Chiswick House is a Palladian villa built in the 1720s by Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington, and is one of the finest examples of neo-Palladian architecture in Britain. The design was inspired by Andrea Palladio's Villa Capra near Vicenza, which Burlington had visited on his Grand Tour, and the house is built with the same formal symmetry and classical references.
The surrounding gardens were laid out by William Kent in the early 18th century and are among the earliest English landscape gardens — the model that would spread across England and then Europe. They are free to enter and pleasant to wander at any season. The house itself is managed by English Heritage and is open seasonally with guided tours of the interiors, which retain their original painted ceilings and ornamental stonework.