Around Ealing Winter 2015-16 | Page 50

LOOKING BACK WITH DR JONATHAN OATES Soane’s Ealing legacy Pitzhanger Manor has been closed as part of a large project to restore it to its former Regency-era glories – inspired by its most famous past owner, Sir John Soane. Its former grounds, Walpole Park, were reopened by the council last year after a similar makeover. T he association of Soane and Pitzhanger Manor is well known, and it is common knowledge he bought the house in 1800. But it is less well-known that he had become aware of the house many years previously. This was because, when the bricklayer’s son was a lad of just 15 years old, he had worked in the offices of an architect called George Dance when Dance was employed to extend the original mansion house in 1768. And so, when Soane bought it for himself in 1801 as a man in his late 40s, Pitzhanger Manor House he was buying somewhere he had already worked on. Between 1801 and 1803 he demolished the original building but kept the wing Dance and he had worked on years before (this is the southern portion of the house). By then Soane was a renowned architect and surveyor himself with a distinguished portfolio of work, including with the Bank of England and Royal Hospital Chelsea. A SECOND HOME The house in Ealing was not bought as a family residence, however. Rather, Soane and Sir John Soane 50 around ealing Winter 2015/16