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.