The British government offers a massive £20,000 prize for a chronometer capable of keeping accurate time at sea

The first St Anne's church is built on Kew Green.

John Campbell, Duke of Argyll, defeats the Old Pretender’s troops at the battle of Sherrifmuir, for which he is rewarded with an estate in Petersham, carved out of Richmond Park

A Jacobite uprising in Scotland on behalf of the Old Pretender ends in fiasco

The Octagon, a garden pavilion designed by James Gibbs, is added to Orleans House.

Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, with its detailed realism, can be seen as the first English novel

Alexander Pope comes to live in Twickenham and leases some riverside land with several small cottages.

In the Duke of Argyll's Petersham estate James Gibbs builds the Palladian villa of Sudbrook Park, with a famous cube room

Shares in the South Sea Company rise rapidly and collapse within the year, in the so-called South Sea Bubble

The Limes is built, at 123 Mortlake High Street

Pope builds a villa, in the Palladian style.

Robert Walpole becomes Britain's chief minister and holds the post for an unrivalled span of twenty-one years

Whitton Park is bought by Archibald Campbell, Lord Ilay, later third Duke of Argyll.

John Robartes, later fourth Earl of Radnor, leases Radnor House.

Thomas Twining 1 buys a property next to St Mary's Church and redevelops the building which becomes known as Dial House.

Sir Godfrey Kneller dies and leaves Kneller Hall to his widow Susannah.

Work starts on Maids of Honour Row, four magnificent houses commissioned as lodgings for the ladies-in-waiting to the Princess of Wales

The building of Marble Hill House begins on land acquired for Henrietta Howard (1688-1767) by Archibald Campbell, Earl of Ilay (later third Duke of Argyll)

Whitton Park is extended to 26 acres and planted with exotic trees and shrubs.

An aviary and a 'Green House' designed by James Gibbs are built in Whitton Park.

Pope constructs a tunnel under the road, Cross Deep, connecting riverside Pope's Villa with 5 acres of land, and he decorates the cellars of his villa and the tunnel to create a grotto.

North aisle of St Mary's Church is built, with vaults beneath, and school room (earlier building for Hampton School) and vestry room attached

The original vertical sundial is affixed to the centre of the front of Dial House.

Jonathan Swift launches his hero on a series of bitterly satirical adventures in Gulliver's Travels

On the death of his father, George I, George II becomes king of Great Britain