101-873: Bedford Park is a suburban development in Chiswick , London , begun in 1875 under the direction of Jonathan Carr , with many large houses in British Queen Anne Revival style by Norman Shaw and other leading Victorian era architects including Edward William Godwin , Edward John May , Henry Wilson , and Maurice Bingham Adams . Its architecture is characterised by red brick with an eclectic mixture of features, such as tile-hung walls, gables in varying shapes, balconies, bay windows , terracotta and rubbed brick decorations, pediments , elaborate chimneys, and balustrades painted white. The estate's main roads converge on its public buildings, namely its church, St Michael and All Angels ; its club, now
202-621: A neo-Palladian villa regarded as one of the finest in England; and Fuller's Brewery , London's largest and oldest brewery. In a meander of the River Thames used for competitive and recreational rowing, with several rowing clubs on the river bank, the finishing post for the Boat Race is just downstream of Chiswick Bridge . Old Chiswick was an ancient parish in the county of Middlesex , with an agrarian and fishing economy beside
303-508: A parody of a famous couplet from J. W. Burgon 's 1845 poem Petra about an ancient Middle Eastern city : "Match me such marvel save in Eastern clime, A rose-red city half as old as time". The popular press, like the architectural journals, admired the development. The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News commented in 1879 that "There is no attempt to conceal with false fronts, or stucco ornament or unmeaning balustrades ... everything
404-554: A registered charity , was formed in 1963 by the local activist Harry Taylor and the architect Tom Greeves. Their concerns were united by the demolition of another Shaw house, The Bramptons on Bedford Road, to make way for a flat-roofed old people's home. The poet John Betjeman , a founder of the Victorian Society , became its first patron. A breakthrough for the society came in 1967 when 356 of Bedford Park's houses were individually Grade II listed ; this unprecedented move
505-516: A Bath Room with Hot and Cold water to every house, whatever its size", and "A Kindergarten and good Cheap Day Schools on the Estate, and a School of Art. Also Church, Club (for Ladies & Gentlemen), Stores, 'The Tabard Inn', Tennis Courts, &c." Living in Bedford Park, with its church, parish hall, club, shops, pub and school of art, became the height of fashion in the 1880s. W. B. Yeats ,
606-698: A Saturday at Dukes Meadows. Chiswick's cricket club, formerly known as Turnham Green and Polytechnic, plays at Riverside Drive. On Chiswick Common is the Rocks Lane Multi Sports Centre, where there are tennis, five-a-side football and netball courts available to hire to the public. Private tennis coaching for individuals and groups is also available. The Chiswick reach of the Thames is heavily used for competitive and recreational rowing . Championship Course from Mortlake to Putney runs past Chiswick Eyot and Duke's Meadows. The Boat Race
707-474: A blue plaque. 51°30′00″N 0°15′42″W / 51.5001°N 0.2617°W / 51.5001; -0.2617 Chiswick Chiswick ( / ˈ tʃ ɪ z ɪ k / CHIZ -ik ) is a district in the London Borough of Hounslow , West London , England. It contains Hogarth's House , the former residence of the 18th-century English artist William Hogarth ; Chiswick House ,
808-414: A chaste correct aesthetical existence. Now he who loves aesthetic cheer and does not mind the damp May come and read Rossetti here by a Japanesy lamp. While 'Arry' shouts to 'Hemmua': 'say, 'ere's a bloomin' lark, Them's the biled Lobster 'ouses as folks call "Bedford Park". Fletcher commented that
909-913: A direct connection to Heathrow Airport and the M25 motorway . The Great West Road (A4) runs eastwards into central London via the Hogarth Roundabout where it meets the Great Chertsey Road (A316) which runs south-west, eventually joining the M3 motorway . The southern border of Chiswick runs along the River Thames, which is crossed in this area by Barnes Railway and Foot Bridge , Chiswick Bridge , Kew Railway Bridge and Kew Bridge . River services between Westminster Pier and Hampton Court depart from Kew Gardens Pier just across Kew Bridge. Bus routes on or near Chiswick High Road are
