The Melbury Road Set. Victorian artists' houses in Holland Park. 1987 documentary, Colin Cunningham.

This documentary looks at the group of artists which came to live in the well-to-do suburb of Holland Park in West London during the 19th century. They built themselves fashionable and expensive studio houses in keeping with their social and financial position as established artists. Notable examples like Leighton House (architect George Aitchison and today open to the public as a museum), with its exotically tiled Arab Hall, and Tower House (architect William Burges and today the house of Jimmy Page https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandst...) designed like a gothic castle, stand out as important aesthetic and architectural monuments of the period. Also the houses built by Richard Norman Shaw for Marcus Stone and Luke Fildes. The latter, Woodland House, later became the house of the film director Michael Winner and today belongs to the singer Robbie Williams. Proposed work on the house by Williams led to a planning dispute with Jimmy Page.
Houses discussed:
Marcus Stone: 8 Melbury Road
George Frederic Watts: 6 Melbury Road...demolished in 1964
Tower House: 29 Melbury Road
Leighton House: 12 Holland Park Road
Val Prinsep: 1 Holland Park Road
Hamo Thornycroft: 2b Melbury Road
Luke Fildes: 31 Melbury Road (Woodland House)

The leading artists of the ‘Holland Park Circle’
Frederic, Lord Leighton P.R.A. (1830 – 1896)
Valentine Prinsep R.A. (1838 – 1904)
George Frederic Watts O.M. (1817 – 1904)
Sir Luke Fildes R.A. (1843 – 1918)
Marcus Stone R.A. (1840 – 1921)
Sir Hamo Thornycroft R.A. (1850 – 1925)
Colin Hunter A.R.A (1841 – 1904)
Sir James Jebusa Shannon R.A. (1862 – 1923)
William Burges (1827-1881)

(P.R.A.: President of the Royal Academy R.A.: Royal Academician
A.R.A.: Associate Royal Academician O.M: Order of Merit)