It is fitting that we call the site of a building its footprint, since its impression provides us with tracks that we may follow into the past. If we could travel back in time 750 years, we would find a riotous gathering raising their tents south of a grand house built by King Henry III’s brother, Richard, Earl of Cornwall, on the Manor of Isleworth (later, Twickenham Park). We would be surrounded by open fields, with common meadows running along the west bank of the Thames.
To the south-west rises the Medieval village of Twickenham (around Church Street) on the higher ground beside the Twickenham Ait (Eel Pie Island), its buildings clustered around a church of Kentish rag stone (St Mary’s). There are water-mills, weirs and fisheries along the river, orchards and open farmland parched by drought. On 29 June 1263, the Manor of Isleworth played host to the historic Gathering of the Barons, where Simon de Montfort’s rebellious noblemen held a conference with the King that sowed the seeds for England’s first true Parliament. When one discovers historic maps the footprints become clearer, excitingly so. Shown here are two maps that were drawn in the nineteenth century but allow us to take our first steps much further back in time. The first, from 1879, is clearly marked with the Encampment of the Barons at the top of Twickenham Park. The second, from 1896, shows the development of the A-shaped crescent and houses of The Barons in the south-west corner. Viewing the same area on Googlemaps reveals how early development shaped the topography of the quarter-circle we see today bordered by the railway, the river and St Margarets Road. We can locate the luxury apartments at 20 The Barons, and begin to picture our place both in time and space: discovering how our own footprints rest solidly within those of our ancestors.
(For more information, and map source, see the excellent Twickenham Park Resident Association)
As the temperatures plummet, it is possible to embark on a historical journey without leaving the warmth of 20 The Barons. One needs merely to consider the address to venture beyond the building’s façade into the hidden story of its environs. The Barons derives its name from a key moment in the chronology of England and English democracy that occurred a few hundred metres away. On 29 June 1263, the parched fields of the 200-acre Manor of Isleworth (later Twickenham Park), were ablaze with the tents and fluttering standards of rebellious barons, the noblemen who held the key to the King’s power. The reign of King Henry III (1207–72) had been one of failed campaigns, famine, misrule and rebellion. Five years earlier, an uprising in London had imposed the Provisions of Oxford on Henry, requiring him to govern through an advisory council selected by the most powerful barons. By the summer of 1263, the King had overturned the Provisions through an appeal to the Pope, but his authority was hollow. In June, the historic Encampment of the Barons gathered under Simon de Montfort, Duke of Leicester, a French nobleman married to the King’s sister. Henry was holed up in his brother Richard’s nearby manor house. For a fortnight, the two sides parleyed as De Montfort sought to temper royal power with civil government. There was to be no peaceful solution. In the spring, the Manor of Isleworth and its watermills were sacked as civil war broke out, leading to the defeat and imprisonment of the King at the Battle of Lewes. De Montfort now called to Westminster Hall not just barons and church leaders, but two knights from each shire, and two citizens from every important town. This established England’s first true Parliament. Sadly, de Montfort did not live long enough to enjoy his revolutionary achievement. He was defeated and killed at Evesham by Henry’s son Edward, his head paraded around the country on a pole. But the noble gathering is commemorated at The Barons; the Manor of Isleworth would become the streets of St Margarets; and the principle of royal rule through parliamentary government was here to stay.
The wonderful phrase “The Lungs of London,” describing the green spaces that offer breathing space among the city’s urban sprawl, is attributed to 