1010-631: A family of successful Edinburgh lawyers. William Shaw died 2 years after his son's birth, leaving debts. Two of Shaw's siblings died young and a third in early adulthood. The family lived first in Annandale Street and then Haddington Place. Richard was educated at an academy for languages, located at 3 and 5 Hill Street Edinburgh until c.1842, then had one year of formal schooling in Newcastle, followed by being taught by his sister Janet. The eldest surviving child Robert had moved to London to work;
1111-622: A ferry, important as there were no bridges between London Bridge and Kingston throughout the Middle Ages. The area included three other small settlements, the fishing village of Strand-on-the-Green , the hamlet of Little Sutton in the centre, and Turnham Green on the west road out of London. A decisive skirmish took place on Turnham Green early in the English Civil War . In November 1642, royalist forces under Prince Rupert , marching from Oxford to retake London, were halted by
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#17327901095051212-520: A few types of house. These were scaled-down versions of the more expensive houses that he had designed for wealthy areas such as Chelsea , Hampstead , and Kensington . He also designed the focal buildings of the garden suburb, including the church of St Michael and All Angels and the Tabard Inn opposite it. Duke's Meadows stands on land formerly owned by the Duke of Devonshire . In the 1920s, it
1313-561: A larger parliamentarian force under the Earl of Essex . The royalists retreated and never again threatened the capital. From 1758 until 1929 the Dukes of Devonshire owned Chiswick House , and their legacy can be found in street names all over Chiswick. In 1864, John Isaac Thornycroft , founder of the John I. Thornycroft & Company shipbuilding company, established a yard at Church Wharf at
1414-483: A measure of Perpendicular Gothic . The School of Art was designed by Maurice Bingham Adams . The school was meant to provide the estate with a feeling of community. It taught classes such as "Freehand drawing in all its branches, practical Geometry and perspective, pottery and tile painting, design for decorative purposes – as in Wall-papers, Furniture, Metalwork, Stained Glass". A major feature of Bedford Park
1515-451: A modernist building was contributed by C.F.A. Voysey , and another by Fritz Ruhemann and Michael Dugdale. Most of the houses are large, often detached or semi-detached , but there are some smaller terraced cottages , such as on Marlborough Crescent. Most, too, are in British Queen Anne Revival style, meaning a mix of English and Flemish house styles from the 17th and 18th centuries, but elements of many other styles are included in some of
1616-514: A paved riverside path fronted by a row of "imposing" 18th-century houses, interspersed with three riverside pubs, the Bell and Crown, Bull’s Head, and the City Barge. The low-lying path is flooded at high tides. It became fashionable in 1759 when Kew Bridge opened just upstream, with the royal family at Kew Palace nearby. The Bedford Park neighbourhood was described by Nikolaus Pevsner as
1717-476: A succession of views as if the architect had taken a hint from Nature". Visitors admired the country feeling of the suburb, rather than the assemblage of buildings; the essayist Ian Fletcher comments that it was rus in urbe , the countryside in the city, noting that in the 1880s and '90s, nightingales were reported to sing in the gardens. The informality attracted intellectuals and artists; some twenty houses incorporated studios for artists to work in. A result
1818-543: A village-like complex. The architect Norman Shaw set the style for the suburb with his early houses, and provided its focus with the community buildings. He designed the Stores, a private house, and the "Hostelry" as a single block with matching heights but varying architectural details. He designed the estate church, St Michael and All Angels, in a similar Queen Anne Revival style to his Bedford Park houses, an unusual choice for an ecclesiastical building, though incorporating
1919-662: Is based in its boathouse off Hartington Road, which also houses the clubs of many London colleges and teaching hospitals; recent members include Tim Foster , Gold medallist at the Sydney Olympics and Frances Houghton , World Champion in 2005, 2006 and 2007. Quintin Boat Club lies between Chiswick Quay Marina and Chiswick Bridge. Tideway Scullers School is just downriver of Chiswick Bridge; its members include single sculling World Champion Mahé Drysdale and Great Britain single sculler Alan Campbell . Chiswick High Road
