Chiswick House & Gardens Trust (CHGT) is delighted to today (March 18th) announce a key funding milestone in its plans to transform underused ‘back of house’ areas into thriving new facilities for the local community.

Thanks to a generous £400,000 grant from the London Borough of Hounslow, distributed as part of its Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) funding, CHGT has now raised over £2.5 million – an exciting 75% of the total needed – for the creation of a brand-new Learning Hub. This includes generous support from the Clore Duffield Foundation, for a new Clore Learning Space in the Hub, Garfield Weston Foundation, Foyle Foundation, Wolfson Foundation, Kusuma Trust and the Bernard Sunley Foundation.

Chiswick House and Gardens regularly hosts school groups, with visiting children and educators getting the chance to explore nature in its working Kitchen Garden and wider grounds, but its current resources are limited.

The creation of the planned Learning Hub will allow CHGT to host over 7000 horticultural and creative learning activities annually, enabling a dramatic expansion of its effective and wide-reaching community programme and the launch of a full programme for schools.

The Learning Hub is part of a major £6m redevelopment project that will open up hidden areas of the estate to:

• create fairly-priced new workspaces for local artists and craftspeople, in partnership with London-based charity Artist Studio Company,
• transform a lost 17th century walled garden into a community fruit garden, and;
• construct a new workbase for volunteers

These practical and welcoming new facilities will support CHGT’s charitable mission by providing much-needed spaces for local community groups and young people to spend time in nature, learn, and come together, as well as creating vital new sources of income to support CHGT’s work.

Construction of the artist workspaces, made possible by generous funding from the London Borough of Hounslow, the Mayor of London Creative Enterprise Zone, Linbury Trust and the Wolfson Foundation, is already underway, with CHGT expecting to welcome the first artists in late spring. Work on the Learning Hub is set to begin this winter.

Alexis Moline, Schools & Community Coordinator at Chiswick House & Gardens Trust, said:

“With its rich history, commitment to environmental sustainability, and a highly enthusiastic team, Chiswick House & Gardens is a place where learners and educators feel free to be curious and connect with one another. We’re so pleased to acknowledge this generous grant from the London Borough of Hounslow, which brings us closer to the creation of the Learning Hub, and to the expansion of our learning programme, across the next five years and beyond.”

Xanthe Arvanitakis, Director of Chiswick House and Gardens Trust, said:

‘‘Chiswick House & Gardens Trust is delighted by this enormously generous grant from Hounslow Council, which brings us significantly closer to starting work on our Learning Hub. Its creation will enable us to dramatically increase the number of people our dedicated Community and Schools team are able to reach, cementing Chiswick House’s place at the heart of Hounslow’s community.”

Cllr Tom Bruce, deputy leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Assets, Regeneration and Development, said:

“We are pleased to support the Chiswick House & Gardens Trust through our Community Infrastructure Levy funds. This grant underscores our commitment to enriching community spaces and fostering educational opportunities within Hounslow. The Learning Hub will be a beacon of community learning and engagement, offering over 7,000 horticultural and creative activities each year. By revitalising underused areas and supporting local artists and volunteers, we are not only preserving our heritage but also nurturing a vibrant future for our community. This project exemplifies some of the benefits that come with new development in the brough, in this case with CIL funding received from new developments invested to create lasting benefits for our residents and help build stronger, more connected communities.”

• Find out more about the Studios
• Find out more about the Community and Creative campus