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| JMW Turner's house restored to former red brick glory | JMW Turner's house restored to former red brick glory |
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| Grade II*-listed Sandycombe House in Twickenham, described as painter’s only 3D work of art, now open to the public | |
| Maev Kennedy | |
| Mon 14 Aug 2017 07.00 BST | |
| Last modified on Mon 27 Nov 2017 18.34 GMT | |
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| In an area of west London where the homes of wealthy people are constantly expanding, sprouting vast roof, cellar and garden extensions, one house has shrunk at enormous expense. | In an area of west London where the homes of wealthy people are constantly expanding, sprouting vast roof, cellar and garden extensions, one house has shrunk at enormous expense. |
| At a cost of £2.4m, Sandycombe Lodge, the country home the artist JMW Turner designed for himself, is once again a very small house. The Victorian extensions have been demolished, the bathroom and other modest 20th-century comforts ripped out, the front garden wall replaced with a simple picket fence – and its front door is now open again to visitors. | At a cost of £2.4m, Sandycombe Lodge, the country home the artist JMW Turner designed for himself, is once again a very small house. The Victorian extensions have been demolished, the bathroom and other modest 20th-century comforts ripped out, the front garden wall replaced with a simple picket fence – and its front door is now open again to visitors. |
| The Grade II*-listed house, now owned by the Turner’s House Trust, is once again red brick after at least 150 years of it being painted white. When Victorian extensions were removed, Gary Butler, a conservation architect, discovered the original outer walls had smart pointing and no trace of paint or render, so the whole exterior has now been stripped to match. | The Grade II*-listed house, now owned by the Turner’s House Trust, is once again red brick after at least 150 years of it being painted white. When Victorian extensions were removed, Gary Butler, a conservation architect, discovered the original outer walls had smart pointing and no trace of paint or render, so the whole exterior has now been stripped to match. |
| Turner, a barber’s son from Covent Garden, was an admired and increasingly wealthy artist, when in 1807 he bought two small patches of land in Twickenham. It was then a quiet rural riverside area where many authors and artists he admired, including Alexander Pope, Horace Walpole and the poet James Thomson had country homes. | Turner, a barber’s son from Covent Garden, was an admired and increasingly wealthy artist, when in 1807 he bought two small patches of land in Twickenham. It was then a quiet rural riverside area where many authors and artists he admired, including Alexander Pope, Horace Walpole and the poet James Thomson had country homes. |
| Turner would eventually be regarded as the greatest of all English landscape painters, but began as an architectural draughtsman, and once told a friend if he could begin life again, he would rather be an architect than a painter. After years of filling pages of his little sketchbooks with ideas, in 1812 he finally built his sanctuary away from the noise and dirt of London. | Turner would eventually be regarded as the greatest of all English landscape painters, but began as an architectural draughtsman, and once told a friend if he could begin life again, he would rather be an architect than a painter. After years of filling pages of his little sketchbooks with ideas, in 1812 he finally built his sanctuary away from the noise and dirt of London. |
| The house on a sandy slope by a country lane had a drawing room where he probably also painted, one decent sized bedroom, a dining room where he entertained guests including the artist Sir Francis Chantrey, who joined him for fishing trips, and a basement kitchen. There was another very small bedroom, but as the volunteer guides are discovering, the house is cold on a shady summer day – and bitter in winter. His beloved “old dad”, William, who moved in to cook and garden, probably slept in the only warm place – by the hearth in the kitchen. | The house on a sandy slope by a country lane had a drawing room where he probably also painted, one decent sized bedroom, a dining room where he entertained guests including the artist Sir Francis Chantrey, who joined him for fishing trips, and a basement kitchen. There was another very small bedroom, but as the volunteer guides are discovering, the house is cold on a shady summer day – and bitter in winter. His beloved “old dad”, William, who moved in to cook and garden, probably slept in the only warm place – by the hearth in the kitchen. |
| The original interior colours have been excavated from layers of later paint since Turner sold the property in 1826 – probably because his father was becoming too frail to look after it – and it became a private home, a laundry and, in the second world war, a factory making pilots’ goggles, during which time the heavy machinery almost shook the house to pieces. | The original interior colours have been excavated from layers of later paint since Turner sold the property in 1826 – probably because his father was becoming too frail to look after it – and it became a private home, a laundry and, in the second world war, a factory making pilots’ goggles, during which time the heavy machinery almost shook the house to pieces. |
| The restored walls include a smart imitation marble-block finish for the entrance hall and stairs. This is one of many echoes in the little house – along with the tall narrow arches and stained-glass skylight – of the far grander homes of his friend Sir John Soane, one of the most celebrated architects of his day. There is a busy wallpaper pattern in the bedroom, recreated and hand-printed from a single precious grubby scrap found at the back of a cupboard. | The restored walls include a smart imitation marble-block finish for the entrance hall and stairs. This is one of many echoes in the little house – along with the tall narrow arches and stained-glass skylight – of the far grander homes of his friend Sir John Soane, one of the most celebrated architects of his day. There is a busy wallpaper pattern in the bedroom, recreated and hand-printed from a single precious grubby scrap found at the back of a cupboard. |
