SYON HOUSE. (fn. 86)
Syon House, a three-storied
structure of brick with some ashlar facings, square
angle-turrets, and flat, lead-covered roofs surmounted by battlements, is built round a central,
open courtyard about 80 feet square, and stands at
an oblique angle to the Thames on the north of the
village of Isleworth. Described in the 19th century
as 'one of the most conspicuous ornaments of the
county of Middlesex' and in the 20th as able to 'hold
its own with the lesser palaces of the Continent', (fn. 87)
Syon came into the possession of Henry Percy, 9th
Earl of Northumberland, (fn. 88) on his marriage in 1594,
and is the last of the great country houses in the
environs of London to remain in the occupation of its
ancestral owners.
The site was formerly occupied by the Abbey of
the Order of the Most Holy Saviour, the English
Bridgettines. The community obtained the royal
licence to remove from the site in the old manorial
park (later Twickenham Park) which had been
granted it at its establishment in 1415 and the foundation stone was laid on 5 February 1426. (fn. 89) By the
foundation charter of 1415 the abbey was to be
composed of an abbess and 59 nuns, with 25 religious
men, of whom 13 were to be priests, 4 deacons, and
8 laymen. The brothers and sisters lived in separate
courts but shared a common church, with the
brothers' choir at the west end and the sisters' raised
choir at the east end. The Bridgettines moved to
Isleworth on 11 November 1431 but evidence exists
of the expenditure of £6,266 17s. 3d. on building
for the church, cloisters, dormitory, chapter house,
and smithy between 1461 and 1479, and the church
was not consecrated until 1488, so that the buildings
must have been far from completed when the
community moved. (fn. 90)
In the absence of any adequate archaeological investigation or of the survival of any considerable
documentary record, the layout of the abbey is not
clearly known. The ancient boundary of the abbey
grounds is recorded in a deed of composition of
1474, (fn. 91) but no description is known to be extant of
the buildings and little medieval work is incorporated
in the present house. The west range contains two
rooms, of two and three bays respectively, which
formed part of the 15th-century undercroft of the
abbey, (fn. 92) and in dry weather foundations may be
traced beneath the turf of the lawns to the east and
south. Apart from this, the central courtyard is
believed to represent the nuns' cloister, and the entrance hall to mark the site of the refectory. (fn. 93) At the
time of the reconstruction of the north range in 1824,
a flight of stone steps and a passage were found
beneath the basement floor between the servants' hall
and the steward's room, but this was not traced
farther, while the thirteen enriched oak panels dating
from c. 1530, one of which bears the initials H.P.
and the Percy badges and motto, in the duke's study
on the first floor of the east range, have clearly been
brought from elsewhere. (fn. 94)
Syon Abbey was suppressed in November 1539 (fn. 95)
and the buildings were allowed to fall into some decay, though they were used as a place of confinement
for Queen Katherine Howard from 14 November
1541 to 10 February 1542. (fn. 96) When the body of
Henry VIII rested a night in the chapel on its way
from Westminster to Windsor on 14 February 1547
special renovation was necessary. (fn. 97) The Duke of
Somerset, to whom Syon was granted in 1547, (fn. 98) was
responsible for the conversion of the monastic
buildings into a Tudor mansion in substantially the
form of the present house; the angle-turrets, with
the exception of that at the north-west corner, are,
though refaced externally, all of 16th-century brick
and two very richly carved Gothic doorways were
discovered between the first and second windows of
each of the towers in the west range at the reconstruction of the house in 1824. (fn. 99) Under Mary the Bridgettine community, though depleted by death and
desertion during years of exile, re-formed at Syon and
the rebuilding of two sides of the monastery, which
had been pulled down, was undertaken at the expense
of Sir Francis Englefield. (fn. 1) One of the first Acts of
Elizabeth's reign dissolved the few monastic houses
which had been restored by Mary, and the house
again returned to the Crown. It appears to have been
little used until Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland, secured the lease in 1594. (fn. 2) Elizabeth I is
known to have paid four brief visits to Syon between
1576 and 1594, but none of them lasted more than a
few hours (fn. 3) and examination of the Crown accounts
suggests that little in the way of repairs or new
building took place at this time. (fn. 4)
It is possible to reconstruct the general appearance
of Syon House in the late 16th century from an inventory of 1593, a contemporary undated ground
plan, and an early-17th-century painting of the west
front. (fn. 5) The house is shown on the painting to have
been then, as now, three-storied, faced with stone
and battlemented, with four square angle-turrets;
but there stood then to the north and south of the west
front two brick buildings, that on the north incorporating the kitchen and that on the south, referred
to in the inventory as the gatehouse, incorporating a
series of lodgings. The west range of the house was
largely occupied by the great hall, with two entrances
on the west side in place of the modern central
entrance; the buttery and pantry were on either side
of a lobby leading to the angle-turret at the north
end of the hall. At the south end, a narrow transverse
lobby opened upon the stairs leading to the great
chamber. The central courtyard was entered by two
doors, one in the north-east corner of the hall and
the other at the east end of this lobby. The south
range of the house had windows looking on to both
the court and the grounds, where today the windows
look out only to the grounds. It contained the great
chamber, occupying a position roughly corresponding with that of the modern ante-room; the presence
chamber; the privy chamber; and the withdrawing
chamber. The east range was divided longitudinally,
as it still is, the long gallery occupying the east front
and extending almost its whole length, given on the
ground-plan as 130 feet between the angle-turrets.
