Lying by the Thames to the west of London, between Richmond, Twickenham and Isleworth, is the ancient estate of Twickenham Park created on land first enclosed 800 years ago by Richard of Cornwall, brother of Henry III, as a source of timber and pasture for cattle and deer. It was here that Syon Abbey was founded by that most war-like of kings, Henry V, as a place for contemplation and spiritual renewal, whose gardens were both beautiful and useful renewal and, in its gardens and orchards, of natural beauty and productivity. The silent nuns and priests would later move downriver, before...