Study Abroad in London: Kenwood House & Sheila's 20th Birthday

This week I visited Kenwood house with my English Country Houses and Palaces class. Although normally I find my professor quite dull, I enjoyed this field trip because I recently wrote a paper on Kenwood House for this class. The house is famous because the Scottish architect Robert Adams redesigned it, added many additions on, and used this new development he had created: plaster. Plaster was much cheaper than stone and thus Adam tried to promoite it. He, however, had a very primitive mixture which has not withstood the stand of time. As a result, it needs some fixing up and next year will not be on display as it will be closed for restoration.

Front of Kenwood House. Architect: Robert Adams

Back of Kenwood

Additionally, Kenwood House, especially the gardens, appear in Hugh Grant's movie Notting Hill. There is a scene where Julia Roberts is in the backyard filming a movie and Hugh Grant watches from a distance. I went onto the grounds and saw this area!

The grounds, aka, the backyard. The bridge is fake, it is just a flat wall and it is just placed there to be an eye-catcher.

A picture from the filming of Notting Hill

Entrance into the backyard

The house is now owned by the government and is kept for viewing only. It is popular with dog walkers. The grounds are extensive in all directions around the house and are not for sale, but reserved for an area of peace, recreation and enjoyment. While I was there I saw a bunch of dogs!

Robert Adam's extravagant library

This is the library. It isn't really a library as most of the owner's collections are in his other house. There are many French mirrors in the library which tells us that it was used as a party room! (The mirrors are French because the English hadn't mastered making mirrors by this point in time.)

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This week was also Sheila's 20th birthday. We went to a bar in Soho called B2. It had over 190 mixed drinks, and had some amazing 2 for 1 deals. My roommate Jackie and I split raspberry collins which were quite yummy!