2020-586: Is buried in St Nicholas's churchyard. The house later belonged to the poet and translator of Dante , Henry Francis Cary , who lived there from 1814 to 1833. In February 1766 Jean-Jacques Rousseau lived a few weeks with a local grocer, before moving to Wootton, Staffordshire . The painter Johann Zoffany lived on Strand-on-the-Green. In the 19th century, the Italian writer, revolutionary and poet Ugo Foscolo died in exile at Turnham Green in 1827, and
2121-508: Is considered to be among the finest surviving examples of Palladian architecture in Britain, with superb collections of paintings and furniture. Its surrounding grounds, laid out by William Kent , are among the most important historical gardens in England and Wales, forming one of the first English landscape gardens . It was used as an asylum from 1892 to 1928; up to 40 private patients were housed in wings which were demolished in 1956 when
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#17327901095052222-585: Is contested on the Championship Course on a flood tide (in other words from Putney to Mortlake) with Duke's Meadows a popular view-point for the closing stages of the race. The finishing post is just downstream of Chiswick Bridge. Other important races such as the Head of the River Race race the reverse course, on an ebb tide. Chiswick is home to several clubs. The University of London Boat Club
2323-455: Is its apparently informal plan. One suggestion is that this derived from a desire to protect the estate's fine trees, the smaller streets incorporating bends to allow the favoured mature trees to remain. This is denied by the local historian David Budworth, who writes that the roads followed plot boundaries, which were marked by trees, though he accepts that avoiding trees influenced the siting of some houses. The historian Stephen Inwood writes that
2424-608: Is managed by London Wildlife Trust . The area, a railway triangle, was saved from development by a public inquiry, and became a reserve in 1985. Its 2.5 hectares are covered mainly in secondary birch woodland, with willow carr (wet woodland) in the low-lying centre, and acid grassland on the former Acton Curve railway track. The reserve runs a varied programme of activities including wildlife walks, fungus forays, open days and talks. There are several historic public houses in Chiswick, some of them listed buildings , including
2525-408: Is no longer aesthetic (if indeed it ever was so) and the appreciation of Japanese art-wares has long ceased to be confined within its narrow bounds." Bedford Park has been described as the world's first garden suburb . Although it was not built in the co-operative manner like some later developments ( Brentham Garden Suburb , Hampstead Garden Suburb ), it created a model that was emulated not just by
2626-547: Is no longer the local government centre but remains an approved venue for marriage and civil partnership ceremonies. Chiswick forms part of the Brentford and Isleworth Parliament constituency, having been part of the Brentford and Chiswick constituency between 1918 and 1974. The Member of Parliament (MP) is Ruth Cadbury (Labour), elected at the May 2015 general election replacing Mary Macleod (Conservative). For elections to
2727-416: Is simple, honest, unpretending", and "There is an old-world air about the place despite its newness, a strong touch of Dutch homeliness, with an air of English comfort and luxuriousness, but not a bit of the showy, artificial French stuffs which prevailed in our homes when Queen Anne was on the throne". Despite their creation by well-known architects, buildings in the suburb, especially the larger houses to
2828-526: Is thought to have supported an annual cheese fair up until the 18th century. The area was settled in Roman times; an urn found at Turnham Green contained Roman coins, and Roman brickwork was found under the Sutton manor house . Old Chiswick grew up as a village around St Nicholas Church from c. 1181 on Church Street, its inhabitants practising farming, fishing and other riverside trades including
2929-594: The 94 , 110 , 237 , 267 , 272 , 440 , E3 and H91 . The 94 is a 24-hour service, and the High Road is also served at night by the N9 . The District line serves Chiswick with four London Underground stations , Stamford Brook , Turnham Green , Chiswick Park and Gunnersbury . Turnham Green is an interchange with the Piccadilly line , but only before 06:50 and after 22:30, when Piccadilly line trains stop at
