The Limes

123 Mortlake High Street, also known as The Limes or Limes House, is a Grade II* listed 18th-century property in Mortlake. Originally a private residence, this historic building also served as the town hall in the 20th century. Today, it has been converted into commercial office space.

The house was built around 1720, with its symmetrical nine-bay facade and elegant porch with four Tuscan columns added later. It served as the seat of local government for the Barnes Urban District from 1895 to 1932 and later for the Municipal Borough of Barnes until it was damaged by wartime bombing in 1940.

Although the original 7-acre grounds have since been built over, the building's exterior remains much the same as when it was depicted in the two oil paintings by Turner. These works, created during his visit to the house in 1827, include "Mortlake Terrace: Early Summer Morning" (1826), now in the Frick Collection in New York, and "Mortlake Terrace" (1827), held by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

The house has been home to several notable residents over the years, including the Franks family of Jewish merchant bankers, Lady Byron (the poet's widow), educational philanthropist Quintin Hogg, and Garnet Wolseley, 1st Viscount Wolseley, who lived there from 1874 to 1875 before becoming Commander-in-Chief of the Forces.

The property is also featured in an engraving, held at the Museum of London, by Gustave Doré, "The Limes – Mortlake: 1872," which captures a scene of people watching the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race from the house's riverside terrace.