Kew, like Hampton Court became important because of its proximity to Richmond Palace. After the Restoration Richmond Palace, like Greenwich Palace, was divided up and leased out. Effectively its history as a major royal residence was over. But the lodge which James I built nearby continued to attract royal attention. William III took a fancy to it and commissioned Nicholas Hawksmoor to make alterations there for him. George I, as Prince of Wales, and later as King, continued to use the lodge as a summer residence.
Soon after George II’s accession, Sir Edward Lovett Pearce the Surveyor General of Ireland, drew up a scheme for a new and larger lodge at Richmond in the Palladian manner. Pearce’s efforts were followed by William Kent who designed an even larger Palladian style palace in the mode of Holkham or the Horse Guards. Neither scheme came even close to leaving the drawing board.
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In the end Richmond Lodge was settled on Queen Caroline as a dower house should she survive her husband. She spent quite a lot on fitting out the lodge but even more on the gardens. She laid out several hundred acres in the English landscape style and built a hermitage, dairy, domed temple, summer house and the mysterious Merlin’s cave. These gardens, and the follies in them, became one of the principal attractions of the Richmond estate and, in a much altered form, are part of Kew gardens today.
Hampton Court was abandoned buy the monarchy as a residence after 1737 and George III wanted a replacement convenient to Windsor and London. The royal estate at Richmond was the obvious location. George, who had been taught architectural drawing by William Chambers, commissioned, in 1761, a new lodge for Richmond for which a model was made and an estimate prepared. This scheme, like those of George II, remained unrealised. Instead, Capability Brown was employed to sweep away much of Queen Caroline’s garden with its collection of curious buildings. Brown chose a site in the gardens for a new palace and William Chambers designed a building for it. Unlike its predecessors, foundations for this large Palace were laid in 1770. It never got beyond the first floor and soon after it was abandoned; George decided to remove to Kew and occupy the White House and adjoining Dutch House.
The White House was built by William Kent for Frederick, Prince of Wales in 1731-5. It was called white to distinguish it from the red brick Dutch House next door. It was fitted up for George III in 1772-3 and, when complete, the gardens of Kew and Richmond were joined to it for the delectation of Queen Charlotte whose favourite pastime was embellishing and improving them. While in residence at Kew the Queen built the cottage orne which survives. Queen Charlotte and King George and their eight children moved to the White House in May 1772
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In 1800 came the last, and ironically the only, successful commission to build a great royal house at Kew. James Wyatt, who had succeeded Chambers as Surveyor at the Kings Works, was commissioned to build a new riverside palace in the gothic style. In 1802 the White House was demolished, some of its fittings being transferred to the Dutch House, where you can still see them. The King and Queen moved into the Dutch House thus making it into the Kew Palace we know today. Meanwhile, the building known as the castellated palace rose within sight of Kew Palace’s windows. But the King lost interest – he last visited Kew in 1806 and
The unloved and incomplete castellated palace was eventually blown up when more conventional methods of demolition proved too time consuming. Queen Charlotte returned to Kew in 1815 and was later to die there. The Dutch House was to be demolished but was saved from the bulldozer by the Prince Regent’s sentimentality.
The final transfer of the gardens at Kew from Royal pleasure grounds to scientific research institute took place in 1840. It was part of the general early Victorian process of reorganising the redundant parts of the royal estate, a process which included opening both Hampton Court and Kensington to the Public. On 11th March 1840 the gardens, and the buildings in them, were formally handed over from the Lord Steward to the Commissioners of the Woods and Forests and from that time to this have been maintained by the government.
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