Great Britain Doughty House, London - April 2017

The_Raw · Apr 23, 2017

Doughty House is a large 18th century Georgian house overlooking the Thames. It was built around 1770 with later additions. The house was named after Elizabeth Doughty, who lived there from about 1786. In 1849 it was acquired by Francis Cook, a famous merchant and art collector who went on to become one of the richest men in Britain. It remained in the Cook family for almost a century until just after the Second World War. In 1885 Francis had a 125-foot-long neo-classical gallery built to house his extensive art collection. Much of the art collection was taken elsewhere after the house was damaged by a bomb in 1944, subsequently the Cook family left the property behind.

The house was put on the market in 2012 with a guide price of £15 million. Both the house and gallery are Grade II listed buildings. Planning Permission and Listed Building Consent were granted to retain the main property as a single dwelling and to convert the gallery into ancillary accommodation, along with re-instating Doughty Cottage as the link between the house and gallery. Works have now started on site.

While in the area with @Miss.Anthrope we took a look to see if this place had changed much since @AndyK! posted it last year. It turned out to be pretty much the same although a little bit worse off. A few bits of graffiti have appeared and sadly the ceiling of the gallery has begun to collapse in places. Still an amazing place however and hopefully renovation work will be completed before it the damage is beyond repair.

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