Turner's House ~ July 2024

A group of 10 travelled to St Margarets, Twickenham to visit Sandycombe Lodge, the home of J.M.W. Turner, one of the great British landscape painters.

Sandycombe Lodge was built by 1813 and is the only surviving building designed and lived in by Turner. Here, guided by his friend John Soane, the painter also became an architect. The small house is an elegant Regency period property restored to its original appearance.

This was our third visit this year where Sir John Soane had a part in the design of the buildings.

Gathering in the garden, we had a private tour with our friendly and knowledgeable guide Colin who told us in detail about the history of the house, about Turner and his father's desire for privacy and what the landscape around St Margarets would have been like in Turner's time.

Turner was a successful artist with a flourishing studio and gallery in Queen Anne Street, off Harley Street, and had recently been made Professor of Perspective at the Royal Academy. His busy private life included a daughter born to his mistress, Sarah Danby, and another born later.  He needed a quiet retreat away from the pressure of the London art world.

In 1807 Turner purchased two plots of land in St Margarets and, with the help of Sir John Soane, designed a two bedroom house. Built over 5 years, Turner and his father (fondly known as "Old Dad") moved to the new Lodge in 1813.    

Turner and his father's wish for privacy led to them living there without servants despite entertaining Turner’s friends.

Some of Turner's pencil drawings adorned many of the walls in the house. There was no original furniture or other features apart from a fireplace in the dining room. But later extensions and additions to the property had been removed, the skylight above the winding staircase had been carefully restored,  and a scrap of wallpaper had been used to recreate the wallpaper in Turner's bedroom.

A small exhibition “Turner and the Environment” in one of the small rooms in the house reveals how Turner captured environmental and social developments that would go on to change Britain and the world's climates forever. It is  the first exhibition dedicated to this subject.

Highly attuned to changes in the landscape and atmosphere, Turner captured them in his ground-breaking paintings, drawings and engravings. Through his art, he documented plumes of smoke, burning furnaces, urban sprawl, deforested landscapes, overfishing and extreme weather. The exhibition seeks to connect the changes that Turner observed in beautiful works of art, with changes to the environment that we are now seeing.

For more details visit:    https://turnershouse.org