Chiswick House and Gardens

The Grade I listing was made on 21 May 1973 as list entry 1079607, and the register names it simply "CHISWICK HOUSE"; a scheduled monument carries no grade. Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington (1694-1753), designed and built the villa, which was completed in 1729, and William Kent laid out the garden in the English landscape manner. The operator gives the house and garden as 26.33 hectares (65.1 acres) and states that the gardens hold more than 1,600 trees. Twenty-one list entries fall inside the registered park, sixteen at Grade I and five at Grade II, so fifteen Grade I entries stand apart from the villa itself: among them the Ionic Temple and Obelisk, NHLE 1188839; the Cascade, NHLE 1188850; Inigo Jones's Gateway, NHLE 1294560; the Classic Bridge, NHLE 1358665; the Deer House, NHLE 1079610; the Doric Column, NHLE 1188858; the Conservatory, NHLE 1079611; the Temple or Rustic House, NHLE 1188898; the obelisk at the end of the west avenue, NHLE 1079608; and the ten terms with female heads, NHLE 1358668. The 9th Duke of Devonshire sold the house to Middlesex County Council in 1929 and it became a fire station; a V-2 rocket damaged one of the two flanking wings in 1944 and both were demolished in 1956. English Heritage maintains the villa and the Chiswick House and Gardens Trust runs the site. Chiswick station, on South Western Railway, is 712 m away.