| Catherine Parry-Wingfield, who chairs the trust, has been scouring charity shops and adding a few expensive commissions to the sparse furniture, based on scraps of information from letters and memoirs of friends: one child visitor remembered the model ships in glass cases, with seascape backdrops painted by Turner himself. She also assumed that some of the more old-fashioned furniture in the inventory from his London home after his death in 1851 could have come back from Twickenham. | Catherine Parry-Wingfield, who chairs the trust, has been scouring charity shops and adding a few expensive commissions to the sparse furniture, based on scraps of information from letters and memoirs of friends: one child visitor remembered the model ships in glass cases, with seascape backdrops painted by Turner himself. She also assumed that some of the more old-fashioned furniture in the inventory from his London home after his death in 1851 could have come back from Twickenham. |
| Parry-Wingfield describes the house as Turner’s only three-dimensional work of art. She became involved after a chance conversation in a queue in the local post office with Prof Harold Livermore, who had been struggling since 1947 to keep the house standing. He bequeathed the house and contents, including a valuable set of prints of Turner’s work, but her job for years was to prop up sagging ceilings, put buckets under leaks and sweep up fallen plaster as the house found an ignoble place on the English Heritage register of important buildings at risk. | Parry-Wingfield describes the house as Turner’s only three-dimensional work of art. She became involved after a chance conversation in a queue in the local post office with Prof Harold Livermore, who had been struggling since 1947 to keep the house standing. He bequeathed the house and contents, including a valuable set of prints of Turner’s work, but her job for years was to prop up sagging ceilings, put buckets under leaks and sweep up fallen plaster as the house found an ignoble place on the English Heritage register of important buildings at risk. |
| She believes the trust’s success in raising restoration funds, including selling snowdrops from the garden and holly from a felled tree at a Christmas fair, matched by a major grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, came just in time to save the house from total collapse. | She believes the trust’s success in raising restoration funds, including selling snowdrops from the garden and holly from a felled tree at a Christmas fair, matched by a major grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, came just in time to save the house from total collapse. |
| The coming of the railways transformed Twickenham and St Margaret’s and, 20 years after he sold the house, Turner made a tidy profit selling his last patch of land for the Waterloo to Windsor line. Sandycombe Lodge is now deep in suburbia, but the landscape is surprisingly unchanged. From the artist’s bedroom, the line of his long triangular plot is still clear in the back gardens of the large Victorian and Edwardian houses, and a telescope shows what was visible during his lifetime, including the bends of the Thames and the mansions and meadows of Richmond Hill, which he repeatedly painted. | The coming of the railways transformed Twickenham and St Margaret’s and, 20 years after he sold the house, Turner made a tidy profit selling his last patch of land for the Waterloo to Windsor line. Sandycombe Lodge is now deep in suburbia, but the landscape is surprisingly unchanged. From the artist’s bedroom, the line of his long triangular plot is still clear in the back gardens of the large Victorian and Edwardian houses, and a telescope shows what was visible during his lifetime, including the bends of the Thames and the mansions and meadows of Richmond Hill, which he repeatedly painted. |
| Parry-Wingfield is now planning to contact all the neighbours and ask if anything from Turner’s day has turned up in their gardens. Livermore was particularly proud of a gold sovereign that he insisted had dropped from one of Turner’s frayed pockets. | Parry-Wingfield is now planning to contact all the neighbours and ask if anything from Turner’s day has turned up in their gardens. Livermore was particularly proud of a gold sovereign that he insisted had dropped from one of Turner’s frayed pockets. |
| She also thinks it is time to start the search for Crop-Ear, Turner’s elderly horse. The artist and his father, small and slightly shabby figures, would have been a familiar sight in the neighbourhood in their carriage drawn by an equally dishevelled horse. When the animal died, Turner is recorded as burying it on his land. Parry-Wingfield thinks Crop-Ear may still lie near the site of his stables, under the large Victorian St Margaret’s pub, though she does draws the line at demolishing the pub to find him. | She also thinks it is time to start the search for Crop-Ear, Turner’s elderly horse. The artist and his father, small and slightly shabby figures, would have been a familiar sight in the neighbourhood in their carriage drawn by an equally dishevelled horse. When the animal died, Turner is recorded as burying it on his land. Parry-Wingfield thinks Crop-Ear may still lie near the site of his stables, under the large Victorian St Margaret’s pub, though she does draws the line at demolishing the pub to find him. |
| • Turner’s House is open daily from Wednesday to Sunday | • Turner’s House is open daily from Wednesday to Sunday |
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