Woodlands House is a Georgian villa, next door to Mycenae House, Mycenae Road, in the Westcombe Park area of Greenwich, east London, England.
The building was built on a site leased in 1774 from Sir Gregory Page by John Julius Angerstein (a Lloyd's underwriter whose art collection was bought in 1824 to form the nucleus of the National Gallery, London). While Angerstein occupied a house in nearby Crooms Hill, Greenwich, the villa was constructed over the next two years to a design by local architect George Gibson[1] and was completed in the summer of 1776.
It was described in Lyson's Environs of London (1796) as:
- "a charming small villa … and commands a pleasing but distant view of the Thames. … The face of the building is a beautiful and apparently very durable stucco; and the front, which has a handsome portico, is enriched by two niches, one on each side, containing elegant statues, representing the young Apollo and the Dancing Faun."
Angerstein extended Woodlands in the late 18th century, adding a west wing, conservatory, out-buildings and a stable and riding school (most of these were demolished after the sale of the Westcombe estates in 1876). After Angerstein's death in 1823, the property became the family home of his son John Angerstein (who was elected Liberal MP for Greenwich in 1835 and devoted much of his time to development of the Angerstein estates).
In the late 1890s, the property was purchased by the shipbuilder Sir Alfred Fernandez Yarrow. It became the Yarrow family home and later, during the First World War, served as a hostel for Belgian refugees. In the 1920s, it was sold to a Catholic religious order, the Little Sisters of the Assumption, for use as a convent.
Woodlands Art Gallery
Acquired by the London Borough of Greenwich in 1967, the house opened as a local history library and contemporary art gallery — known as Woodlands Art Gallery — in 1972. It held an extensive range of exhibitions.
In October 2003, the local history library was moved to a new site on the Royal Arsenal site in Woolwich[2] - now the Greenwich Heritage Centre[3], and the gallery subsequently closed. The council sought proposals to redevelop Woodlands House, the adjacent Mycenae House and surrounding grounds, with a proposal incorporating premises for a local Steiner School being approved in July 2006.[4]
References
- ^ Rhind, N. (1983) Blackheath Village & Environs, 1790–1970, Vol 2 (Bookshop Blackheath, London), p.274.
- ^ http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/archive/display.var.398196.0.combined_services.php
- ^ http://www.greenwich.gov.uk/Greenwich/LeisureCulture/HistoryAndHeritage/HeritageCentre
- ^ http://www.thisislewisham.co.uk/display.var.818117.0.school_secures_150year_lease.php