Only one tube station is named after a 400 year old house.
What's more that house has recently been restored, it's very splendid, and visiting it is free.
This is Boston Manor, or more accurately Boston Manor House, which can be found a little to the north of Brentford. It was built in 1623, so it really is 400 years old this year, at the behest of a rich widow called Mary Reade. Her husband had been gifted the manor of Boston by James I so where better to build herself a three storey home than amid meadows by the river Brent. Originally the extent of the house was just the two gables on the left, with the third added in the 1670s by new owner James Clitherow, a merchant banker. His family owned the house until 1922 when it became too costly to repair, finally scuppered by a huge bill for replumbing, after which Brentford Urban District Council bought it and opened up the estate as a public park.
The manor house has proved an expensive purchase. It needed renovating in 1963, back when it was a training centre for the National Institute of Houseworkers, and its re-opening was celebrated by a visit from the Queen Mother. When I last visited in 2010 it was on the Heritage At Risk register, upstairs was out of bounds and the southwest corner was propped up by scaffolding. Thankfully a five-year restoration project has put all that to rights and the house reopened to the public last month. Much of the funding came from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and other trusts, but it's still impressive that Hounslow council stepped in and took charge rather than let the building decay. What's more the restoration is top-class, be that woodwork, wallpaper or plasterwork, indeed you don't come to Boston Manor to see a museum, you're here to admire a building.
Because it's council-owned there isn't an admission fee nor a gift shop, you just walk in and the nice lady on reception invites you to take a look around. No fixed route is provided but I wish I'd started by turning right because that's where the potted history of the house is, to help you get your bearings. A simple timeline on the wall has been augmented by occasional audio-visual effects, while some embossed throwbacks to the Queen Mum's visit are propped up in a small glass case. Turn left and you end up instead in the dining room, decorated as it would have been in the 1830s when the house's most famous visitor turned up. William IV came to dinner with the Clitherows in 1834 and sat with 19 guests in this very room, this the first time he'd dined in a commoner's house while King. You got a lot of banquet for £50 in those days.
The back room - the old library - is chocker with displayboards trumpeting the intricacies of the recent restoration. How they chose the right paint, how they redid the woodwork, even how they matched the residual fibres of the wallpaper, that kind of thing. A fragment of 18th century wallpaper survives on the main staircase, just above the first floor landing, which you can pop up and see behind a protective sheet of glass. It depicts classical ruins, each somewhat on the large side, and would have been the height of fashion in the 1750s. Conservators have since reconstructed the full repeating pattern and papered the entire staircase with it, although I confess I found the overall effect somewhat oppressive.
While upstairs you may meet three more former owners of the house, each envisaged as a grey statue and each of whom will tell you their life story once you've triggered their sensor. But the real treasure on the first floor is the State Drawing Room, or more particularly its astonishingly complex plasterwork ceiling. The design is the 1620 original, as paid for by Lady Mary, and is chockfull with symbolism and fine detail. Represented here are birds, animals, flowers and cherubs, plus (in female form) the five senses, the four elements and the three graces, while the elaborate mantle above the fireplace depicts the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham. Mirrors are provided so you can scrutinise without cricking your neck, and in a really nice touch you can emboss your own design onto a piece of card and walk away with it.
The servants' stair will take you back down (or alternatively the lift because everything bar the wallpaper fragment is now fully accessible). This'll filter you gently towards the cafe, should you fancy a pot of tea and/or an apricot danish on the terrace to round off your visit. Alternatively there's a less swish cafe a short walk away, just past the walled garden and the outdoor gym, frequented by some of Boston Manor Park's more everyday users. It's a fine park, as you'd expect from somewhere that was once a private estate, with everything from a lake and massive cedars of Lebanon to tennis courts, shootable hoops and a children's playground. Plus that one additional feature no municipal park ever wants... a 17-span elevated motorway.
When engineers came to plot the path of the M4 out of London this was the point where it bore off from the Great West Road and diverted into a convenient green corridor along the River Brent. A lengthy concrete viaduct soon scarred the estate, opened to traffic in 1965, and millions of vehicles have since passed through the park without ever properly seeing it. From the house the motorway is blanketed by a shield of trees but you only have to walk a short distance into the woods and there it lurks, a concretecentipede stretching off into the distance. What's more access underneath is unrestricted so you can follow it for a good quarter of a mile across the park, over the Brent and onto the Ballardian outpost of Clitherow's Island. Lady Mary would weep.
Boston Manor House basics Cost: free Open: 12 noon to 5pm, every day except Monday Location: Boston Manor Rd, Brentford TW8 9JX Nearest tube station: obvious Time to allocate: at least half an hour Website:bostonmanorhouse.org
The house team are putting on lots of events and workshops to get visitors involved, for example today a wallpaper printing workshop, two live interpretation tours and two theatre shows. They're also looking for volunteers to help out with stewarding and to undertake research for future exhibitions, should you be local enough and generous with your time. You could also combine your visit with some of the other local historic houses, of which Hounslow has a seriously impressive abundance. Some councils really do go the extra mile.
