TURNER’S HOUSE TRUST

Turner’s House Trust, a registered Charity, runs the building as a small historic house and visitor attraction, with an associated programme of events and activities. This use of the building is entirely congruent with its’ small domestic character and intimate scale of the rooms

CONSERVATION PHILOSOPHY

The overarching philosophy behind the repair and conversion of Sandycombe Lodge has been to return the building to Turner’s vision. Soon after Turner’s departure in 1926, Sandycombe Lodge was greatly altered by the addition of upper floors to the side wings, and a further clumsy 20th century bathroom extension. In a radical and interventionist approach, ‘creative demolition’ has been used to remove the post-Turner material, prioritizing Turner’s work, and crystallizing the project as the conservation of the only architectural work of ‘the great magician’, England’s eminent landscape painter.

RESEARCH AND REFERENCES

Turner’s own sketchbooks have been a fundamental reference in understanding his thinking about the building. The earliest surviving evidence that Turner not only planned to build a house but to ‘be ones own architect, the pleasures increasing day by day, strata by strata ‘ (as he later wrote to a friend), comes in the large number of drawings in his sketchbooks from 1810 -1812. These sketches show the rear or side elevations, and Turner’s plans for his house. Contemporary engravings by others illustrate the rear of the building in its (then) picturesque rural setting.

THE BUILDING REVEALS A SURPRISE

A significant and unexpected challenge in the project emerged when the side wings were lowered and the flank walls of the main block of the house were revealed for the first time in nearly 200 years. We were expecting to find original stucco or render on these flank walls, but instead we found facing brick with penny lined pointing, clear evidence that the walls of the building were fair-faced brickwork. In response to this revelation, the project team had to rapidly and deftly digest and analyze the building’s implicit new identity – not a ‘polite’ and pretty Regency villa, but a more solemn brick structure.

INFORMATION

Completion:

2018

Client:

Turner’s House Trust

Location:

Twickenham, London

Cost:

£2.4 million.
Heritage Lottery Fund grant of £1.4 million

AWARDS

RIBA Awards 2018

RIBA London Conservation Award
RIBA London Award

Civic Voice Design Awards 2018

Winner of  The People’s Award
Highly commended in the Historic Buildings category

Brick Awards 2018

Highly Commended

RICS Award 2018

Shortlisted, Building Conservation category