Well that's what I thought I heard when a colleague at my new, and first job in London, listed out some of the nearby places I might like to visit on my arrival in S.W. London from the West Midlands back in 1980, aged 22. I'd only been there a few days, and can't say I wasn't puzzled and a little uncomfortable at being the recipient of information about the whereabouts of the local job centre.
Syon House
What follows involves quite a few characters and dates relating to a pretty busy history associated with what isn't a job centre at all, of course.
This Grade I listed house is located in Isleworth, and surely would've made the poshest and most impressive job centre ever. It belongs to the Duke of Northumberland, being his family's London residence. The grounds comprise the 200-acres known as Syon Park. The family’s traditional central London residence was the now demolished Northumberland House.
It derives its name from Syon Abbey, a medieval monastery of the Bridgettine Order founded in 1415 on a nearby site by King Henry V. The abbey moved to the site now occupied by Syon House in 1431. It was one of the wealthiest nunneries in the country, and local legend recites that those cheeky monks of Sheen had of a ley tunnel running to the nunnery at Syon. In 1539, the abbey was closed by royal agents during the Dissolution of the Monasteries and the monastic community was expelled.
Following closure, for a short time Syon became the property of the Crown, before long lease to the 1st Duke of Somerset, who, prior to his death in 1552, had the site rebuilt as Syon House in the Italian Renaissance style in 1541. For part of the following year Henry VIII's fifth wife Catherine Howard faced her long imprisonment there, and in February 1542 the King's men took her to the Tower of London where she was executed on charges of adultery. Five years later, when King Henry VIII died, his coffin - surmounted by jewelled effigy - parked at Syon House for its one night rest before the procession reached his burial place in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor.
In 1557 it was proposed to convert the new building to the earlier Catholic use, but Elizabeth I of England acceded to the throne before this change was effected. Syon was acquired in 1594 by Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland, (1564–1632) since when it has remained in his family.
In the late 17th Century Syon was in the possession of Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset, through his wife, Elizabeth Seymour.
After the future Queen Anne had a disagreement with her sister, Mary II (wife of William III / Orange), over her friendship with Sarah Churchill, Countess of Marlborough Queen Mary evicted Princess Anne from her court residence at Whitehall and Hampton Court. She came to live at Syon with her close friends, the Somersets, in 1692, and gave birth to a stillborn child there. Shortly afterwards Queen Mary came to visit her, again demanding that Anne dismiss the Countess of Marlborough, and stormed out when she flatly refused.
Syon was originally a Tudor House, with some Jacobean additions such as the Long Gallery. In the 18th Century, Hugh Percy, 1st Duke of Northumberland, commissioned architect and interior designer Robert Adam, of whom he said he was brought in “... to completely revamp the property”, adding “He was one of the first architects to devise complete interior schemes for houses, right down to the way the keys in the lock would work – he was a very forward-thinking man of his time. He had a dictionary of drawings from his time in Rome, which you can see in the design here, particularly in the triumphant arches used everywhere and in the Great Hall”.
The Great Hall
Not to be left out, our old mate who’s popped up in a few of these COVID-19 bike ride posts, (including his own), landscape designer and topiary twiddler extraordinaire Lancelot “Capability” Brown was brought in to redesign the house and estate. Work began on the interior reconstruction project in 1762. Five large rooms on the west, south and east sides of the house were completed before work stopped in 1769. A central rotunda, which Adam had intended for the interior courtyard space, was not implemented due to cost.
Leaping forward almost two hundred years to 1951, (goodness knows what was - or wasn’t - going on), Syon House was opened to the public for the first time under the 10th Duke and Duchess. Later, in 1995 under the 12th Duke, the family rooms became open to the public as well.
The Long Gallery
As the Percy family continues to live there, they continue to enhance the house. Most recently the Duchess added a new central courtyard with the design of Marchioness of Salisbury.
Both house and garden are a popular filming location, particularly for films and TV, including:
Endeavour
Poirot
Byron
Wives and Daughters
Love in a Cold Climate
Gosford Park
The Madness of King George
King Ralph
The Avengers
Killing Eve
A £600,000 restoration project was undertaken late in 2007, primarily involving work to the roof. In 2008 restoration work began on the Great Hall, and a current long-term project is to restore the Adam Rooms.
Entrance
Outbuilding (now part of garden centre)
The Ante Room
The commission for a new conservatory at Syon was given to Charles Fowler, an architect who specialised in large industrial buildings; in his use of the new metalworking technologies being developed in the Midlands he spanned the twin disciplines of architecture and engineering.
Backed by the variety of growing houses in the newly built nursery, the Great Conservatory was filled with exotic plants from all corners of the world. There were “Cape” plants from South Africa, “New Holland” plants from Australia, and camellias from China. By the 1880s palms and giant bamboos grew to the top of the dome, but the social and political disruption arising from WWI lead to a period of decline. The building was, however, extensively restored in 1986/7, and although now unheated it is an important historic structure in good condition.
Painting of Syon House before alterations in the 1760s (artist unknown)
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