Gumley House Gumley House (Convent)

Gumley House is a detached house, now a convent with school additions, located in Isleworth. The original house dates to around 1700, with significant alterations made around 1721 and extensive extensions undertaken between 1841 and 1863.

The building is constructed of brown brick with red brick dressings, stone door surrounds and colonnades, and has a slate roof. It comprises two and three storeys over a basement.

The original house at the centre comprised a single-storey building with two-bay wings to either side. Around 1721, it was extended by a further two bays, with nine-bay colonnades of stone Doric columns projecting at right angles to flank the forecourt. Mid-19th-century service wings were added later.

The exterior's central part presents a five-bay front with a heavy moulded cornice. The main entrance features a segmental arched doorway within a stone surround with scrolled consoles carrying a hood. The windows are segmental arched openings with 4/4-pane sashes, aprons, and gauged brick arches, with a plat band at first-floor level. The attic comprises three bays with 2/2-pane sashes and a pediment carried on triglyphs to the centre. The two-bay ground-floor wings have 4/4-pane sashes, with large mid-19th-century upper floors in matching style: five bays to the south and three to the north. To the north, a nine-bay colonnade of stone Doric columns sits above a flagged walkway, with a mid-19th-century service range behind featuring cast iron Gothic window frames near the entrance. To the south, the colonnade is open for its western five bays, the remainder blind, with a later-19th-century kitchen block behind. The southern flank has an advanced centre of mid-19th-century date. The garden front is similar to the entrance front but with symmetrical four-bay wings to either side, raised in the mid-19th century above a two-phased ground floor. Basement openings are present to each bay. The central opening, with stone surround and hood, is glazed as a sliding 2/6-pane window allowing access to the garden. To the north-west is a large five-bay, three-storey range of 1863, formerly containing a chapel on the ground floor with classrooms and dormitory above, subsequently altered into schoolrooms. The south side of the link to the main house has a blind arch in gauged red brick at first-floor level beneath a mullioned sash window, with a blind panel at the upper level containing an I.H.S. monogram in copper.

The early-18th-century interiors survive largely intact and are of very high interest. The entrance hall features a black and white marble floor with an octagonal feature, full-height fielded panelling with pilasters and box cornice, and a fireplace surround of Delft tiles within a veined grey marble setting. An open-string oak staircase has carved tread ends and undersides carried on a fluted column, with upswept handrails on turned balusters—three per tread in the form of tapering columns flanked by spirals. An enfilade passage along the eastern side of the house features rooms facing onto the garden. Ground-floor rooms comprise a suite of chambers and closets retaining much fielded panelling and original marble fireplace surrounds; the endmost rooms appear to be slightly later additions, possibly from around 1721, fitted out in matching style. Some evidence of 19th-century alterations to fireplaces exists. A secondary staircase with closed string and twisted balusters to the north of the entrance hall leads down to the cellar, which retains some brick vaults, stone flags, and panelled doors, and up to the attic. The upper part of the stairwell has a coved ceiling; 19th-century accounts report this was originally painted with a mythological scene ascribed to Kneller. A landing along the north side leads to mid-19th-century arched double doors to a central room enlarged by throwing together a chamber and closet. The attic contains four panelled rooms, the north-eastern room featuring wainscot panelling.

Gumley House was first built for John Gumley (c.1670–1728/9), a cabinet-maker and sometime Member of Parliament, best known as a manufacturer of looking glasses. James Gibbs is known to have worked here, probably in 1721: the colonnades are almost certainly to his designs, and the pediment feature to the attic is characteristic of Gibbs's style. Gumley was succeeded by his daughter, wife to the Whig politician William Pulteney, later Earl of Bath, who also lived here. Later distinguished residents included General Gerard Lake, later Viscount Lake, a celebrated commander in America and India. The house was purchased in 1841 by Madame de Bonnault d'Houet, foundress in 1837 of the Catholic order of the Faithful Companions of Jesus. She established two schools here and carried out extensive alterations, as well as building the chapel extension of 1863. The school ceased to take boarders in 1968, after which major alterations were carried out to school buildings in the grounds. Internal works were undertaken in 1994 by architect Austin Winkley, including a new north stair.

Gumley House is a fine example of a smaller-scale Baroque house of substance in this sought-after suburban setting. Gibbs's involvement is noteworthy: the colonnades are unusual in their own right. The house retains a fine sequence of interiors, particularly apt given Gumley's work as a cabinet-maker of some eminence; some of his mirrors remain at nearby Hampton Court Palace. The extensive early-Victorian additions are in keeping with the initial phases, which remain readily identifiable, and reflect the interesting Roman Catholic period of the house's history.