Kew Farm becomes the White House

In 1731, King George II's son, Frederick, Prince of Wales, leased Kew Farm, the Capel's property next door to Richmond Lodge where his parents lived. In 1736, he married Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha and together they initiated a series of dramatic changes in the Kew estate.

William Kent, who had recently designed numerous buildings and follies in Queen Caroline's Richmond garden, was commissioned to redesign the house. Kent added an extension to either side of the building, but the majority of his redesign involved the transformation of the existing building by cladding it in white stucco. The white Palladian facade became famous and earned the house the more familiar name of the White House.

Frederick and Augusta were garden enthusiasts, and were greatly helped by the Earl of Bute, who advised them on obtaining plants and landscaping and then became the 'finishing tutor' to their son, later George III. With his interest in art, literature and science, Frederick's plans for the garden embraced trees, exotics, and a wish for an aqueduct and a "mound to be adorned with the statues or busts of all these philosophers and to represent the Mount of Parnassus."

The main phase of Frederick's landscaping appears to have taken place in the 1740s. He first landscaped the area immediately south of the house, planting a multitude of trees and creating in several stages the Great Lawn, the Lake with its large island, and the mound on which the Temple of Aeolus now stands. This was the intended site for his Mount Parnassus, designed by Goupy, his art advisor. Goupy was also responsible for other follies in the Garden, such as the Temple of Confucius, a Chinese style garden folly built in 1749 which probably stood on the island in the Lake, and the Chinese Arch.

Frederick greatly expanded the Gardens, leasing more land to the south of the St André estate boundary. Reversing the process undertaken by his parent's expansion north of their garden from Richmond to Kew, Frederick extended his garden south, beyond the Kew parish boundary and into Richmond.

Then, tragically, in 1751, before his ambitious plans could be realised, Frederick died, after a bout of pleurisy and from a burst abscess in his chest, possibly caused by a blow from a cricket ball some considerable time earlier. His death was lamented by England's gardening fraternity and the botanist Dr John Mitchell declared that "Planting and Botany in England would be the poorer for his Passing."

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