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32 Man the Ramparts

Writer's picture: Dave GobleDave Goble

Updated: Mar 28, 2024

Bit of a harsh reflection on a man’s expectations of his local community. Perhaps more an echo of times past, around the period that the subject of this post retired here in 1852, when Hampton was likened by some to a “wilderness” swarming with undesirables and scallywags, as the population swelled in response to labour demands rooted in railway expansion. (See Post 23).


I’d never heard of the opera singer John Templeton, but was drawn in by this striking and unusual building located on Hampton Hill High Street, where a blue plaque bears his name.

 

Templeton was aged 50 when he hung up his vocal cords and retired here, presumably resisting the urge to occupy his new-found free time launching arrows from his roof at passing pedestrians.

Templeton Lodge

Unfortunately I have been unable to establish when it was built, but it was obviously pre-1852


Born in Riccarton, Kilmarnock in 1802, he was the youngest of three brothers. Musicality ran in the family, and he became a successful opera singer. As a tenor he sang at the first English productions of Mozart's operas Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute. In 1833 he took the role of Don Ottavio in Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, at five days' notice. That same year Maria Malibran chose him as her tenor for Bellini's La sonnambula at Covent Garden, Templeton continuing as her leading tenor until she died in 1836.


Have to say from an aesthetic viewpoint I rather like the look of battlement ramparts on this otherwise modest looking building.


Templeton visited Paris in 1842 before setting off on provincial tours giving lecture recitals on Scottish, English, and Irish folk-songs. In 1845–46 he went on a tour of the United States. He had a repertoire of 35 operas, in many of which he created the chief parts.


John Templeton



Templeton died in Templeton Lodge in 1886, aged 84.


Red arrow: Templeton Lodge

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