Hogarth's House

Hogarth’s House was, from 1749 until his death, the country retreat of 18th-century artist and social commentator William Hogarth (1697-1764). Craving somewhere to escape the noise of central London (his previous home was in what is now Leicester Square), he bought the house when this was still very much a rural area. The house has been superbly restored and is now a museum dedicated to Hogarth’s life, displaying works such as 'Gin Lane', 'Marriage A-la-Mode' and a copy of 'The Four Stages of Cruelty'. The panelled rooms also house replica pieces of eighteenth-century furniture commissioned from the Chiswick Art-Workers' Guild by Lieutenant-Colonel Shipway, who rescued the house and opened it to the public as a museum dedicated to Hogarth in 1904. The gallery in the former kitchen wing hosts a changing programme of exhibitions. In the garden are mulberry trees, the fruit from which the Hogarths are said to have made mulberry pies for the Foundling children who stayed with them. Hogarth is buried in the nearby church of St Nicholas, past the horrible roundabout to the river.