{"id":19286,"date":"2026-08-24T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=19286"},"modified":"2026-08-13T14:40:49","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T13:40:49","slug":"gunnersbury-park-brentford-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=19286","title":{"rendered":"Gunnersbury Park & Brentford – 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Gunnersbury
Gunnersbury House Museum – the ‘Large Mansion<\/em>‘<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Gunnersbury Park & Brentford:<\/strong> Another family outing on Friday 24th August 2018 took us to Gunnersbury House Museum, a free museum jointly owned by the London Borough of Hounslow and the London Borough of Ealing. It turned out to be considerably more interesting than I expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lionel Road – now the site of Brentford Community Stadium<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The 200 acre Gunnersbury estate<\/a> was bought in 1925 from the Rothschild family by Ealing Borough Council and Acton Borough Council for \u00a3130,000, although it was all actually just outside their areas and in Brentford Urban District. They wanted to build over it, but the Rothschilds stipulated that all except a small part of it it was only to be used for leisure and recreation and it was opened to the public as a park by Neville Chamberlainn, then Minister of Health, in 1926.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The elevated section of the M4 above the Great West Rd<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Development of the site as a ‘country estate’ on the outskirts of London had begun in the late 17th century when the first large mansion, Gunnersbury House was built around 1663. The estate passed through various hands including wealthy merchant and MP Henry Furnese who had noted landscape designer William Kent give the park a makeover. Next Princess Amelia, favourite daughter of George II, had further changes made to the grounds for her famous parties there, including building a bathhouse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Gunnersbury
The temple is the only 18th century building remaining on site<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The first mansion was demolished in 1801 and the estate was split into two adjoining estates each with a new mansion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Gunnersbury
A long series of rooms faces the garden in the ‘Large mansion’<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Grade II* listing<\/a> for the ‘Large Mansion’ states it was built in “1801-28 by and for Alexander Copland; remodelled 1836 by Sydney Smirke for Nathan Mayer Rothschild, the City financier and Frankfurt-born founder of the British branch of this famous international Jewish banking dynasty<\/em>.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Gunnersbury
The ‘Small Mansion’ still in rather poor condition<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Next door the “Small Mansion”, on the site of the former mansion was built in 1801-1802 for Stephen Cosser according its Grade II listing<\/a>, though other sources place it a few years later. It was extended with a service wing in 1837-44 by eccentric “Rogue Gothic” architect Joseph Peacock (1821\u20131893).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Rothschilds had two French chefs who shared this office<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Rothschilds bought the Large Mansion (now the museum) and its gardens and park in 1835, adding the Small Mansion and its grounds in 1889 to recreate the now Grade II* listed Gunnersbury Park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Large prints from Leopold de Rothschild’s Autochromes show the place as it was over a hundred years ago – with flamingos<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I walked with Linda to the park from Kew Bridge Station along Lionel Road “with some difficulty as it is now a building site and crossed the Great West Road under the overhead M4, a Ballardian trek past the old and closed castellated gate to the park to enter into a sylvan wilderness, walking past the Potomac lake and its gothic folly.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The garden slopes down from the house to a lake<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Older members of our party took a shorter walk from the underground at Acton Central. Lionel Road is now overlooked by Brentford Community Stadium opened in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Princess Amelia’s Bath House<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The park is certainly worth a visit and on My London Diary you can read more about what were for me the two highlights.These were the huge Rothschild’s kitchens where meals, not generally kosher, were prepared under the supervision of two French chefs, and a display of large prints from the Autochromes taken by Leopold de Rothschild using the first practical colour photography process patented by the Lumiere brothers in 1903 and sold to the public from 1907.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I made a new picture as we passed a cafe I photographed almost 30 years earlier <\/a>on our way to Kew Bridge<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We ate, not from those kitchens but from the modern park caf\u00e9, “tasty but rather insubstantial, and if you visit and are hungry, I’d advise a side order of chips<\/em>” – or a short walk to a cheaper place near Acton Town station.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Thames and Brentford Ait from under Kew Bridge<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After the meal we said goodbye to the others and took a longer walk around the park before walking back to Kew Bridge station. With almost half and hour to wait for the next train we took a short walk by the River Thames to Brentford High Street and back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mooring on The Hollows<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

You can read more about our trip to the park and the museum and see many more pictures from the day on My London Diary at Gunnersbury Park & Brentford<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Flickr<\/a> – Facebook<\/a> – My London Diary<\/a> – Hull Photos<\/a> – Lea Valley<\/a> – Paris<\/a>
London’s Industrial Heritage<\/a> – London Photos<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All photographs on this page are copyright \u00a9 Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gunnersbury Park & Brentford: Another family outing on Friday 24th August 2018 took us to Gunnersbury House Museum, a free museum jointly owned by the London Borough of Hounslow and the London Borough of Ealing. It turned out to be considerably more interesting than I expected. The 200 acre Gunnersbury estate was bought in 1925 … Continue reading Gunnersbury Park & Brentford – 2018<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,3],"tags":[25278,25280,3902,7812,25279,5620,25277,3950,25271,25268,25267,1277,25275,19470,25269,25282,21281,17,1343,25281,21314,15862,3309,25273,83,25272,200,25274,25276,25270,9641,433,7814],"class_list":["post-19286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-londonphotos","category-my-own-work","tag-acton-central","tag-autochromes","tag-brentford","tag-brentford-ait","tag-brentford-community-stadium","tag-ealing","tag-french-chefs","tag-gunnersbury","tag-gunnersbury-house","tag-gunnersbury-house-museum","tag-gunnersbury-park","tag-hounslow","tag-kaitchens","tag-kew-bridge-station","tag-large-mansion","tag-leopold-de-rothschild","tag-lionel-rd","tag-london","tag-london-photos","tag-lumiere-brothers","tag-m4","tag-mooring","tag-museum","tag-nathan-mayer-rothschild","tag-peter-marshall","tag-princess-amelia","tag-river-thames","tag-rothschild-family","tag-rothschilds-kitchens","tag-small-mansion","tag-the-hollows","tag-walk","tag-william-kent"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19286"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19287,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19286\/revisions\/19287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}