3030-509: The Chiswick High Road , forming a long high street in the north, with additional shops on Turnham Green Terrace and Devonshire Road. The river forms the southern boundary with Kew , including North Sheen, Mortlake and Barnes in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames . It includes the uninhabited island of Chiswick Eyot , joined to the mainland at low tide. In the east Goldhawk Road and British Grove border Hammersmith in
3131-516: The Garden city movement , but by suburban developments around the world. Sir John Betjeman called Bedford Park "the most significant suburb built in the last century, probably in the western world". Herman Muthesius , the German author of the 1904 book The English House , commented that "It signifies neither more nor less than the starting point of the smaller modern house, which spread from there over
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3232-509: The Georgian and Victorian eras , many of them now listed buildings, overlooking the street on the north side; their gardens are on the other side of the street beside the river. The largest and finest house on the street is Walpole House , a Grade I listed building; part of it is Tudor, but the building now visible is late 17th to early 18th century. Strand-on-the-Green is the most westerly part of Chiswick, "particularly picturesque" with
3333-626: The London Assembly Chiswick is in the South West constituency , represented since 2000 by Tony Arbour , of the Conservative Party. For elections to Hounslow London Borough Council , Chiswick is represented by three electoral wards : Turnham Green, Chiswick Homefields and Chiswick Riverside. Each ward elects three councillors, who serve four-year terms. For 2010–14, all nine councillors were Conservatives . It
3434-615: The London Borough of Ealing . The main shopping and dining centre is Chiswick High Road . Chiswick Roundabout is the start of the North Circular Road (A406). At Hogarth Roundabout , the Great West Road from central London becomes the M4 motorway , while the Great Chertsey Road (A316) runs south-west, becoming the M3 motorway . People who have lived in Chiswick include the poets Alexander Pope and W. B. Yeats ,
3535-597: The London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham . In the north are Bedford Park (like Chiswick, within the London W4 postcode area) and South Acton in the London Borough of Ealing , with a boundary partially delineated by the District line . On the west, within Hounslow, are the districts of Gunnersbury , which is within the bounds of the early 19th century parish of Chiswick, and Brentford . A short distance south of
3636-592: The London Borough of Hounslow . Modern Chiswick is an affluent area which includes the early garden suburb Bedford Park , Grove Park , the Glebe Estate, Strand-on-the-Green and tube stations Chiswick Park , Turnham Green , and Stamford Brook , as well as the Gunnersbury Triangle local nature reserve. Some parts of Bedford Park and Acton Green are in the Chiswick W4 postcode area but
3737-657: The London Buddhist Vihara ; its inn, The Tabard , and next door its shop, the Bedford Park Stores; and its Chiswick School of Art , now replaced by the Arts Educational Schools . Bedford Park has been described as the world's first garden suburb , creating a model of apparent informality emulated around the world. It became extremely fashionable in the 1880s, attracting artists including the poet and dramatist W. B. Yeats ,
3838-718: The Mawson Arms , the George and Devonshire , the Old Packhorse and The Tabard in Bath Road near Turnham Green station. The Tabard is known for its William Morris interior and its Norman Shaw exterior; it was built in 1880. Three more pubs are in Strand-on-the-Green , fronting on to the Thames river path. Chiswick had two well-known theatres in the 20th century. The Chiswick Empire (1912 to 1959)
3939-786: The Ossulstone hundred of Middlesex . Until 1834 its vestry governed most parish affairs. After the Poor Law Amendment Act (1834) , local administration in Chiswick began to be devolved to authorities beyond the vestry. Then, Chiswick poor relief was administered by the Brentford Poor Law Union . Briefly, from 1849 to 1855, responsibility for Chiswick drains and sewers passed to the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers under its 'Fulham and Hammersmith Sewer District.' From 1858, under
