30	Friday JUNE

A weekend in Milan - Tim and I pucker up for a traditional Italian pout inspection while Garnett does a terrific job of looking generally quite posh.

12	Monday JUNE

This morning saw the return of the ‘lost’ sphinxes of Chiswick House as a giant crane lowered them onto the stone gate piers to once more stand guard at the entrance to the Grade 1 18th century Neo-Palladian villa in Chiswick, West London.

The two sphinxes, which each weigh 280kg, have been painstakingly recreated using a ‘Lost Wax’ casting process that involves creating a negative mould of the sphinx from an existing original cast lead sphinx inside the house. Molten wax is then poured into the mould, to create a hollow wax copy. These wax replicas are then ‘invested’ (coated in a hard ceramic mixture) and placed in a kiln. After two days, the wax melts out and vaporises leaving a hollow form inside the ceramic shell into which the molten lead is then poured. After cooling the ceramic casing is then broken away to reveal the new lead casting inside.

The first owner Lord Burlington, commissioned the two original sphinxes when the house was built in the late 1720s. However after being relocated within the grounds at Chiswick, the originals were removed at the end of the 19th century and are thought to have been taken to Green Park.

The project is part of an extensive regeneration project at Chiswick House, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. The re-installation of the sphinxes has been made possible through the generosity of the Wolfson Foundation, which has pledged up to £600,000 toward the regeneration of the gardens at Chiswick House.