X-Nico

3 unusual facts about William Kent


Dorman Bridgeman Eaton

There he became associated in practice with William Kent, the son of the great chancellor, an edition of whose Commentaries he assisted in editing.

William Kent

A group of Yorkshire gentlemen sent Kent for a period of study in Rome, he set sail on 22 July 1709 from Deal, Kent, arriving at Livorno on 15 October.

His stately furniture designs complemented his interiors: he designed furnishings for Hampton Court Palace (1732), Lord Burlington's Chiswick House (1729), London, Thomas Coke's Holkham Hall, Norfolk, Robert Walpole's pile at Houghton, for Devonshire House in London, and at Rousham.


Francesco Sleter

At Stowe House he worked with the architect William Kent for Viscount Cobham and was active in both the house and several of the temples in the gardens during the 1730s & 1740s, including the ceiling and the now destroyed murals of the Grand Staircase the ceiling of the State Dining Room, the Temple of Venus, The Temple of Friendship, the Imperial Closet and The Queen's Temple none of the work in the garden survives apart from The Chinese House.

Kew Bridge

Kew and the area around the bridge was significant to George as his father Frederick took a lease on Kew House, now part of the Royal Botanic Gardens from 1731 and rebuilt the house to designs by William Kent.

Neoclassical architecture

In 1734 William Kent and Lord Burlington designed one of England's finest examples of Palladian architecture with Holkham Hall in Norfolk.


see also

Enid Kent

She was born to William Kent, a German immigrant, insurance broker and refugee from Hitler's Nazi regime in the late 1930s, and Irene Tedrow, a veteran American actress of radio, stage, film and television, originally from Denver, Colorado.