Peep from their bowers to win his tide.
Beyond Teddington we are in Twickenham Reach:
Where silver Thames round Twit'nam meads
His winding current sweetly leads.
—Walpole.
There is a great bend at Twickenham, and in it the chimneys of Strawberry Hill may be seen overtopping the high evergreen hedge that surrounds it. The house has been altered considerably since Walpole's date, but in its essence it is the house he built. He himself describes his view thus:
Directly before it is an open grove through which you see a field, which is bounded by a serpentine wood of all kind of trees, and flowering shrubs, and flowers. The lawn before the house is situated on the top of a small hill from whence to the left you see the town and church of Twickenham, encircling a turn of the river, that looks exactly like a seaport in miniature. The opposite shore is a most delicious meadow, bounded by Richmond Hill, which loses itself in the noble woods of the park to the end of the prospect on the right, where is another turn of the river, and the suburbs of Kingston as luckily placed as Kingston is on the left.... You must figure that all this is perpetually enlivened by a navigation of boats and barges.
His architecture was a medley of everything that could by any possibility be included under the heading Gothic, and the result was more curious than beautiful, though it became the fashion to visit the house. Walpole bemoaned the crowds aloud, but secretly delighted in them. He published a description of the house, in the beginning of which he says he trusts it will be a lesson in taste to all who see it! An example of the suave self-belief of an egotist. At Twickenham there is another fantastic building called Pope's Villa. This can be seen much better from the river than Strawberry Hill can, and it is an affected piece of architecture. It has been described as "a combination of an Elizabethan half-timber house and a Stuart Renaissance, with the addition of Dutch and Swiss, Italian and Chinese features." This is not the house occupied by Pope, nor is it even exactly on the same site as his. In front of it is a group of weeping willows, a kind of tree which shows to particular advantage by the water-side. Pope himself is said to have been the first to introduce it into England, having found some sticks of it in a bundle sent to him from Spain by the Countess of Suffolk.
Pope lived at Twickenham from 1719 to 1744, and produced here most of his important works, including the last books of his Odyssey, the Dunciad and the famous Essay on Man. He was here visited by Gay and Swift, and many another contemporary whose name is still held in estimation. He laid out his grounds in a decorative way, and made a curious underground grotto, which lies away from the water, on the other side of the road. Among the celebrated men who have, at one time or another, lived at Twickenham are numbered Henry Fielding, Dr. Donne, Sir Godfrey Kneller, Tennyson, and Turner. The last-named was very fond of fishing, and used to fish a good deal in this part of the river.
There is a little esplanade at Twickenham, shaded by small horse-chestnuts, and in front lies the famous Eel-pie Island, which vies with Tagg's in summer popularity. The hotel has a pleasant garden, but the rest of the island is, it must be confessed, rather untidy, with several places for building motor launches and many boat-houses. At the small wharf opposite the church there are nearly always barges unloading bricks or sand and gravel. Yet the place has an air of dignity, perhaps given to it by the old Perpendicular stone tower of the church, so incongruously welded on to a red-brick pedimented Georgian building. The architect was the same who built St. George's, Hanover Square; but, as Sir Godfrey Kneller was churchwarden, one might have expected something in better taste. Pope is buried inside, and a flat slab with his initial letter on it now serves as a base for several pews. Not far from the church is York House, and with Orleans and Ham House on the other side of the river this is a notable group. In the great gardens of Orleans House grow splendid cedars, stone pines, and other evergreens. The little Duke of Gloucester, the only child who survived babyhood out of Queen Anne's enormous family, was brought here for his health in 1694. Six years later this quaint child, with a rickety body and an enormous head, died of small-pox at the age of eleven. The house was afterwards rebuilt. To it in 1800 came Louis Philippe, then Duc d'Orleans, and his two brothers. After his brief summer of prosperity in France, he returned to England as an exile in 1848; that he had a warm remembrance of the house is shown by his then purchasing it. He did not, however, live here himself, but placed his son, the Duc d'Aumale, in it, and a colony of royal refugees settled round. At Mount Lebanon, not far off, was the Prince de Joinville; and the Duc d'Aumale, having bought York House, gave it to his nephew the Comte de Paris, who lived there for six or seven years. Queen Anne was born in York House—it had been given to her mother's father, Lord Clarendon—and with her elder sister she spent her earliest years at Twickenham. All these notable houses and dignified memories are enough to account for the air of sober gravity never wholly absent from the river at Twickenham even on the brightest days; and the rows of Lombardy poplars, the magnificent cedars, and the fine foliage of the other trees enhance the impression. Ham House, on the other side, was built in 1611, it is said for Prince Henry, James I.'s eldest son. It is screened from the water by a row of tall trees. Around it grow Scotch firs and holm oaks.