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A tour of St Margarets village

Residents at 20 The Barons are fortunate enough to find themselves at the centre of St Margarets Village, an area that combines the best of two worlds. It has a mainline railway station only 9 miles west of central London, yet retains the local atmosphere, community spirit, independent shops, and friendly pubs and restaurants of an old-fashioned village. Here we take a tour of St Margarets Village.

Tucked into an eastward curve of the Thames as the river progresses south to north, St Margarets is a parish of the London Borough of Richmond Upon Thames. Developed around the railway station that opened in 1876, its tree-lined streets see Victorian and Edwardian villas mingle with houses built between the wars. Covering a pear-shaped area, it is bordered to the north and west by the River Crane, to the east by the River Thames, and to the south by the Richmond Road, beyond which spread the riverside parks and stately homes of East Twickenham. Isleworth lies to the north, Twickenham to the south and west, Richmond across the river to the east.

Our tour begins with a short stroll from the train station to The Barons, where you will find Twickenham (TW1) Film Studios. The beating heart of St Margarets, and still thriving today, the studios date back a century to 1913 when they were built on the site of an old ice-rink. They played host to The Beatles for A Hard Day’s Night (1964), Help! (1965) and Let It Be (1970), and the Fab Four filmed several scenes around local streets such as Ailsa Road. The studios’ many film credits include Zulu (1963), Alfie (1965), The Eagle Has Landed (1976) and The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981).

A few strides from TW1 Studios you can enjoy a pint at St Margarets Pub and Tavern, a spacious and welcoming gastro-pub that stands at the junction of two prime shopping streets. Pointing south is Crown Road, whose delights include Vintage & Velvet, a treasure trove of vintage homeware; The Secret Wardrobe, a designer dress agency; Birkett Bespoke Tailoring; the exclusive styling of Dolly Rock; GAIA Wholefoods’ organic produce; the fresh bread and patisserie of La Boulangerie; and Zoran’s Delicatessan, with its legendary breakfasts and charming host. At the end of Crown Road is the newly re-vamped Crown pub serving fabulous pub food and wonderful evening meals in its beautiful restaurant. Pointing east to Richmond Bridge (and Richmond’s many wonders beyond), St Margaret’s Road is host to excellent independent shops including Armstrong’s Family Butchers and Streets Florist & Greengrocers, plus the local Post Office without which no proper village would be complete.

Tear yourself away from the shops in search of some history by heading south off St Margaret’s Road, and down Sandycombe Road to spot the blue plaque on Sandycombe Lodge. This was built in 1814 for J.M.W Turner, who painted many of the panoramic views that make any walking tour of St Margarets a delight. Turn left at the end of Sandycombe Road and head along Richmond Road to reach St Stephen’s Church, built in 1875 beside St Stephen’s Passage on a piece of land whose triangular shape explains why the church faces north rather than the traditional east. Look for fine Victorian stained-glass, and stone columns carved in the shapes of flowers from the garden of Henry Little, the first People’s Churchwarden.

South of Richmond Road, which forms the notional border between St Margarets and East Twickenham, glorious historic parks and houses adorn the north bank of the Thames. Walk south from St Stephen’s to Marble Hill House, a Georgian villa set within the 66 acres of Marble Hill Park. The magnificently proportioned house was built in 1729 in the Palladian style for Henrietta Howard, Countess of Suffolk, mistress of King George II, and friend to Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, John Gay and Horace Walpole.

Continue to the south-west corner of Marble Hill Park to discover Orleans House and Gardens. This Palladian villa was built in 1710 for the politician James Johnston, and named after the visiting Duke of Orleans. Much of the house was demolished in 1926, but the outbuildings and baroque Octagon Room survived and now house the excellent Orleans House Gallery and Stables Gallery. From the woodland gardens, you have the option of catching a ferry across the Thames to the National Trust’s Ham House, a seventeenth-century mansion built in 1610 and said to be haunted by the ghosts of the Duchess of Lauderdale and her dog. You could alternatively continue west to nearby and beautiful York House Gardens and the unique community at Eel Pie Island.

