The Friends exists to support the House and Gardens on behalf of the local community, but is a completely independent body from the Trust that runs Chiswick House and Gardens. We work closely with the Trust and most of our funding goes to support its work. This year it will be 35 years since the Friends was formed: in this article we look at some highlights.

Since the Friends were formed in 1984, we have contributed £446,000 to more than 100 causes of one kind or another. Broadly, these contributions can be summarised under the following headings:

Garden Restoration & Contents

Cascade Restoration

Items for House, eg paintings

Venus Statue

Melon House Restoration

Camellia Festival Sponsorship

Equipment (eg Warden's buggy)

Contributions from Dog Show

Grants, Education, Concerts, Talks Other

The contributions peaked in the years from 2009, when we were running the Opera, as can be seen from the graph below:

We have always appreciated garden furniture, and designed and commissioned three benches over the years - two for the House and one for the Patte d'Oie in memory of Ted Fawcett. The House benches were installed in 2005, see below:

In 2009, we commissioned and installed a replacement Venus statue for the Rose Garden from a sculptor in Yorkshire who carved the figure from a slab of Portland stone. In September this year, she will have been in place for 10 years!

We raised substantial funds over ten years by running the Friends Opera over one, and later two, evenings. Our stalwart Opera Committee - now sadly disbanded - was keen to fund a single large project with some of the revenue, and over the period 2014/15 suggested that we should donate £100,000 towards restoration of the Melon House. This was originally built in the nineteenth century and provides much needed propagation space for the Gardens. It has now been brilliantly restored.

At present, most of our income goes towards support for events such as the Camellia Festival. However, we have made several proposals to the Chiswick House and Gardens Trust for new projects to support its work, and we look forward to engaging with The Trust on further initiatives.

The Friends have always sought to keep the local community engaged and informed. Apart from the website and twice yearly newsletter, we organised an extensive survey of our members in 2008 to find out exactly what they wanted in the £12m Lottery-funded restoration of the Gardens. Their views were sought on the café, the treatment of the Northern Wilderness and the proposals for further dog restrictions. We took the resulting information to the Lottery Project team and managed to get some of the more draconian proposals modified to an acceptable level.

A good deal of our funding has gone on education, including a grant of £6000 to the Chiswick Community School and the sponsoring of a number of lectures, concerts and tours.

We have always supported those stalwarts of the Gardens, the dog-walkers, and we installed the black dog-litter bins at the time of the Lottery project. We also host the annual Dog Show - now the most popular of its kind in West London, and our brilliant Dog Show team is already planning the September 2019 event.

In the House, we have contributed towards the purchase of various items including four paintings by Rysbrack which depict scenes of the Gardens and were commissioned by Lord Burlington in the 1730s, and a pair of eighteenth century giltwood tables with inlaid marble tops.

Friends for 35 Years