Kenwood House

The core of the present house was built about 1616 and renovated about 1749, when the orangery and boudoir were added to the west (NHLE 1379242). Robert and James Adam worked here between about 1764 and 1779, remodelling the south front with a second storey and adding the library with its anteroom to the east and the north entrance portico. George Saunders added the projecting north wings and the west veranda about 1795, together with the service wing and kitchens, which are listed separately at Grade II, NHLE 1379244. The house was restored between 1955 and 1959. The registered landscape is a mid-eighteenth-century park with lakes and woodland, developed further in the late eighteenth century by Humphry Repton, William Marshall and William Emes; a lime avenue running west from the south front was planted about 1726 by George Middleton (NHLE 1000142). The estate carries many separate Grade II listings, among them the East Lodge and gateways, NHLE 1378705, West Lodge, NHLE 1378708, the former dairy buildings, NHLE 1379243, and the 'Monolith (Empyrean)' sculpture in the grounds, NHLE 1378710; the Sham Bridge south of the house is Grade II listed, NHLE 1379245. The Iveagh Bequest collection includes Rembrandt's 'Self-Portrait with Two Circles', and the operator names Vermeer, Gainsborough, Turner and Constable in the collection.