Chiswick House in Hounslow

You're standing at Chiswick House, a villa in west London. Start with its shape. The house is a half cube, roughly 21 metres wide, 21 metres deep and 11 metres high. On top sits a steep, eight-sided dome inspired by the Pantheon in Rome. Lord Burlington, an earl and a gifted amateur architect, built it between 1726 and 1729. He'd fallen for Palladio's architecture in Italy, and he wanted to put a genuine Roman villa right here.