To continue our tour, follow a two-mile riverside walk east across Marble Hill Park; through Meadowbank and past Glover’s Island; through Cambridge Park Gardens and Cambridge Gardens; up to Richmond Bridge, built in 1777 on the site of the old ferry; up Ducks Walk to Twickenham Road bridge, and on up Ranelagh Drive, all the while enjoying the views across the Thames. You will eventually reach Richmond Lock and Footbridge. It was near here that Sir Archibald Kennedy, Lord Cassilis, 1st Marquis of Ailsa, built a new house in 1830 on the site of Lacey House. He called it St Margaret’s House, after the patron saint of Scotland, which is the source of the parish’s name. The house was itself demolished and replaced in 1851 by Kilmorey House, the residence of Jack Needham, 2nd Earl of Kilmorey, which itself no longer stands.

Ranelagh Drive joins St Margaret’s Drive which you can follow to the junction with St Margaret’s Road to enjoy a well-earned drink at the Ailsa Tavern. Just north of here on St Margaret’s Road is a hidden gem. An old, black door leads through a brick wall to Kilmorey Mausoleum. This grade II building, in the style of an Egyptian shrine, was built in 1854 by Jack Needham, 2nd Earl of Kilmorey, for his mistress Priscilla Hoste. It was once connected to nearby Gordon House by a secret tunnel, through which the Earl’s servant pushed him on a trolley, dressed in white and laying in the coffin that in 1880 became his eternal resting place. Well, St Margarets has never been short of eccentric local colour!

Head south along St Margaret’s Road to return to the railway station, and consider the street names—Kilmorey Gardens, Gordon Avenue, Ailsa Avenue—that commemorate the 19th-century landowners whose houses and estates grew into the unique community that is today’s St Margarets.

For further local information, check out the St Margarets Community Website:
http://www.stmgrts.org.uk/index.shtml

It’s A Wonderful Life

On 20 December, 20 The Barons celebrated its first birthday. So, how did The Baron and St Margaret mark the occasion? Well, they find nothing more festive than curling up with a glass of Champagne in front of the classic Christmas movie It’s A Wonderful Life, which shares our birthday, having premiered in New York on 20 December 1946. It is also showing at the Richmond Curzon on Water Lane on the 22nd, 24th and 26th December, a mere 20-minute walk across the Richmond Bridge. It’s A Wonderful Life tells the story of George Bailey (James Stewart), who contemplates jumping from a snowy bridge on Christmas Eve but is redeemed by his Guardian Angel, Second Class, Clarence Odbody, who shows him what life would have been like had he never existed. The screenplay was based on a 1943 short story ‘The Greatest Gift’ by Philip Van Doren Stern. Reminiscent of Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’, It's A Wonderful Life first appeared as a Christmas card sent to 200 friends by the author after he had failed to find a publisher. Directed by Frank Capra, the film’s satirical take on the greed of bankers (which attracted the interest of the FBI in 1947) makes it very topical viewing for today’s London. It also features Capra’s trademark raven (the bird appears in all his movies after You Can’t Take It With You (1938)), a reminder of one of the local stories of 2013: the killing by foxes of two ravens at the Tower of London, where a 350-year-old myth prophecies the fall of the monarchy should the famous birds disappear. If you’re dreaming of a white Christmas, you might note that It’s A Wonderful Life’s only Oscar was for Technical Achievement. This was won for the invention of a new form of artificial snow made from soap flakes, sugar and water. Previous films had used cornflakes painted white, which were so crunchy underfoot that the dialogue had to be dubbed! We’d like to thank all those guests and contributors who made our first year such a wonderful one, and recall the inscription written to George by his guardian angel: “Remember, no man is a failure who has friends.”

20 The Barons celebrates its first birthday

20 The Barons celebrates its first birthday this weekend. Here we offer up a choice of cocktails for guests to enjoy their complimentary bottle of bubbly.

The TW1 Twickenham Film Studios (TW1) is just around the corner, celebrating their 100th anniversary, so here’s a classic Champagne Cocktail as drunk by Victor Lazlo in Casablanca.

 

1 sugar cube
1 dash Angostura Bitters
1 measure Cognac
Champagne

Place sugar cube in a Champagne glass and soak with Angostura Bitters. Pour in Cognac then fill the glass to three-quarters with chilled Champagne.