4040-500: The 1892 collection of essays, Architecture, a profession or an Art? . He firmly believed it was an art. In later years, Shaw moved to a heavier classical style which influenced the emerging Edwardian Classicism of the early 20th century. Shaw died in London, where he had designed residential buildings in areas such as Pont Street , and public buildings such as New Scotland Yard . Shaw's early country houses avoided Neo-Gothic and
4141-866: The 19th century, reaching 29,809 in 1901, and the area is a mixture of Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian housing. Suburban building began in Gunnersbury in the 1860s and in Bedford Park , the first garden suburb , on the borders of Chiswick and Acton, in 1875. During the Second World War , Chiswick was bombed repeatedly, with both incendiary and high explosive bombs. Falling anti-aircraft shells and shrapnel also caused damage. The first V-2 rocket to hit London fell on Staveley Road , Chiswick, at 6.43pm on 8 September 1944, killing three people, injuring 22 others and causing extensive damage to surrounding trees and buildings. Six houses were demolished by
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4242-507: The Chiswick Improvement Act of that year, responsibility for drains and sewers, paving and lighting was vested in an elected board of eighteen Improvement Commissioners . This operated as Chiswick's secular local authority for a quarter of a century until its replacement with a Local Board in 1883. In 1878 the parish gained a triangle of land in the east which had formed a detached part of Ealing . From 1894 to 1927
4343-544: The Confessor ) in the Diocese of Westminster , lies on the corner of Duke's Avenue and the High Road. It is a red brick building; the parish was founded in 1848, a school began c. 1855, and a church was opened by Cardinal Wiseman on the present site in 1864. It was replaced by the present building in 1886, opened by Cardinal Manning . The heavy debts incurred were paid off and the church consecrated in 1904. The square tower
4444-568: The High Road in the centre of Chiswick is the Glebe Estate, consisting of small terraced houses built in the 1870s on glebe land once owned by the local church, and now a desirable place to live. Chiswick is in the W4 postcode district of the London post town , which in a tribute to its ancient parish includes Bedford Park and Acton Green , mostly within the London Borough of Ealing. Some of
4545-481: The Italian poet and revolutionary Ugo Foscolo , the painters Vincent van Gogh and Camille Pissarro , the novelist E. M. Forster , the rock musicians Pete Townshend , John Entwistle , and Phil Collins , the stage director Peter Brook , and the actress Imogen Poots . Chiswick was first recorded c. 1000 as the Old English Ceswican meaning "Cheese Farm"; the riverside area of Duke's Meadows
4646-544: The Royal Academy, with whom he briefly partnered in some architectural designs. During 1854–1856, Shaw travelled with a Royal Academy scholarship, collecting sketches that were published as Architectural Sketches from the Continent , 1858. On his return to London he moved to George Edmund Street 's practice. In 1863, after sixteen years of training, Shaw opened a practice for a short time with Nesfield. In 1872, he
4747-605: The Tabard pub but a separate business, is known for new writing and experimental work. The Sanderson Factory in Barley Mow Passage, now known as Voysey House, was designed by the architect Charles Voysey in 1902. It is built in white glazed brick, with Staffordshire blue bricks (now painted black) forming horizontal bands, the plinth, and surrounds for door and window openings, and dressings in Portland stone . It
4848-480: The academic styles, reviving vernacular materials like half timber and hanging tiles, with projecting gables and tall massive chimneys with " inglenooks " for warm seating. Shaw's houses soon attracted the misnomer the " Queen Anne style ". As his skills developed, he dropped some of the mannered detailing, his buildings gained in dignity, and acquired an air of serenity and a quiet homely charm which were less conspicuous in his earlier works; half timber construction
