In 1807 one of the greatest landscape artists of all time, William Mallory Turner, purchased two plots of land in the rural settings of Twickenham, then a village by the Thames to the west of London. Here he built to his own design (with a little help from his friend the architect Sir John Soane) a villa which became his country retreat to escape from the bustle of London.

Turner would use the little villa as a base for his sketching excursions into the gorgeous upper Thames valley, sketches which formed the basis of many of his best known paintings. He would also go fishing, entertain his friends and relax. It was his dad, a barber, who looked after the house and when Turner senior became too ill in 1826 his son sold the property.

The house then went through various owners until it was eventually bequeathed by Professor Harold Livermore in 2010. For some years the villa was on the at risk register until it was saved for the nation through the efforts of the Turner house trust and a lottery grant.

The house’s restoration was finally completed last year and Turner’s elegant hideaway opened its doors to the public in the summer of 2017.

It was a privilege to visit the villa yesterday. Although placed in a street of late victorian houses it originally stood in splendid isolation among fields sloping down to the riverbank. We were shown around by an arts graduate who gave us an excellent commentary. Though small the villa is perfectly formed and beautifully reflects Turner’s original ambition to become an architect. Indeed, it has aptly been described as the artist’s only 3d painting.

The villa consists of a basement kitchen haunted by the ghost of Turner ‘s dad who we actually met! The ground floor has dining room, sitting room and parlour and the upper floor, reached by a beautifully oval Soanian staircase, has two bedrooms.

Here are some photos I took of this charming recency villa. Note the unstuccoed exterior as originally envisaged revealing the marvellous brickwork, and the high quality of the restoration.

Although nothing remains of the house’s original furnishings they have all been recreated with consummate care down to the chintz curtains and the wallpaper, reconstructed from an original fragment. Genial touches are provided by the telescope in the main bedroom; you look through the eyepiece and see what the much larger original garden must have looked like in the 1820’s complete with fishpond.

Rather like Modigliani’s house which we visited in Livorno there are no original paintings of the artist on view. However, Turner, took great care over his engravings of which there are fine examples in the villa, largely from his important ‘Liber Studiorum’.

After his father’s death Turner became ever more eccentric and lived increasingly in a chaotic mess. Morose and a man of few words he managed to sire a couple of children from his housekeepers but never sold his greatest masterpieces, among which is a painting which has been voted the nation’s favourite picture. It is, of course ‘the fighting Temeraire’, now in the National Gallery. It’s an image which in so many ways sums up the Britain of today. The Temeraire, one of the last surviving ships which saw action in the battle of Trafalgar, is being ignobly towed to a naval scrapyard at Rotherhithe by a contemporary steam tug. The great man-of-war is illuminated by the light of glory while the mean little tug is in dark hues. ‘Sic transit Gloria Mundi’.

For further information please consult Turner ‘s house excellent website at

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