Wonderful pre-airport stopover at Dorich House, the 1936 studio home of the sculptor Dora Gordine and her husband the Hon. Richard Hare. The working space, gallery and a top floor apartment rises above treetops, overlooking the perimeter wall of Richmond Park, south west London, with the ancient oak trees beyond. Dorich is a portmanteau of the couple’s first names; Latvian-born and Estonia-raised Dora wrangled her wealthy husband Richard (an academic of Russian art) to fund the project, which she designed herself as a mash of architectural styles including British Art Deco, Vienna Sucession and Bauhaus. What an icon! Gordine lived the last decades of her life alone as a recluse in the enormous building; after her death in 1991 the building was robbed and taken over by squatters who slept on mattresses in the old drawing room and threw raves in the plaster studio. Kingston University took over the property shortly afterwards, and have been slowly restoring the space as a tribute to Dora’s art, and refilling the house with her works, Estonian and Russian artifacts, and various items from an extensive folk art collection. I genuinely had never heard of the house (or Dora) until my aunt Penny brought me here today; a little surprise hiding right at the doorstep.