4949-643: The actor William Terriss , the actress Florence Farr , the playwright Arthur Wing Pinero and the painter Camille Pissarro lived here. Pissarro made five paintings of the estate among his London works. Living there was felt to signify some connection with aestheticism . Nine painters contributed works to an 1882 illustrated book, Bedford Park , celebrating the suburb. Bedford Park is Saffron Park in G. K. Chesterton 's The Man Who Was Thursday and Biggleswick in John Buchan 's Mr Standfast . The Man Who Was Thursday begins: The suburb of Saffron Park lay on
5050-519: The actor William Terriss , the actress Florence Farr , the playwright Arthur Wing Pinero and the painter Camille Pissarro to live on the estate. It appeared in the works of G. K. Chesterton and John Buchan , and was gently mocked in the St James's Gazette . The development is protected by a conservation area in the London Borough of Ealing , and a smaller one in the London Borough of Hounslow . Over 350 of its buildings are Grade II listed ;
5151-399: The artist F. Hamilton Jackson to create a set of nine lithographs to publicise his Bedford Park development, including one, picturing St Michael and All Angels church, described as iconic, claiming that the suburb was "the healthiest place in the world". The development was promoted to people who had a moderate income but who had "aesthetic sensibilities". The promotion mentioned "A Garden and
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#17327901095055252-519: The ballad "sounds like a malicious insider: dubious drains, Aestheticism, agnosticism, speculative building, are all present". By 1888, the area's fashionability may have been declining; a piece by a Miss M. Nicolle in Oscar Wilde 's The Woman's World magazine stated that "five or six years ago, Bedford Park was supposed to be the Mecca of Aestheticism... Much has happened since then. Bedford Park
5353-560: The bends in Queen Anne's Gardens may, he writes, have been introduced to allow best use to be made of the trapezoidal area delineated by The Avenue, Blenheim Road, Woodstock Road, and Bedford Road. The Bedford Park Gazette of July 1883 quoted a report from the Daily News to the effect that the estate's roads were made "with cunning carelessness to curve in such wise as never to leave the eye to stare at nothing... [The streets] form
5454-405: The brewer Henry Smith, churchwarden of St Nicholas, Chiswick. Christ Church, Turnham Green is an early Victorian Gothic building of flint with stone dressings. The main part of the building, by George Gilbert Scott and W. B. Moffat, is from 1843; the chancel and northeast chapel were added in 1887 by J. Brooks. Chiswick's principal Roman Catholic church, Our Lady of Grace and St Edward (
5555-522: The church and the inn are Grade II*. The historian of London Stephen Inwood calls it probably the best garden suburb in London. Bedford Park's developer was Jonathan Carr , who in 1875 bought 24 acres (9.7 ha) of land just north of Turnham Green Station on the District Line , opened in 1869. The City of London was only 30 minutes away by steam train. The area included three existing Georgian houses: Bedford House (now on The Avenue) for which
5656-403: The creation of refuges worldwide. Chiswick is home to the Arts Educational Schools in Bath Road. The house used for filming the comedy show Taskmaster , a former groundskeeper's cottage, is just off Great Chertsey Road, near Chiswick Bridge . Chiswick is situated at the start of the North Circular Road (A406), South Circular Road (A205) and the M4 motorway , the latter providing
5757-474: The first place "where the relaxed, informal mood of a market town or village was adopted for a complete speculatively built suburb". In 1877 the speculator Jonathan Carr hired Shaw as his estate architect. Shaw's house designs, in the Queen Anne Revival style with red brick, roughcast , decorative gables , and both oriel and dormer windows , gave the impression of great variety using only
5858-400: The focal area with the new church, St Michael and All Angels , the new inn, The Tabard , its next-door neighbour the Bedford Park Stores, and an art school a little further up Bath Road. There was a club house , meant to be the social centre of the estate, on The Avenue, now much modified as the London Buddhist Vihara . The area at the western end of Bath road was intended to be the centre of
