 It was built around 1757 by George Montagu Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax, for the opera singer Mrs Anna Maria Donaldson, and was designed by architect Thomas Wright.In 1771, after the death of the Earl, it was let to the Earl of Suffolk, then to the 4th Earl of Sandwich; Charles Bingham; Admiral Lord Keith; and the 3rd Earl of Kelly.In 1883, Thomas Twining of the Twinings family of tea and coffee merchants bought the house for his daughter and her husband Auguste de Wette.