A few days ago, we had the first really nice weather of the year after so much rain and cold. I anticipated the nice weather arriving, so I booked off a day to relax and enjoy. I have never been to Kenwood House, which is located at Hampstead Heath, so I made my way there. Kenwood House is managed by English Heritage, and it is located at the edge of Hampstead Heath on a hill with views. The house is known for its paintings, and on my visit, they had some talks about some of the paintings. The painting collection is impressive with works by Constable, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Gainsborough, and Turner.
Constable lived in Hampstead Heath area from 1819 and often painted on Hampstead Heath and captured the clouds and sky for studies. These four paintings are the work by Constable, and they show the different views over the heath from Kenwood and studies of clouds.
When I arrived, I had not had any breakfast, so I went to the cafe and ordered a slice of battenburg cake and a drink from the little cafe. The weather was so warm, but I enjoyed sitting outside to eat. The cafe was very busy as well and a lot of people were out enjoying the grounds.
I then had a quick walk around.
At Kenwood, there is also gardens and a lot of park land to explore, which is sat right amongst the heath. The landscape designer was Humphry Repton, and it was completed at the end of the 1700s. He used the London skyline of the time, and he was inspired by Greek and Roman paintings.
Kenwood was purchased for the public by the founder of Guinness, Lord Iveagh. He purchased the property and had some of his collection of paintings put into the house. He saved it from being demolished as a lot of grand houses were falling into ruin after the first World War. The house was opened to the public in 1928, but he never lived at the house.
There are some sculptures on the grounds too, such as the two below by Barbara Hepworth (first) and Henry Moore (second).
After that, I headed into the house for a look around the rooms and the paintings. There were about six rooms to see in total.
The most beautiful room is "The Great Room" or "Library", and this is where guests would be entertained.
I was able to get the first painting talk of the day, and there were three of these talks at different times of the day. This talk was about the little girls dressing up the kitten painting. The painting uses light and shadow, giving it an almost sinister look of these seemingly-innocent girls dressing up a kitten, which is a little bit cruel but also expresses promiscuity. We were told about the painting, the artist, and the a little bit about the history of the paintings at Kenwood.
One of the other paintings that was going to be discussed later was the painting on London Bridge. This is the historical London Bridge with the shops and buildings built onto the bridge, not today's new London Bridge. Unfortunately, this discussion was in the later afternoon and I did not want to wait three hours.
I enjoyed my visit to Kenwood House and had a nice walk on the heath to Hampstead village where I had lunch. I hope to visit again. I think this would be a lovely place to visit on a sunny autumn day.
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