Kenwood House - History

History

The original house dates from the early 17th century. The orangery was added in about 1700. In 1754 it was bought by William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield. He commissioned Robert Adam to remodel it from 1764-1779. Adam added the library (one of his most famous interiors) to balance the orangery, and added the Ionic portico at the entrance. In 1793-6 George Saunders added two wings on the north side, and the offices and kitchen buildings and brewery (now the restaurant) to the side.

The 2nd Earl and Countess of Mansfield added a dairy to supply Kenwood House with milk and cheese.

It was donated to the nation by Lord Iveagh, a member of the Guinness family, when he died in 1927, and opened to the public in 1928. He had bought the house from the Mansfield family in 1925. Unfortunately the furnishing had already been sold by then, so the house is largely empty. Some furniture has since been added. The paintings are from Iveagh's collection. Part of the grounds were bought by the Kenwood Preservation Council in 1922, after there had been threats that it would be sold for building. In the late 1990s the house received approximately 150,000 visitors a year and an estimated 1 million people visited the grounds each year.

The house was the subject of a Margaret Calkin James poster in the 1930s, and was seen by many commuters on the London Underground.

The British feature film Notting Hill was partly filmed here.

In 2012 an exhibition of works from the art collection 'Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Gainsborough: The Treasures of Kenwood House, London' toured museums in the United States while Kenwood House was undergoing renovations; many of the works had never been outside Britain.