After a campaign supported by distinguished actors and donations from the National Lottery's "good causes" fund, it was restored in the late 1990s and reopened to the public as a museum and memorial to the life and career of Garrick.

[2] The temple is an octagonal domed building with a nod to the Pantheon, Rome, constructed in undecorated brick with a single east-facing entrance.

It was built in the Classical style popularised by the Italian architect Palladio with an Ionic portico, four columns wide by three deep, flanking the entrance.

The villa's riverside garden, a plot now known as Garrick's Lawn, was separated from the main property by the road from Kingston upon Thames to Staines.

It was widely admired in its time and its idyllic prospect so moved Samuel Johnson that he told Garrick: "Ah, David, it is the leaving of such places that makes a deathbed so terrible.

It was dominated by a statue of the playwright commissioned by Garrick from the French Huguenot sculptor Louis-François Roubiliac at a cost of 300 guineas (£315, equivalent to approximately £32,000 now).

[3] The painter Johann Zoffany, a protégé of Garrick, painted a number of scenes of the actor, his wife and their friends on the lawn and in front of the temple.

[7] Some found this practice cloying; Samuel Foote commented sarcastically that Garrick had "dedicated a temple to a certain divinity... before whose shrine frequent libations are made, and on whose alter the fat of venison, a viand grateful to this deity, is seen often to smoke.

The London Chronicle reported: Last night Mr Garrick gave a splendid entertainment or Fete Champetre at his gardens at Hampton.

Signior Torre conducted a most brilliant fire-work; an elegant concert of music was performed; and the company, which consisted of a great number of Nobility and Gentry, expressed the utmost satisfaction on the occasion.

Each May Day, seated on the chair noted by Mrs Delany and accompanied by his wife, he would give the poor children of Hampton money and cakes.

[6] A woman who attended one such May Day event later recalled: "When I was called up, I took my six [children] into the Temple, where Mr Garrick was sitting by the fine bust with great cakes before him; he took down all their names, and then gave a shilling and a piece of plum-cake to every individual one; not even leaving out poor babes in their mothers' arms.

It was subsequently bought by her solicitor, Thomas Carr, who preserved it as a monument to Garrick and even erected a statue of him in the temple to replace the Roubiliac Shakespeare.

This caused such controversy and public outcry that in 1932 the site was bought by Hampton Urban District Council so that Glaize's Temple House could be demolished.

[3] It suffered from wet and dry rot, vibrations from traffic on the busy nearby road had damaged the fabric of the building and thieves had stolen the lead off the roof.

Donald Insall Associates, a specialist conservation architectural firm, was commissioned by Richmond upon Thames Council to restore the building at a cost of £37,000.

The Richmond and Twickenham Times reported in 1994 that it was in a state of "dangerous disrepair" and had suffered from "the theft of lead from the roof and graffiti spray-painted on the walls of the Georgian folly."

[4] It is used for concerts, annual general meetings and private events, and runs an educational programme for local schoolchildren in conjunction with the nearby Orleans House.