The long gallery had 86 windows on the east side, and
the west wall was divided by three doorways and two
fireplaces in exactly similar positions to those in the
gallery now. The courtyard side of the east range
contained a number of small rooms, with a central
opening upon the court, both characteristics which
it retains. The court was the scene of two remarkable
events in the first years of the reign of James I. These
were the presentation of William Percy's 'The Faery
Pastorall' on the occasion of the king's visit on 8
June 1603, when the earl spent some £364 19s. on a
banquet, (fn. 6) and the conversation between the earl and
his confidential servant, Thomas Percy, on 4 November 1605, which was used as evidence of the earl's
implication in the Gunpowder Treason. (fn. 7)
The household accounts of the 9th Earl of Northumberland (1564-1632) survive almost intact (fn. 8) and
make it clear that he executed only minor repairs
during the first decade of his occupation, but undertook a major reconstruction after James I had granted
the freehold to him in 1604. (fn. 9) A special commission
appointed in 1604 to consider, inter alia, 'what the
charge and reparations of the house of Syon have
[been] and were likely to be yearly', reported the
house to be in decay, needing a hundred marks a
year for repairs and maintenance. (fn. 10) By 1613 the earl
was able to claim that he had spent £9,000 on the
estate and that 'the house itself, if it were to be pulled
down and sold by view of workmen, would come to
£8,000. If any man, the best husband in building,
should raise such another in the same place, £20,000
would not do it'. (fn. 11) Between 1604 and 1606 alone, the
earl spent more than £3,000 on Syon House. Stone
fireplaces were put in all the main rooms, windows
renewed in many, the principal chambers fretted and
wainscotted, and part of the brick buildings pulled
down and rebuilt. A new brick wall to the west of
the brickhouse (presumably the kitchen) was erected,
which may be identified with the wall now dividing
the west lawn from the stable-yard, and the two
lodges in front of the west lawn were built (see plate
facing p. 90). (fn. 12) These lodges, recorded in 1872 as
formerly occupied by the bailiff and gate-porter,
have been refaced but retain some original two-light
windows, and the north lodge has some original
doors and panelling. (fn. 13) A further £1,903 15s. 8d. was
spent in the years 1607-13 to provide, in addition to
minor works, a new suite of rooms for the countess
including a bath-house which was fully equipped, a
new set of stairs for the hall, and a number of outbuildings, including a coach-house, a brewhouse,
and a laundry. In 1609 work was in hand on the
battlementing of the house and on the paving of the
courtyard, and in 1616-19 new stables were built at
the north-west of the main house and an 'evidence
house' fitted with wainscot presses was constructed
to the north of the house. (fn. 14) Some of the outbuildings
to the north of the house contain work from about
this period. (fn. 15)
The extent of the 9th earl's work was such that for
more than a century his successors as owners of Syon
were able to dispense with major repairs and rebuilding. The colonnade at the base of the east front,
reputedly the work of Inigo Jones, was added in the
time of the 10th Earl of Northumberland (d. 1668),
and the date formerly on the rain-heads of the house,
1659, indicates that he also carried out a restoration
of the plumbing. (fn. 16) The younger children of Charles I
were in the custody of the 10th earl at Syon in 1646
and 1647 and the king saw much of them both there
and at Hampton Court during his imprisonment in
the palace. (fn. 17) Charles, Duke of Somerset (d. 1748),
refurnished the house but had no occasion to rebuild
at Syon as he did at Petworth. He also had a royal
guest in the house: in 1692 he allowed the Princess
Anne to use Syon as a temporary residence; a famous
altercation between Queen Mary and her sister occurred there on 17 April. (fn. 18)
Sir Hugh Smithson, later 1st Duke of Northumberland, who succeeded to Syon in 1750, (fn. 19) employed the
brothers Adam at Syon between 1762 and 1769, and
executed the most important of all Syon's restorations.
