Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Richmond Riverside
To the untrained eye, the buildings that form the backdrop to the pedestrianized
terraces of
Richmond Riverside
look Georgian, but closer inspection reveals the
majority to be a sham: the cupolas conceal air vents, the chimneys are decorative and
the facades hide o
ces and flats. Still, Quinlan Terry's pastiche from the late 1980s has
proved very popular. One of the few originals is
Heron House
, a narrow three-storey
building where Lady Hamilton and her daughter Horatia came to live shortly after
Trafalgar, the battle in which the girl's father died.
To the south of the modern riverside development lies
Richmond Bridge
, an elegant
span of five arches made from Purbeck stone in 1777, and cleverly widened in the
1930s, thus preserving London's oldest extant bridge. From April to September you can
rent bikes or rowing boats from the nearby jetties, or take a boat trip to Hampton
Court or Westminster (see p.329). If you continue along the towpath beyond
Richmond Bridge, you will pass the cows grazing on
Petersham Meadows
, and leave
the rest of London far behind, before eventually coming to Ham House.
22
Ham House
Ham St •
House
Mid-March to Oct daily except Fri noon-4pm; mid-July to early Sept daily noon-5pm • NT • £10
Gardens
mid-March to
Oct daily except Fri 11am-5pm; mid-July to early Sept daily 11am-6pm; Jan-mid-Feb & Nov Sat & Sun 11am-4pm; Dec daily except Fri
11am-4pm • NT • £4 •
T
020 8940 1950,
W
nationaltrust.org.uk • Bus #371 or #65 from
!
Richmond
Hidden in the woods that line the south bank of the Thames lies the red-brick
Jacobean mansion of
Ham House
, home to the Earl of Dysart for nearly three
hundred years. The first Earl of Dysart was Charles I's childhood whipping boy
(he literally received the punishment on behalf of the prince when the latter
misbehaved), but it's his ambitious daughter,
Elizabeth
, the second Countess - a
Royalist spy and at one time Oliver Cromwell's lover - who's most closely associated
with the place. With the help of her second husband, the First Duke of Lauderdale,
one of Charles II's Cabal Ministry, she added numerous extra rooms, “furnished like
a great Prince's” according to diarist John Evelyn, and succeeded in shocking even
Restoration
society with her extravagance.
Elizabeth's profligacy, and a ruinous legal battle over her husband's inheritance, meant
she died penniless in 1698, having not ventured out of the house for eight years. She
also left the family heavily in debt, so they could afford to make few alterations to one
of the finest
Stuart interiors
in the country, prompting Horace Walpole (who lived
across the river at Strawberry Hill) to describe Ham as a “Sleeping Beauty”. The Great
Staircase, off the Central Hall, is stupendously ornate, featuring huge bowls of fruit at
the newel posts and trophies of war carved into the balustrade. The rest of the house is
equally sumptuous, with lavish plasterwork, silverwork and parquet flooring,
Verrio
ceiling paintings
and rich hangings, tapestries, silk damasks and cut velvets. The Long
RICHMOND'S LOST PALACE
Richmond Palace was acquired by Henry I in 1125, when it was still known as
Shene Palace
.
The first king to frequent the place was Edward III, who lay dying here in 1377 while his
mistress urged the servants to prise the rings from his fingers. Seventeen years later a
grief-stricken Richard II razed the place to the ground after his wife, Anne of Bohemia, died
here of the plague. Henry V had it restored and Edward IV held jousting tournaments on the
green, but it was Henry VII who, in an atypical burst of extravagance, constructed the largest
complex of all, renaming it
Richmond Palace
after his Yorkshire earldom. Henry VIII granted
the palace to his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, as part of their divorce settlement. Queen Mary
and Philip of Spain spent part of their honeymoon here and Elizabeth I came here to die in
1603. A lot of history is attached to the place, but very little of Richmond Palace survived the
Commonwealth and even less is visible now. The most obvious relic is the unspectacular
red-brick
Tudor Gateway
, in the southwest corner of Richmond Green.
