Chiswick House Gardens with New Café by Caruso St John

The restoration of Chiswick House Gardens in London has been unveiled on June 14. Chiswick House Gardens is a site of international importance both as the birthplace of the English Landscape Movement, and as the setting for one of the most beautiful houses in London. The regeneration of the gardens is a result of many years of campaigning, four years of fund-raising and two years of work on the site. The garden restoration recovers the original vistas and design from decades of disrepair and underfunding, and also repairs and restores the statuary and garden buildings. The result is an inspiring balance between a historic landscape and a public park.
 
To complement the restoration, award-winning architects Caruso St John have designed a new café within the grounds, on a carefully chosen site close to Chiswick House on the east side. The new café provides indoor seating for 80 people and external seating for over 100, and forms the social hub for the park, with a newly created children’s playground beside it.
 
Chiswick House Gardens, spread over 65 acres, have inspired countless designed landscapes from Blenheim Palace in Oxford, to Central Park in New York. They were originally created by Lord Burlington and William Kent who worked on them throughout the 1720’s and 1730’s as a setting for Lord Burlington’s magnificent Chiswick House, the first and one of the finest examples of neo-Palladian design in England.


Images: English Heritage / Chiswick House and Gardens Trust