Robert Adam has recorded: 'Some inequality in the
levels on the old floors, some limitations from the situation of the old walls, and some want of additional
heights to the enlarged apartments, were the chief
difficulties with which I had to struggle.' (fn. 20) The floor
of the hall is considerably lower than that of the other
apartments, but this is concealed cleverly at the north
end by a great apse with a door which hides a flight
of steps and at the south by a recess screened by Doric
columns within which steps rise to the ante-room
door. The hall, decorated in black and white, has a
strong architectural treatment inspired by the work
of Piranesi (see plate facing p. 100); the ante-room,
by contrast, is the most richly coloured of Adam's
rooms which survive, with verd-antique columns,
gilt Ionic capitals and statuettes, an entablature
with a honeysuckle frieze on a blue ground, gilded
trophies on the walls, and the whole reflected in a
polished scagliola floor, one of the earliest uses of the
material in England. The hall is almost of double
cube proportions (66 feet by 31 by 34 high); the anteroom is actually 30 feet wide by 36 feet long, but by
standing the columns away from the south wall
Adam created the effect of a square room. He
heightened the state rooms along the south wing,
but retained their other proportions. The diningroom, finished in stucco and adorned with statues in
place of damask or tapestry that it might 'not retain
the smell of the victuals', (fn. 21) is some 66 feet long but
only 21 feet high and wide; for picturesqueness, he
placed apses at each end, with ornamented halfdomes and screens of columns. Where white and gold
predominate in the dining-room (the deep colouring
of the statue niches was not part of Adam's plan), the
red drawing-room is a profusion of rich colour, with
plum-red Spitalfields silk damask on the walls, a
specially designed carpet executed by Thomas Moore
of Moorfields in 1769 on the floor, and an elaborate
ceiling with wooden medallions painted by Cipriani.
This replaced the original plan for a simpler ceiling
in white and gold to match the pattern of the carpet,
as so many of Adam's ceilings match the floors. (fn. 22) The
fireplace of this room was made to Adam's designs
by Matthew Boulton; both this and the ivory pilasters
of the Spanish mahogany doorcases are decorated in
ormolu. The doors of all the rooms on the south
wing's principal floor are so placed that a vista of the
entire front may be obtained when they are open. In
the long gallery Adam contented himself with a
masterly redecoration which has been acclaimed his
greatest work; he described it as 'finished in a style
to afford great variety and amusement'. (fn. 23) The ceiling
is set out with circles down its length of 136 feet;
each circle is held in an octagonal framework
separated from the next by a square. Horizontal
unity is achieved by cross-lines which tend to expand
the apparent width of a room which is in fact no
more than 14 feet wide and high; vertical unity
is given by a series of 62 pilasters painted by Pergolesi. Secret closets open from the gallery at either
end.
