis which formed the base for the modest portico, more a porch; asked by Pope for his opinion of this renovation,
Lord Burlington Earl of Burlington is a title that has been created twice, the first time in the Peerage of England in 1664 and the second in the Peerage of the United Kingdom in 1831. Since 1858, Earl of Burlington has been a courtesy title used by the duke ...
wrote that "my friend Kent has done all that can be, considering the place". Pope planted a
weeping willow ''Salix babylonica'' (Babylon willow or weeping willow; ) is a species of willow native to dry areas of northern China, but cultivated for millennia elsewhere in Asia, being traded along the Silk Road to southwest Asia and Europe.Flora of China'' ...
on the small piece of land next to the house (a tree trunk in the loggia of the grotto is said to be from this tree or another planted by him), and on about 5 acres (2 ha) across the street now also called Cross Deep, laid out one of the first picturesque gardens. According to Pope himself, the garden included "a Theatre, an Arcade, a Bowling Green, a Grove, and a 'What Not'". After receiving a licence to do so in 1720, he constructed a tunnel leading from under the house to the garden, and branching from this, a Romantic grotto. After Pope's death in 1744, the house was acquired by Sir William Stanhope, who enlarged it with the addition of side wings in 1758. He also extended the garden, and built a second tunnel; what remains of this is a Grade II* listed building. Little remains of the garden, but the site was listed Grade II on 1 October 1987 and a brick gazebo is also a Grade II listed building. The house remained in Stanhope's family until 1807, when Baroness Howe of Langar (1762–1835) bought it; she had it demolished the following year and built a new house next to the site, and also removed some of the decorations from the grotto and made further changes to the garden. Baroness Howe's house was subsequently partially demolished and the remainder divided into two houses, Ryan House and River Deep. Pope's villa and its gardens and grotto were frequently mentioned in poetry and depicted in art. Beginning with Pope's own verse and continuing after his death, "
he house He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
rapidly ... established itself as the seat of the Muses, and his garden as a model of landscape design." Even more numerous are pictures of the house: although the facade facing the road does not seem to have been depicted, at least 55 drawings, paintings, aquatints, engravings, etchings, and lithographs produced between 1730 and 1888 survive which show the river facade or the grotto. These began with drawings and paintings by Pope himself and his friends and continued with works he may have commissioned (a sketch of the Shell Temple by Kent and a painting by
Peter Tillemans Peter Tillemans ( 1684 – 5 December 1734)Noakes, Aubrey, ''Sportsmen in a Landscape'' (Ayer Publishing, 1971, )pp. 47–56: ''Peter Tillemans and Early Newmarket''at books.google.com, accessed 7 February 2009. ONDB writes: "In 1733 Tillemans re ...
from c. 1730) and throughout much of the 19th century. Samuel Scott painted two versions of a view of Pope's villa after Stanhope's additions. When it was demolished,
J. M. W. Turner Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 177519 December 1851), known in his time as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative landscapes and turbulen ...
, who was a neighbour, objected; his painting ''Pope's Villa at Twickenham'' mourns its loss.


