A crowdfunding campaign has been launched to restore J.M.W. Turner’s former home in Twickenham, west London. The artist designed and built Sandycombe Lodge in 1813; his guests at the villa located near the Thames included the architect Sir John Soane.
The campaign aims to raise £25,000; the total currently stands at £3,845 (deadline of 7 March). The restoration cost is £2.4m, with £125,000 still required; the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Architectural Heritage Fund have contributed.
“Until all the money is raised our work is not done,” says Catherine Parry-Wingfield, the chairman of Turner’s House Trust in a statement. “We do not want to take up a loan we have no funds to repay. Meeting the funding gap is now urgent.” The trust hopes to begin the conservation work early April and open the residence to the public next year.
The Grade II-listed house suffers from damp and decay, and is on Historic England’s Heritage at Risk register. The Regency house and its original features, as well as parts of the surviving garden, will be revamped as part of the overhaul.
The official website for Turner’s House Twickenham gives a detailed history of the residence, stating that “Sandycombe Lodge provided a home for his father, old William, in retirement from his trade as a barber and wigmaker in Covent Garden, and with old William’s declining health and changes in his own life, Turner sold the house in 1826.”