Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
to visit is at weekends, when the museum's industrial dinosaurs are put through their
paces, and on Sundays in summer a narrow-gauge
steam railway
runs back and forth
round the yard.
Musical Museum
399 Brentford High St • Tues-Sun 11am-5.30pm • £8 •
T
020 8560 8108,
W
musicalmuseum.co.uk • Bus #237 or #267 from
!
Gunnersbury or Kew Bridge train station from Waterloo
he
Musical Museum
is stuffed with the world's largest collection of self-playing
instruments. The best time to come is for the noisy hour-long live demonstrations
(phone ahead for times) when the enthusiastic staff put all the mechanical music-
making machines through their paces, from cleverly crafted music boxes, through badly
tuned barrel organs, to the huge orchestrions that were once a feature of London cafés.
The museum also boasts one of the world's finest collections of player-pianos, which
can reproduce live performances of the great pianists. In addition, regular concerts, tea
dances and silent films are put on to the accompaniment of the museum's enormous
Art Deco Wurlitzer, which once graced the Regal cinema in Kingston upon Thames.
22
Boston Manor
Boston Manor Rd • Park daily 8am-dusk; house April-Oct Sat & Sun noon-5pm • Free •
T
0845 456 2800,
W
hounslow.info •
!
Boston Manor
Built by a wealthy widow who married into the Spencer family, the Jacobean
Boston
Manor House
was bought by James Clitherow, a City merchant, in 1670 and remained
in the family until taken over by the local council in the 1920s. With magnificent cedar
trees and ornamental flowerbeds, the grounds are well worth a visit, despite the nearby
presence of the M4. The highlight of the house is the Drawing Room on the first floor,
which retains a sumptuous mantelpiece and an extraordinarily elaborate, original
Jacobean plaster ceiling. In an unusual break with protocol, William IV and Queen
Adelaide paid a visit to the Clitherows (mere commoners), and dined in the Dining
Room, which also boasts a fine plaster ceiling, in 1834.
Syon Park
House
Mid-March to Oct Wed, Thurs & Sun 11am-5pm • £11 (including gardens)
Gardens
Mid-March to Oct daily 10.30am-5pm;
Nov-Feb Sat & Sun 10.30am-4pm • £6 •
T
020 8569 7497,
W
syonpark.co.uk • Bus #237 or #267 to Brent Lea bus stop from
!
Gunnersbury or Kew Bridge train station, or 15min walk from Syon Lane train station
Syon Park
sits directly across the Thames from Kew Gardens, and is one of the few
aristocratic estates left intact in London, with a fantastically lavish stately home,
Syon House, at its heart. It has been in the hands of the Percy family since
Elizabethan times, although these days it's more of a working commercial concern
than a family retreat, with a garden centre, an indoor adventure playground and
various other attractions on offer. The main reason to come here, though, is to view
the magnificent house and its accompanying gardens. Syon started out as one of
the richest monasteries in the country, established by Henry V after the Battle of
Agincourt. Dissolved by Henry VIII, who incarcerated his fifth wife, Catherine
Howard, here
shortly before her execution in 1542, it was eventually granted to
the Percys, earls (and later dukes) of Northumberland.
Syon House
From its rather plain castellated exterior, you'd never guess that
Syon House
contains
the most opulent eighteenth-century interiors in London. The splendour of Robert
Adam's refurbishment is immediately revealed, however, in the pristine
Great Hall
,
where you can pick up the excellent audioguide. An apsed double cube with a screen of
Doric columns at one end and classical statuary dotted around the edges, the hall has a
chequered marble floor that cleverly mirrors the pattern of the coffered ceiling. It was
