History Obliterated

A Memory of Cowley.

Travelling from Uxbridge along Cowley Rd, on the right hand side just before Ferndale Crescent, stood a detached double fronted 3 storey house in a large neglected garden. It was plain Georgian architecture and had a large cast iron and glass Victorian palmhouse added on. The palms had long since burst through the roof and the rest of the vegetation was overgrown and pressing against the the glass panes. Approached by a semi circular driveway, it had been, until fairly recently, a private hotel but now lay dark and deserted. The property was bought by developers. Nothing unusual about that. Middlesex was at that time peppered with deserted Georgian or Regency mansions that fell victim to the bulldozer - and in many cases without a murmer of protest.
This house proved to be an exception as somebody woke up to the fact that this had once been the country home of the famous actor David Garrick (1717-1779). Local history and theatrical societies set up a howl, but the process had gone too far and as this was a private development scheme rather than a municipal one, very hard to halt.
As the demolition process advanced it was found that under layers of victorian whitewash were ceiling panels painted by Angelica Kauffman (1741-1807 and the second woman to be admitted to The Royal Academy). This did actually cause a brief halt but it was found that the underlying plaster was in poor condition and any attempt at removal for preservation would be risky and expensive. So the bulldozer triumphed once again.

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