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A Virtual Reality Visit to Syon House: an Architectural Tour of the State Rooms

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A Virtual Reality Visit to Syon House: an Architectural Tour of the State Rooms THE KEW SOCIETY A VIRTUAL REALITY VISIT TO SYON HOUSE AN ARCHITECTURAL TOUR OF THE STATE ROOMS Introduction Syon House is only about forty minutes walk from Kew Green. It is still owned by the Dukes of Northumberland and is the only major mansion in the London area still in private hands. It has been in possession of the Percy family since 1594. The house and the outstanding gardens are usually open three or four times a week from mid-March to the end of October in most years. I hope that this Virtual Reality Tour will give you encouragement to visit the house when it can be reopened. The site of the present house was a convent of the Bridgettine Order which was founded in 1415 with an endowment from Henry V. He also endowed a monastery for the Carthusian Order at West Shene at the same time. The Bridgettine Convent was originally at Isleworth, but moved to the present position in 1431. The convent was well endowed, but the wealth of the monasteries and convents was their undoing. This convent was suppressed by Thomas Cromwell in 1539 and Syon became crown property. Catherine Howard was detained here from November 1541 to January 1542 while awaiting trial and execution. The coffin of Henry VIII lay at Syon for one night on the way from Westminster to Windsor. When Henry VIII died in 1547, his son was still only ten. The Duke of Somerset became the Lord Protector from 1547 to 1552 and secured the monastery and estate of Syon and started building the present house. However, in 1552 Somerset was charged with felony, possibly on “trumped-up” charges brought by the Earl of Dudley, and executed. This allowed Lord Dudley to become de facto the new Lord Protector and he was made the Duke of Northumberland. He was no relation to the previous Earls of Northumberland, whose title was in temporary abeyance. He took possession of Syon and arranged for his son, Lord Guildford Dudley, to marry Lane Jane Grey, the great-grand daughter of Henry VII. On the death of Edwards VI, then aged 16, she was offered the crown while at Syon to ensure a Protestant succession at a meeting of nobles here. She reluctantly agreed to accept the crown, but reigned for only nine days. Mary I successfully claimed the throne and sought to restore Catholicism. The Duke of Northumberland was arrested and executed in 1553. Lady Jane Grey and her husband were executed in the following year. Her execution was the subject of a famous painting in the National Gallery London by De La Roche, a French 19th century painter. Syon House reverted to the crown. In 1557, the nuns, who were in exile in the Low Countries, were allowed by Mary I to return to Syon, but they had to go into exile once more on the accession of Elizabeth I in 1558. Portugal gave them sanctuary where they remained until 1861 and they then returned to this country settling in Devon. 1 The Earldom of Northumberland was brought out of abeyance by Mary I in 1557 and Thomas Percy became the seventh earl. In 1569 he took part in the unsuccessful uprising in the north against Elizabeth I and was captured and executed in 1572. He was succeeded by his brother Henry Percy as the eighth earl. Having initially shown himself as a loyal supporter of Elizabeth, he was arrested in 1584 on suspicion of attempting to allow Mary Stuart to escape and incarcerated in the tower where he was fond dead in bed shot through the heart. It may have been murder or suicide. His son, also Henry Percy, became the ninth earl. Elizabeth I granted him the lease of Syon and in 1594 appointed him the Steward of Isleworth. He supported James I’s succession. In return James appointed him as a Privy Counsellor. He also gave him under letters patent “The Manor of Isleworth-Syon and Syon House and the demesne lands with free Warren and all Royalties and Appurtenances.