Pope's Grotto

Originally the grotto was intended to appear natural. In 1725 Pope wrote to his friend Edward Blount of
Blagdon, Paignton Blagdon historically in the parish of PaigntonPole, p.279 in Devon, England (today in the parish of Collaton St Mary), is an historic manor, the seat of the Kirkham family from the 13th to 17th centuries. The manor house known as Blagdon Manor ...
in Devon:
I have put the last hand to my works ... happily finishing the subterraneous Way and Grotto: I then found a spring of the clearest water, which falls in a perpetual Rill, that echoes thru' the Cavern day and night. ...When you shut the Doors of this Grotto, it becomes on the instant, from a luminous Room, a Camera Obscura, on the walls of which all the objects of the River, Hills, Woods, and Boats, are forming a moving Picture ... And when you have a mind to light it up, it affords you a very different Scene: it is finished with Shells interspersed with Pieces of Looking-glass in angular Forms ... at which when a Lamp ...is hung in the Middle, a thousand pointed Rays glitter and are reflected over the place.
He supposedly said, "Were it to have nymphs as well – it would be complete in everything." The chamber at the west end where the spring was located has since been destroyed. In 1739 Pope visited a spa at the
Avon Gorge The Avon Gorge () is a 1.5-mile (2.5-kilometre) long gorge on the River Avon in Bristol, England. The gorge runs south to north through a limestone ridge west of Bristol city centre, and about 3 miles (5 km) from the mouth of the r ...
and decided to transform the grotto to resemble a mine. For four years he redecorated it with marble, alabaster, colourful ores such as
mundic ''Mundic'' was used from the 1690s to describe a copper ore that began to be smelted at Bristol and elsewhere in southwestern Early Modern Britain, Britain. Smelting was carried out in cupolas, that is reverberatory furnaces using mineral coal. ...
and snakestones,
stalactite A stalactite (, ; from the Greek 'stalaktos' ('dripping') via ''stalassein'' ('to drip') is a mineral formation that hangs from the ceiling of caves, hot springs, or man-made structures such as bridges and mines. Any material that is soluble an ...
s, crystals, and diamonds from Bristol and Cornwall, much of it supplied by
William Borlase William Borlase (2 February 169631 August 1772), Cornish antiquary, geologist and naturalist. From 1722, he was Rector of Ludgvan, Cornwall, where he died. He is remembered for his works ''The Antiquities of Cornwall'' (1754; 2nd ed., 1769) ...
, a Cornish geologist. Sir
Hans Sloane Sir Hans Sloane, 1st Baronet (16 April 1660 – 11 January 1753), was an Irish physician, naturalist, and collector, with a collection of 71,000 items which he bequeathed to the British nation, thus providing the foundation of the British Mu ...
gave Pope two "joints" of
basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...
from the
Giant's Causeway The Giant's Causeway is an area of about 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, the result of an ancient volcanic fissure eruption. It is located in County Antrim on the north coast of Northern Ireland, about three miles (5 km) northeast of ...
, one of which is still in the grotto. He also received a
stalagmite A stalagmite (, ; from the Greek , from , "dropping, trickling") is a type of rock formation that rises from the floor of a cave due to the accumulation of material deposited on the floor from ceiling drippings. Stalagmites are typically ...
from
Wookey Hole Wookey Hole is a village in Somerset, England. It is the location of the Wookey Hole show caves. Location Wookey Hole is located in the civil parish of St Cuthbert Out, in Mendip District. It is one mile north-west of the city of Wells, and l ...
, giving rise to a false rumour which has persisted into the 21st century that he hired locals to shoot stalactites from the roof of the Witches' Cavern. After Pope's death in 1744, the grotto was popular with tourists, many of whom are said to have taken part of the decoration as a souvenir. Most of the grotto survives under 20th-century buildings; it is open to the public during Twickenham's Festival Week. It was made a Grade II* listed building on 2 September 1952. It now consists of a loggia and a central room with north and south "chapels" branching from it; little survives of the rustic
arcade Arcade most often refers to: * Arcade game, a coin-operated game machine ** Arcade cabinet, housing which holds an arcade game's hardware ** Arcade system board, a standardized printed circuit board * Amusement arcade, a place with arcade games * ...
s and columns and other decoration from Pope's time, and the existing religious decorations—a carved stone in the ceiling of the loggia representing the
Crown of Thorns According to the New Testament, a woven crown of thorns ( or grc, ἀκάνθινος στέφανος, akanthinos stephanos, label=none) was placed on the head of Jesus during the events leading up to his crucifixion. It was one of the instru ...
, a shield with the
Five Wounds of Christ In Catholic tradition, the Five Holy Wounds, also known as the Five Sacred Wounds or the Five Precious Wounds, are the five piercing wounds that Jesus Christ suffered during his crucifixion. The wounds have been the focus of particular devotions, ...
above the arch leading to the main room and statues of the
Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother o ...
and of St James of Compostella in the two "chapels"—are all believed to be 19th-century. The tunnel which led to the garden has been widened and lengthened. The grotto has been restored and will open to the public for 30 weekends a year from 2023 under the auspices of the Pope's Grotto Preservation Trust.


Current use

Thomas Young, a tea merchant, came into possession of the property in 1842 and had a 'Tudor Gothic' house built on the site of Pope's villa, designed by
Henry Edward Kendall Jr. Henry Edward Kendall Junior (1805–9 June 1885) was a British architect. Background Kendall was the son of Henry Edward Kendall, also an architect. Both were among the co-founders of what became the Royal Institute of British Architects. ci ...
This was completed c. 1845. It has been a school since 1919, first St. Catherine's Convent School and convent, since 2011 Radnor House Independent School, and has been substantially altered.


References


Further reading

* *


External links

* *
Pope's Grotto Preservation Trust
{{coord, 51.4421, -0.3313, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Twickenham Houses completed in 1720 Houses completed in 1845 1720 establishments in England History of Middlesex Caves of London Buildings and structures on the River Thames Gardens by William Kent