THE fascinating story of The Lost Garden of Whitton Dean is related at a supplementary summer exhibition which opens on July 5th at the Twickenham Museum. The spelling remained until the turn of the 19th/20th century when the more familiar Dene came into use.

Revealed one summer in the otherwise unremarkable eight acre Murray Park, Whitton, as a host of geometrical lines and shapes, or what archaeologists call ‘parch marks’ caused by previous disturbance to the soil by buildings, walls or digging, subsequent investigation led the celebrated garden historian, Sir Roy Strong, to confirm Murray Park as the site of a "lost formal garden".

President of the Garden History Society, Mavis Batey, added that the garden contained all the hallmarks of Twickenham poet, satirist and ‘contriver’ of gardens, Alexander Pope.

With an accompanying Palladian villa and stabling for 12 horses, this lost country estate draws a number of similarities with Marble Hill, which involved Pope and close friend Archibald Campbell, Lord Ilay, later third Duke of Argyll, in its creation.

Argyll’s famed Whitton Park was one of the horticultural wonders of 18th century England and, just as Marble Hill was built to accommodate Henrietta Howard, mistress of the Prince of Wales, so too was Whitton Dean for Lord Ilay’s long time mistress Mrs Elizabeth Ann Williams.

The exhibition, in storyboard form, explores the history of the Whitton Dean estate, recreating the house and what was once the most exquisite formal garden in the Twickenham area.

As well as pondering on some of the most famous names in garden history and links with the planting of Kew Gardens, the exhibition also includes a virtual tour of Whitton and the surprising amount of history that survives beyond the ward’s traditional image of little more than inter war housing.

The Twickenham Museum is at 25 The Embankment, adjacent to St Mary’s Church. It is open Saturdays and Tuesdays 11am-3pm and Sundays 2pm-4pm. Admission is free.