Chiswick House. Chiswick House is a Palladian villa in Chiswick, in the west of London, England. A glorious example of Neo-Palladian architecture in London, the house was built and designed by Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington, and completed in 1729. The house and gardens occupy 26.33 hectares; the gardens were created mainly by architect and landscape designer William Kent. The garden is one of the earliest examples of the English landscape garden. After the death of its builder and original occupant in 1753 and the subsequent deaths of his last surviving daughter, Charlotte Boyle in 1754, and his widow in 1758, the property was ceded to William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire, Charlotte's husband. After William's death in 1764, the villa passed to his and Charlotte's orphaned young son, William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire. His wife, Georgiana Spencer, a prominent and controversial figure in fashion and politics whom he married in 1774, used the house as a retreat and as a Whig stronghold for many years; it was the place of death of Charles James Fox in 1806. Prime Minister George Canning also died there in 1827. During the 19th century the house fell into decline, and was rented out by the Cavendish family. It was used as an asylum, the Chiswick Asylum from 1892. In 1929, the 9th Duke of Devonshire sold Chiswick House to Middlesex County Council, and it became a fire station. The villa suffered damage during World War II, and in 1944 a V-2 rocket damaged one of the two wings. The wings were demolished in 1956. Today the house is a Grade I listed building, and is maintained by English Heritage. The original Chiswick House was a Jacobean house owned by Sir Edward Wardour, and possibly built by his father. It is dated c. 1610 in a late 17th-century engraving of the Chiswick House estate by Jan Kip and Leonard Knyff, and was constructed with four sides around an open courtyard. Wardour sold the house to Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset in 1624. The house was quite large: in the 1664 Hearth Tax documents it is recorded as having 33 fireplaces. The house was at the south end of the Royalist line in the Battle of Turnham Green, during the First English Civil War. The house was purchased by Charles Boyle, 3rd Viscount Dungarvan in 1682. The Jacobean house was used by the Boyle family as a summer retreat from their central London home, Burlington House. After a fire in 1725, Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington, then head of the family, decided to build a new villa to the west of the old Chiswick House. During his trip to Italy in 1719, Burlington had acquired a passion for Palladian architecture. He had not closely inspected Roman ruins or made detailed drawings on the sites in Italy; he relied on Palladio and Scamozzi as his interpreters of the classic tradition. Another source of his inspiration were drawings he collected, including those of Palladio himself, which had belonged to Inigo Jones and his pupil John Webb. According to Howard Colvin, Burlington's mission was to reinstate in Augustan England the canons of Roman architecture as described by Vitruvius, exemplified by its surviving remains, and practised by Palladio, Scamozzi and Jones. Burlington, himself a talented amateur architect and Apollo of the Arts, designed the villa with the aid of William Kent, who also took a leading role in designing the gardens. Burlington built the villa with enough space to house his art collection, regarded as containing some of the best pictures in Europe, and his more select pieces of furniture, some of which was purchased on his first Grand Tour of Europe in 1714. Construction of the villa took place between 1726 and 1729. After Burlington's death in 1753, his wife, Lady Dorothy Savile, and daughter, Charlotte, who had married William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire in 1748, inherited the house. Charlotte died in December 1754, and Lady Burlington died in September 1758. After the death of Lady Burlington in 1758, the villa and gardens passed to the Cavendish family. William Cavendish died in 1764, leaving the property to his son William, the 5th Duke of Devonshire. In 1774, William married Lady Georgiana Spencer, the Duchess of Devonshire, who enjoyed spending time at Chiswick which she referred to as her earthly paradise. She regularly invited members of the Whig party to the house for tea parties in the garden. In 1788 the Cavendish family demolished the Jacobean house and hired architect John White to add two wings to the villa to increase the amount of accommodation.