Osterley Park And House — If It Must Be London - Beyond Downton Abbey: A Guide to 25 Great Houses - page 87

Happily, there are other options. Osterley Park is just an hour's ride on the Underground
from downtown London or a 15-minute taxi ride from Heathrow Airport. With a wonder-
ful neoclassical mansion surrounded by gardens, park and farmland, Osterley is one of a
handful of surviving country estates in greater London.
Who built it…who owns it
Originally, Osterley was a redbrick Tudor mansion built in 1576 by Sir Thomas Gresham.
Sir Gresham was enormously wealthy, and he purchased large tracts of surrounding land.
In a tale that resonates in modern times, the house fell on hard times, the owners defaulted
on a mortgage, and Osterley was acquired by a bank.
Osterley was remodeled and transformed in the late 18 th century by architect Robert
Adam for banker Sir Francis Child and his brother Robert Child. Nicknamed “the palace
of palaces,” the Child family used this country retreat to impress their guests.
In the 20 th century, after serving as the first Home Guard training school (1940), and then
a convalescence home for injured airmen (1947), George Child-Villiers, 9 th Earl of Jer-
sey, gave the house and much of the estate to the National Trust in 1949.
Style notes
Neoclassical