It is situated on Holybourne Avenue, off Roehampton Lane, next to the Richmond Park Golf Course in the London Borough of Wandsworth.

Construction on the building started circa 1760, by the architect Sir William Chambers, who also designed Somerset House in London.

[3] On the death of Henrietta in 1821, the 3rd Earl leased the property to a politician, Abraham Robarts, who made it his permanent home.

When Robarts died in 1858, the 5th Earl of Bessborough sold the house and forty-two acres of parkland to the Conservative Land Society for division into smallholdings.

[3] In 1861, the house and 42 acres of surrounding land was sold to the Society of Jesus, the Jesuit religious order.

[5] By 1962, the Jesuits decided that Manresa would no longer be suitable for a novitiate, when the design of the housing estate was altered to include high rise flats adjacent to their land.

In 1986, Manresa House was part of the campus when Garnett College became absorbed into Thames Polytechnic, and teaching ended there in 1987, with the students moving to Avery Hill.

[citation needed] During a large part of the 1990s, the Manresa House premises was utilized by Wandsworth Council for community recreational purposes, providing adult life sculpture, pottery, painting and drawing and photography classes for local residents.

[7] Under the guidance of English Heritage the college added extensive new buildings to incorporate lecture theatres, laboratories, classrooms and student facilities.

Burne-Jones used some of designs he had previously created for the windows showing saints Agnes, Celia, Catherine, Dorothy, and Margaret.