The Tower House — Attraction in London

LOCATION : The Tower House located in No 12, Melbury road, near to Design Museum and Holland park. You can enter the Holland park road from Kensington High Street road or directly from Addison road and from Holland park.

This mini castle with a tower was built in 1877 by William Burges, a well-known Victorian architect, as a home for himself. It has had many famous owners down the years.

In the 1920’s the house had belonged to Colonel T. H. Minshall, DSO, a well known newspaper and magazine magnate, and also the father of Merlin Minshall, the man Ian Fleming modelled his James Bond character after.

In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s the house belonged to the Irish actor and hell-raiser, Richard Harris.

Famous guitarist and music producer Jimmy Page is the present owner of the Tower House.

The Ghost story behind the Tower House:

Harris claimed that the building was haunted by the spirit of a small child. Before purchasing the house he had employed a professional burglar to break in to his home to see how “burglar-proof” it was. On entering the empty mansion the burglar was startled to hear the sound of a child crying in one of the upstairs rooms. After locating the room he was about to enter when the crying ceased.

The actor became obsessed by what the burglar had told him and carried out some research of his own. This led him to believe that a small child had been buried somewhere in the tower. Harris subsequently formed a relationship with the ghostly child and would frequently reprimand it for often awakening him in the middle of the night. In response to Harris’s angry outbursts the ghostly child would scamper about the stairs of the tower slamming doors. This became particularly irritating when Harris was trying to learn his lines for the film Cromwell and in an angry outburst cried out, “If you don’t shut up I’ll get a priest in to exorcise you!” This seemed to quell the spectral brat for a time. But it wasn’t until Harris built a nursery at the top of the stairs to the tower, and filled it with toys and games, that the child’s noisy antics calmed down.

As the present owner of the Tower House is Jimmy Page, of Led Zeppelin fame, the noisy child may have to compete with some of Jimmy’s ear-splitting guitar solos.

("The Ghost story behind the Tower House" copied from "GHOST WALK OF...

The Tower House, 29 Melbury Road, is a late-Victorian townhouse in the Holland Park district of Kensington and Chelsea, London, built by the architect and designer William Burges as his home. Designed between 1875 and 1881, in the French Gothic Revival style, it was described by the architectural historian J. Mordaunt Crook as "the most complete example of a medieval secular interior produced by the Gothic Revival, and the last". The house is built of red brick, with Bath stone dressings and green roof slates from Cumbria, and has a distinctive cylindrical tower and conical roof. The ground floor contains a drawing room, a dining room and a library, while the first floor has two bedrooms and an armoury. Its exterior and the interior echo elements of Burges's earlier work, particularly the McConnochie House in Cardiff and Castell Coch. It was designated a Grade I listed building in 1949.

Burges bought the lease on the plot of land in 1875. The house was built by the Ashby Brothers, with interior decoration by members of Burges's long-standing team of craftsmen including Thomas Nicholls and Henry Stacy Marks. By 1878 the house was largely complete, although interior decoration and the designing of numerous items of furniture and metalwork continued until Burges's death in 1881. The house was inherited by his brother-in-law, Richard Popplewell Pullan. It was later sold to Colonel T. H. Minshall and then, in 1933, to Colonel E. R. B. Graham. The poet John Betjeman inherited the remaining lease in 1962 but did not extend it. Following a period when the house stood empty and suffered vandalism, it was purchased and restored, first by Lady Jane Turnbull, later by the actor Richard Harris and then by the musician Jimmy Page.

The house retains most of its internal structural decoration, but much of the furniture, fittings and contents that Burges designed has been dispersed. Many items, including the Great Bookcase, the Zodiac settle, the Golden Bed and the Red Bed, are now in institutions such as The Higgins Art Gallery & Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum, while others are in private...

A wonderful example of urban surreal architecture.

Contrary to the information in a previous review this magical building was designed by William Burges who had nothing to do with the design of the House of Parliament. His principle remaining works are Cardiff Castle and it’s near neighbour Castle Coch, both projects commissioned by the Marquis of Bute.

If you have any interest in architectural history it is well worth walking past and imagining the impact it’s construction must have had upon the streetscape where most of the other buildings reflected the presence of wealth and ostentation rather than design ambition.

Combine your viewing with a visit to the nearby Design Museum and you have the makings of a...