Cliveden stands on a high wooded plateau overlooking the River Thames.The original house was built in 1666. Charles Bridgeman designed walks and avenues. The present house and garden were designed by Sir Charles Barry in 1849. The garden is in the Italian mode of the nineteenth century Mixed Style. A balustrade was brought from the garden of the Villa Borghese, in Rome, in 1896. Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe designed a Rose Garden for Lord Astor in 1959.