The Taskmaster’s House

Inside a gated driveway off the Great Chertsey Road in Chiswick, London, lies an unassuming little house that has become a major landmark for fans of British comedy. 

In the 1920s, the orchards and meadows occupying the meander of the Thames south of Chiswick’s Grove Park neighborhood were bought by the local council from the noble landowner, the Duke of Devonshire, and transformed into a public leisure area called Dukes Meadows. A groundskeeper’s cottage was constructed shortly after, and when a golf course opened in that part of Dukes Meadows in the 1990s, the cottage passed into private ownership.

The three-bedroom, two-bathroom cottage was available for rent throughout the 2000s and into the 2010s. And while the UK government property register shows it as “Ibis Cottage,” it is unclear when or how it got that name. Today, it is better known as the Taskmaster House.

When it came time to pick a filming location for the first season of Taskmaster, the comedy panel show where comedians compete to complete various ridiculous tasks, creator Alex Horne selected the house from a few options given to him by location scouts. The cottage with its identifiable curved facade was thus transformed into the Taskmaster House. Obscured from the street by the gate, and backing onto the golf course, the house’s grounds were the perfect setting for the increasingly ridiculous escapades of each season of the show, which began airing in 2015. 

From seemingly simple tasks like “Camouflage yourself” and “Get the banana in the bottle” to increasingly complicated directives like “Write and perform a song for a stranger” and “Film something that will look impressive in reverse,” the Taskmaster House has been the backdrop for a cavalcade of iconic moments. Along with the interior rooms, additional structures in the garden, such as a caravan, a shed, a stage, and a clear geodesic dome, play host to various task attempts.

The house is still owned by the golf course, although, as of 2025, Avalon Productions (the production company behind Taskmaster) is its only long-term tenant.

The house is not open to the public, nor is it visible from the street, but curious fans passing through Chiswick might be able to get a glimpse through the fencing or surrounding greenery.