The London 20
Better known as the classic French 75, and first made in 1915 at the New York Bar in Paris, this is the favourite tipple of St Margaret at 20 The Barons.

1 measure lemon juice
2 measures London Dry Gin
1 teaspoon sugar
Champagne

Fill a cocktail shaker with ice, lemon juice, gin and sugar. Shake well. Strain into a glass tumbler filled with ice and fill to three-quarters with Champagne.

The Baron’s Bubbles
The Baron believes in only one Champagne cocktail, and in honing the technique to drink it in the best possible way.

1 bottle Champagne

Chill your bottle for three hours in the fridge or one hour in an ice bucket. To open, hold the cork with one hand, hold the bottle at 45º with the other and twist it, so that the cork eases out not with a pop but a ‘sigh’. Hold the Champagne flute at 45º and fill two-thirds full. Always hold the flute by the stem to prevent warming the glass as this will diminish your bubbles. Never swirl, this will also reduce the fizz. A heavy stopper with a tight seal will keep Champagne fresh for the following day provided it is still half full, which it may not be at this celebratory time of year. If it is only one-third full, The Baron believes it really is best to enjoy the moment.

Happy Birthday to The Barons and here's to many more fine moments.

How Champagne Became Famous

On 20th December, 20 The Barons will celebrate its first birthday, and The Baron is inviting all guests to join us in a complimentary bottle of his favourite ‘bolly’. Here The Baron muses on how Champagne became famous. Fizz is always to the forefront at The Barons, but it’s only in the last 150 years that the exuberance of popping cork and flowing mousse have become the ubiquitous symbols of celebration. It was not until the early 1800s that the mastering of the methode champenoise saw the widespread production of sparkling wines in the Champagne region; and only in the 1850s did manufacturers begin producing the dry Champagnes that seduced the British palette. As the Champagne became drier, life became sweeter, and after 1880 a syndicate of producers drove one of the great advertising campaigns to promote Champagne as the symbol of the Belle Époque. Champagne was portrayed as an aristocratic drink, but one that the expanding middle classes could enjoy on special occasions: not merely aspirated but aspirational. In London in 1866, music hall star George Leybourne wrote the hit song Champagne Charlie and established one of the first celebrity endorsements, drinking nothing but Champagne in public. In 1882, British author Henry Vizetelly noted in A History of Champagne: “We cannot open a railway, launch a vessel, inaugurate a public edifice, start a newspaper, entertain a distinguished foreigner, invite a leading politician to favour us with his views on things in general, celebrate an anniversary, or specially appeal on behalf of a benevolent institution without a banquet, and hence without the aid of Champagne, which, at the present day, is the obligatory adjunct of all such repasts.” Artists such as Alphonse Mucha, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec and Pierre Bonnard created glamorous Art Nouveau posters. Champagne became de rigeur at weddings and christenings; and then at the christening of ships and airplanes. In 1902, Moët & Chandon became the toast of the newspapers when they replaced a bottle of German sparkling wine with one of their own for the launching in New York of the German emperor’s yacht, Meteor. Champagne was quaffed by Hollywood heartthrobs and leading ladies in numerous movies and cracked open to celebrate sporting success, a tradition that has continued to this day. The Baron will tell anyone who will listen that he shares his weakness for Bollinger with James Bond, who quaffs its prestige cuvées in the majority of his films. Bollinger is also the official champagne of England Rugby, so The Baron has regularly sampled their hospitality just up the road at Twickenham. Perhaps then, we should leave the last word on Champagne to Lily Bollinger: “I drink it when I’m happy and when I’m sad. Sometimes I drink it when I’m alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I’m not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it… unless I’m thirsty.”