“ However, he fell out of favour because his cousin, Thomas Percy, who was closely involved in the Gun Powder plot, happened to be dining with him the day before the plot was discovered. The ninth earl was held in the Tower of London on suspicion of involvement for 15 years, even though there was no evidence against him and he had to pay a fine of £11,000, before he could be released, a huge sum then. The original fine had been £30,000, which even the rich Earl of Northumberland was unable to pay. While in the Tower, he was allowed an extensive suite of rooms. The ninth Earl died in 1632 and was succeeded by his son as the tenth earl. He supported the Parliamentarians in the Civil War. At an historic Council held at Syon in 1647, this Council gave Cromwell authority to march his army through London. The ninth Earl died in 1668 and was succeeded by his son Josceline Percy, who died young two years later and the title became extinct. His daughter, Lady Elizabeth Percy inherited all the family estates in Northumberland as well as Syon House. She married, as her third husband, the sixth Duke of Somerset, whose seat was at Petworth. He was known as the Proud Duke because of his arrogance. In 1700 the Duke of Somerset planted the avenue of lime trees that frames the approach to the main entrance today. In 1748 when the Duke of Somerset died, his son the Earl of Hertford succeeded him as the seventh duke. He gave Syon and the Northumberland estates to his daughter Lady Elizabeth Percy and his son-in-law Sir Hugh Smithson, baronet. In 1750, by a special Act of Parliament Sir Hugh Smithson became the Earl of Northumberland of a new creation. He became the Duke of Northumberland in 1766. It would appear that that the Earl of Northumberland was carrying out major work in 1751. However, in about 1760 he instructed Robert Adam to remodel the interior of the house. By 1764 we know that the work was quite advanced from a letter from Horace Walpole to Smithson’s father -in-law the Earl of Hertford, where Walpole wrote: I have been this evening to Sion, which is becoming another Mount Palatine. Adam has displayed great taste with magnificence. His Gallery is converting into a museum in the style of a Columbarium according to an idea I proposed to my Lord Northumberland. The first Duke held a number of important posts including Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He was succeeded by his son in 1786, who was a distinguished soldier. The third Duke 2 represented George IV at the coronation of Charles X of France. The fourth Duke was an admiral and became First Lord of the Admiralty in Lord Derby’s short-lived administration of 1852. The tenth Duke, who died in 1988, was a distinguished agriculturalist. He was the chairman of the Agricultural Research and President of the Royal Agricultural Society. He was succeeded by his son Henry Percy, who died unmarried in 1995 aged 42. The present and 12th Duke is Ralph Percy, who was born in 1956. His wife has recently created a large ornamental garden at Alnwick Castle, funded by the National Lottery. The principal estates of the Dukes of Northumberland are actually in Northumberland and they still own about 100,000 acres in Northumberland. Their principal seat is Alnwick Castle, which was also refurbished by Robert Adam. Syon is now the London home of the present Duke and Duchess of Northumberland. One visits the house itself primarily to see the State Rooms designed by Robert Adam. I have set out a brief biographical note on Robert Adams in an Appendix. In an original plan prepared by Robert Adam, he had planned to put in a rotunda, where the courtyard is now. This was never executed here. However, Robert Adam did use this design, when he built Register House in Edinburgh Robert Adams’ plan 3 Register House, Edinburgh TOUR OF THE HOUSE The boundary wall of the park runs along the busy London Road from Brentford, but one would be unaware of this road, when standing in front of the house Syon House: Main front 4 The Exterior The structure of the exterior of the house would appear to be partly Tudor and partly Jacobean within the framework of the original convent. According to Pevsner, the projecting corner towers were built at this time. As far as we are aware, Robert Adam did not alter any of the exterior of the house. According to a surviving letter from the ninth Earl of Northumberland to James I, we know that the ninth Earl laid out £9,000 on Syon House to finish them according to the Duke of Somerset’s original plans. So a substantial part of the structure of the house is probably Jacobean. The finest view is across the River Thames from Kew Gardens looking at the garden front. The lion in the centre of the building was originally on Northumberland House, where Northumberland Avenue is today. The house was demolished in 1874. Syon House: Garden front The Interior Robert Adam said that when he came to designing the interior: Some inequality in the levels on the old floors and some want of an additional height to the enlarged apartments were the chief difficulties with which I had to struggle. Robert Adam had been instructed to carry out the work in 1760 and most of his work was probably completed by 1770.
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