A Painter’s Garden: J.M.W. Turner and the Grounds of Sandycombe Lodge

Catherine Parry-Wingfield

In 1807 J.M.W. Turner acquired two plots of land in Sand Pit Close on the Twickenham side of the Thames, a short walk from Richmond Bridge. He would build his little villa, to his own designs, on the larger plot, overlooking a steeply sloping garden with a very large pond, and some evidence for the way it was laid out can be found in his sketchbooks. The house and once-large garden stood alone then, on the fringes of two grand estates, and provided a peaceful retreat from the busy hum of the London art world.

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About the speaker

Catherine Parry-Wingfield is an art historian with a long career in teaching and lecturing, specialising in the visual arts of 18th and early 19th century Britain and Europe. She was a trustee of Turner’s House Trust from its inception in 2005, and chair from 2013 to 2019, during which time she was actively engaged as a member of the conservation project team, particularly with the presentation of the interior. She has written two booklets, ‘J.M.W. Turner, R.A. – the artist and his house at Twickenham’ and ‘J.M.W. Turner and the ‘Matchless Vale of Thames’’ (available from Turner’s House), and an article for The London Gardener, 2012, ‘The Grounds of Sandycombe Lodge, J.M.W. Turner’s Country Retreat at Twickenham’.