Philanthropy
PARKSTEAD HOUSE
THE PONSONBY TEMPLE APPEAL
In 1738, my great-great-great-great grandfather William Ponsonby, 2nd Earl of Bessborough, returned from the Grand Tour, that journey de rigeur for young noblemen of the age, and especially relevant for Lord Duncannon, as he then was, being a member of The Society of Dilettanti. While travelling on the Continent, William acquired many antique and contemporary works of art.
The following summer he married Lady Caroline Cavendish, a daughter of the 3rd Duke of Devonshire, and lived happily with a growing family in the Ponsonby town house in Cavendish Square, and at Ingress Park in Kent, having Capability Brown landscape the grounds.
Lady Bessborough died in 1760 while nursing her husband, both victims of a fever, probably cholera, that also killed two of their five children. Heartbroken, and with his family reduced, Bessborough decided to build on his recently purchased land high above Putney, at Roehampton, overlooking Richmond Park. He commissioned Sir William Chambers to design this new house, which he named Roehampton Villa. It was to be a showcase, both inside and out, for the treasures he had collected in Italy, Greece and Turkey.
Chambers created a miniature palace in the ‘English neo-Palladian style’. It is illustrated in Vitruvius Britannicus; its halls and galleries he adorned with his patron’s statuary, while two classical temples, similar to those he designed for Kew, gave shade in its wooded groves. Frequent visitors to these pleasure grounds were Bessborough’s niece Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire, his daughter-in-law Lady Henrietta Spencer, his grandaughter Lady Caroline Lamb (my mother’s great-great aunt), and their royal friend Prinny.
The Villa still stands today, intact, part of the complex of buildings of Whitelands College, Roehampton University, its columned facade still overlooking Richmond Park, and renamed Parkstead House. Lord Bessborough’s collection was sold at auction by Christie’s in 1801, much of it to Sir John Soane for his museum. The temples remained in situ for another century, until one was removed to a nearby estate, the banker George Clive’s Mount Clare.
The other, larger temple, long since dismantled, lies, its component fragments fortunately numbered, in various parts of the Villa’s grounds.
Due to my family connection with this exquisite building, and in admiration for the unsurpassed teaching facility of Whitelands College (the fifth oldest educational institution in England) it now houses, I have offered to Chair an appeal to re-erect Lord Bessborough’s remaining Chambers-commissioned temple in the garden of Parkstead House.
Below is a photograph of the facade of the re-errected temple. Work is progressing on the building of the rear section.
Nicky Haslam
For more information regarding donations to: THE PONSONBY TEMPLE APPEAL
Please contact Gilly King at Parkstead House on gilly.king@roehampton.ac.uk
or at Parkstead House, Whitelands College, Holybourne Ave, Roehampton, SW15 4JD.
Tel: +44 (0) 208 392 3000
