When Lord Leighton died in 1986, he left in his wake a house of magnificent proportion. Leighton House, the Arts and Crafts manor designed by architect George Aitchison, was blue and glittering, complete with Arab tiles, gold mosaic friezes and opulent oriental-inspired ceilings. For more than a century, it has been a museum of extraordinary interiors and Leighton’s famous artwork.
Now in the hands of Kensington and Chelsea council, it has undergone an £8 million renovation to return it to its former glory. Filled with flamboyant interiors, including an exquisite Arab Hall featuring exquisite mosaic floors and tiles, the house is, in the words of BDP architects, a ‘Hidden Gem to National Treasure.’
As a young artist, Lord Leighton lived in rented rooms in Bayswater and was bothered by bailiffs dunning for his landlord’s unpaid taxes. He wrote to his mother in 1862, ‘I wish I had a house.’ And what a house he came to build.
In 1864, Leighton commissioned George Aitchison to design the first part of the house, located just off Kensington High Street, inspired by his travels to Turkey, Egypt and Syria. Together, they created a red-brick, asymmetrical construction typical of Arts and Crafts architecture. Walter Crane designed a gold mosaic frieze, William de Morgan the parakeet tiles. Leighton built the Arab Hall, a domed and turquoise-tiled folly with a fountain at its centre, as ‘a little addition for the sake of something beautiful to look at once in a while’.