Pitzhanger Manor

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Pitzhanger Manor House, was owned from 1800 to 1810 by the architect Sir John Soane. He intended it as a country villa for entertaining and to pass to his sons. He demolished most of the existing building except the two story south-west wing built in 1768 by the architect George Dance the Younger, who had been Soanes's first employer.

Completed in 1804 the central section of the house uses many stand Soane features, curved ceilings, inset mirrors, false doors, wooden paneling with many cupboards. Soane continued the building to the east with a servants wing and romantic ruins. The building is remarkably similar to his main London home at 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields, which is now the Soane Museum. Much of his collection of Paintings and Classical Antiquities was housed here. Soane sold the house in 1810 and it pass through several hands until in 1843 it became home to the daughters of Britain's only assassinated Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval

In 1901 it was acquired by the old Ealing District Council and served as a Public Library. In 1940 a reading room was added, sympathetically designed on the site of the servant wing. It is a Grade I listed building and since the Library moved out in 1985 serves as the London Borough of Ealing's main museum and the PM art Gallery.

The house remains in three distinct sections, which don't lie entirely easy with each other. In particular the architectural wonder of Soane's country villa, but without contents and the loving care of the trust that maintains 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields. To use this building as a local art gallery seems to be wasting it true joy, it is none the less a gem in the heart of Ealing.

The George Dance wing and its Victorian extension were used in the 2002 production of The Importance of Being Earnest with Judi Dench, Rupert Everett and Colin Firth