The plans which Adam made for the conversion
of the north range and for the building of a central
rotunda or great circular saloon in the courtyard were
never carried out. The 3rd Duke of Northumberland
(d. 1847) restored the house in 1824, providing a
corridor along the north range to give access to the
private apartments there, adding the portico entrance
on the west front, building a riding school and constructing in the grounds a conservatory, with a dome
of more than 60 feet and a frontage of 380 feet, to the
designs of Charles Fowler. His brother, the 4th duke
(d. 1865), redecorated the private apartments in the
north range (the breakfast-room, dining-room, and
green drawing-room), as well as the print room
which leads directly out of the long gallery, giving
each a richly embellished ceiling from the design of
Monteroli; the work was carried out by Charles
Smith of Upper Baker Street in 1863-4. The only
other notable development in modern times was the
removal of a fine chimney-piece of 'Bossi' inlay and
ormolu to the green drawing-room, and of the Percy
lion after the model of Michelangelo to the roof of
the east front, both brought from Northumberland
House, Charing Cross, at the time of its demolition
in 1874. (fn. 24)
Adam's decorations provided an admirable background for the social life of the first duchess, a
favourite of Queen Charlotte, and her household
books survive to give testimony to the lavishness of
her hospitality, but perhaps the most outstanding
reception of royalty at Syon occurred in the time of
the 3rd duke, when William IV came on 31 July
1832. It was a time of popular demonstration over
the parliamentary Reform Bill but the king was given
a remarkable welcome both by the people of Isleworth and by the duke. (fn. 25)
The park surrounding Syon House attained to its
present size of 208 acres between the 16th and 19th
centuries. At the Dissolution the wall round the
abbey enclosed 30 acres of orchards and gardens. (fn. 26)
On the river side the wall followed approximately
the line of the present ha-ha. (fn. 27) Outside the wall,
nearly all the land south of the London Road belonged to the manorial estate by the early 17th
century. (fn. 28) In 1445 the abbey was said to have inclosed over 80 acres of meadow and pasture, at least
part of which probably lay in this area. (fn. 29) The Earl of
Northumberland purchased land in Syon Field,
between the house and church, in 1604; (fn. 30) the whole
field belonged to him and was inclosed by 1607. (fn. 31)
Much of the present park, however, was leased at
this time, and Lion Farm (formerly an inn, later
Syon Farm) stood midway between the house and
the London Road. (fn. 32) Lion Farm stood beside Syon
Lane, which then extended south of the London
Road towards the house, turning westwards opposite
the farm and curving towards Isleworth church,
while a drive ran from the turning to the house (see
plate facing p. 90). (fn. 33)
The laying-out of the formal gardens within the
wall round the house is traditionally attributed to the
naturalist Dr. William Turner (d. 1568), whose Names
of Herbes (1548) was dated at Syon; Turner was chaplain and physician to the Duke of Somerset and is
said to have planted the mulberry trees by the east
front. (fn. 34) Somerset was responsible for the building of
a high triangular terrace, the remains of which are
still visible in a mound planted with cedars to the
south-east of the house. (fn. 35) The terrace and two orchards are shown clearly on the map of 1607 and
there was an avenue of trees along the drive to Syon
Lane; the 9th Earl of Northumberland is known to
have carried out considerable garden works, including the planting of avenues to the south of the
house. (fn. 36) The Duke of Somerset (d. 1748) planted
more trees along the drive to Syon Farm and perhaps
made the drive from Brentford End. (fn. 37) The 1st Duke
of Northumberland employed 'Capability' Brown
at Syon from 1767 to 1773, but had already accomplished many alterations within the grounds before
this time. By 1761 he had demolished the garden
walls, levelled the triangular terrace, and turned the
gardens into a lawn bounded by a ha-ha. He planted
shrubberies stocked with many foreign trees to the
south and north of the house, erected a column (then
surmounted by a statue of Flora) in the north shrubbery or botanical garden, and made the lake there.
Brown must have been principally concerned with
the west side of the park. (fn. 38) The changes made
while he was employed included the closing of
part of Syon Lane, which was replaced by the present
Park Road, which leaves the London Road farther
west and runs south to where, about two-thirds of the
way to the church, it joins the old line of Syon
Lane. (fn. 39) Syon Farm was pulled down, another lake
was made, and a new drive was laid out. This crossed
the lake by a bridge designed by Adam in 1768 and
ended at the great gateway and screen built to Adam's
designs in 1773. (fn. 40) The pavilion or boat-house was
built by James Wyatt at this time. (fn. 41) The 3rd duke,
who built the conservatory and other outbuildings,
made the last important changes in the grounds. He
redesigned the garden round the conservatory, introducing the large basin and fountain, acquired and
later demolished the house by the London Road
called Little Syon, and employed Richard Forrest to
supervise the restoration of the botanical garden,
adding many rare and tropical trees and shrubs to
those already planted, so that by the middle of the
19th century Syon was noted horticulturally. (fn. 42)