Top 20 Historical Artists

The inspiring landscape around St Margarets has for centuries inspired writers, artists and musicians to take up residence. Here’s a list of Top 20 historical artists from 20 The Barons, arranged in chronological order:
1. Geoffrey Chaucer (1343–1400), author of The Canterbury Tales, served in Richmond as the Yeoman of the King’s Chamber.
2. Alexander Pope (1688–1744), poet and satirist, from 1719 lived in Twickenham Park where he built a famous grotto.
3. James Thomson (1700–1748), poet, writer of The Seasons, lived from 1736 in a cottage in Kew Foot Lane, Richmond.
4. Henry Fielding (1707–1754), author of Tom Jones, in 1747 took lodgings in Twickenham.
5. Kitty Clive (1711–1785), comic actress, retired in 1769 to Little Strawberry Hill House, Twickenham.
6. Horace Walpole (1717–1797), author of The Castle of Otranto, in 1747 began developing his Gothic castle at Strawberry Hill.
7. Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792), painter, lived from 1772 at Wick House, Richmond Hill.
8. J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851), painter, from 1807 commissioned the building of Sandycombe Lodge, Twickenham.
9. Edmund Kean (1787–1833), actor, in 1831 rented the Richmond Theatre and the house next door.
10. Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809–1892), Poet Laureate, lived from 1851 in Chapel House, Montpelier Row, Twickenham.
11. Charles Dickens (1812–1870), writer and social critic, in 1838 rented a house in Ailsa Park Villas near present-day St Margarets station.
12. George Eliot (1819–1880), author of Middlemarch, lived from 1855 at Park Shot, Richmond.
13. Sir Richard Burton (1821–1890), writer and explorer, was schooled at the Richmond Academy, on the corner of Little Green and Duke Street, Richmond.
14. Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1837–1915), writer of “sensational” fiction, lived from the 1860s in Lichfield House, Sheen Road, Richmond.
15. Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), philosopher and writer, grew up at Pembroke Lodge, Richmond Park.
16. Walter de la Mere (1873–1956), poet and author, lived from 1940 at Southend House, Montpelier Row, Twickenham.
17. Gustav Holst (1874–1934), composer of The Planets, lived from 1903 on Gretna Road, Richmond.
18. Flora Thompson (1876–1947), author of the Larkrise to Candleford trilogy, worked in Twickenham post office in 1902, today the Oxfam shop on King Street.
19. Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) lived from 1915 in Hogarth House, Paradise Road, Richmond.
20. Noel Coward (1899–1973), playwright and actor, born in Teddington in 1899, at 131 Waldegrave Road.

The Twickenham Parakeets

On his daily constitutional (a highly recommended wander east from 20 The Barons, along St Margarets Road, over Richmond Bridge, and on up Richmond Hill), The Baron never fails to be enchanted by a quirk of the local fauna. The first hint of something unusual is a loud screeching from the treetops that takes him back to his glory days in Asia. As The Baron gazes at the glorious views over Terrace Gardens along the course of the Thames, the sky is lit up by the formation fly-past of a dozen dazzling, lime-green birds. These are the famous Twickenham Parakeets, which have adapted so well to life in Thames Valley suburbia that they now number in their thousands. They are ring-necked parakeets (Psittacula krameri), the only naturalised parrot in the UK. Large and long-tailed, with a direct and pointy-winged flight, their plumage is an array of greens, their beaks the red of an alluring lipstick. A ring of pink and black encircles their necks, giving the impression of a drooping Movember moustache. Richmond Park is at the heart of their distribution, and they are common visitors to local bird tables. Their raucous roosting at such locations as Esher Rugby Ground is among London’s most spectacular twilight experiences. The ring-necked parakeet is native to India, but its origins in the foothills of the Himalayas explain the species’ capacity to survive an English winter. First bred in Britain in 1855, the parakeets did not colonise London’s parks until the 1960s. A population explosion in the ’90s might perhaps be linked to our warming climate. The birds thrive on a plentiful supply of buds and seeds from beech and sweet chestnut, and nest in the tree-hole homes of native nuthatches and woodpeckers. Several urban myths have taken flight around their origins. One traces the birds’ family tree to a breeding pair released on Carnaby Street in the 1960s by Jimi Hendrix, who would no doubt be delighted by the psychedelic flourish their little wings bring to the traditional landscape. Another suggests the original birds escaped from Isleworth Studios, Middlesex, in 1951, during the filming of The African Queen starring Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn. Whatever the truth, the exotic appearance of the Twickenham Parakeets cannot but gladden the heart on a cold winter’s morning.