10b. Inigo Jones Gateway
NARRATOR:
The gateway was designed by the celebrated architect Inigo Jones for Beaufort House in Chelsea in 1621. Lord Burlington admired Jones’s design and acquired the gateway in 1738 when his friend Hans Sloane was demolishing the house.
A poem by William Kent describes how the gateway came to Chiswick:
Ho! Gate, how came ye here?
I came fro’ Chelsea the last yere
Inigo Jones there put me together
Then was I dropping by wind and weather
Sir Hannes Sloane
Let me alone
But Burlington brought me hither
This architecton-ical
Gate Inigo Jon-ical
Was late Hans Slon-ical
And now Burlington-ical
Around 200 years after the gate had been installed, Chiswick became a public park. The mental asylum that the Tukes ran here closed in 1929 and the grounds and house were bought by Chiswick and Brentford Council. That same year, His Royal Highness Prince George officially opened the site to the public to be enjoyed by locals and visitors alike for relaxation and leisure.