5959-542: The historically self-conscious architecture of their homes". He writes that Fletcher suggests that such a project would have required "a firmer base than a genteel Bohemianism and the omphalos of the District Railway linking it to time-conscious London". Chesterton mocked the red-brick suburb with its "manufactured quaintness ... model cottages ... and arty-crafty shops", writing "Match me this marvel save where aesthetes are, A rose-red suburb half as old as Carr",
6060-443: The house was restored. St Nicholas Church , near the river Thames, has a 15th-century tower, although the remainder of the church was rebuilt by J.L. Pearson in 1882–84. Monuments in the churchyard mark the burial sites of the 18th-century English artist William Hogarth and William Kent , the architect and landscape designer; the churchyard also houses a mausoleum (for Philip James de Loutherbourg ) designed by John Soane , and
6161-463: The houses. The streets, too, have names from the time of Queen Anne (1665–1714), as for instance Addison Grove for Joseph Addison (1672–1719), Newton Grove for Isaac Newton (1642–1726), Blenheim Road for the Battle of Blenheim (1704), Marlborough Crescent for the Duke of Marlborough , victor of that battle, Woodstock Road for the site of Marlborough's Blenheim Palace , and Queen Anne's Gardens for
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#17327901095056262-517: The monarch herself. Characteristic features of the houses are red brick, walls hung with tiles, gables of varying shapes, balconies, bay windows , terracotta and rubbed brick decorations, pediments , elaborate chimneys, and balustrades painted white. The eclectic approach is well seen in the estate church of St Michael and All Angels, where Shaw has incorporated Arts & Crafts , Georgian , medieval , Tudor , and Wren styles. The area has always been residential, but in Flanders Road, near
6363-463: The most beautiful period mansion blocks in Chiswick, such as Heathfield Court and Arlington Mansions, line the sides of Turnham Green – the site of the Battle of Turnham Green in 1642. Other suburbs of Chiswick include Grove Park (south of the A4, close to Chiswick railway station) and Strand on the Green , a fishing hamlet until the late 18th century. As early as 1896, Bedford Park was advertised as being in Chiswick, though at that time much of it
6464-424: The new estate was named; Melbourne House, set back from South Parade; and Sidney House, which stood between The Avenue and Woodstock Road, and was replaced by a block of flats in the 1890s. The area covered by the estate's housing grew, and neighbouring areas were also developed. By 1883, Carr's 24 acres had become 113 acres (46 ha) acres, with almost 500 houses. By 1915 Bedford Park stretched from Esmond Road in
6565-465: The parish formed the Chiswick Urban District . In 1927 it was abolished and its former area was merged with that of Brentford Urban District to form Brentford and Chiswick Urban District . The amalgamated district became a municipal borough in 1932. The borough of Brentford and Chiswick was abolished in 1965, and its former area was transferred to Greater London to form part of the London Borough of Hounslow . With these changes, Chiswick Town Hall
6666-440: The plan was to look unplanned, without squares, without formal crescents, and almost without right angles; the bending streets could be village lanes, just as the houses give the illusion of being country cottages. Budworth however traces the origins of the bends in each road, finding practical explanations: Woodstock Road takes its lines from the eastern edge of Carr's 24-acre purchase; a track, with bend, already existed by 1875; and
6767-403: The railway line, the 1897 Bedford Park Works was home to a coachbuilder , H. J. Mulliner & Co. ; the neighbouring Bedford Park Stores building was used as its showroom. The long-established firm increasingly specialised in coachwork for luxury Rolls-Royce and Bentley cars . It was taken over by Rolls-Royce in 1959; the site is occupied by an office block, Mulliner House. Carr commissioned
6868-453: The rest of the family followed about 1846, living in Middleton Road, Dalston . Richard began his apprenticeship almost immediately at an unknown architect's practice. By 1849, he had transferred to the London office of sixty-year-old William Burn , at whose practice Shaw remained for five years. He attended the evening lectures on architecture given at the Royal Academy of Arts by Charles Robert Cockerell . He met William Eden Nesfield at
6969-401: The river; from the Early Modern period, the wealthy built imposing riverside houses on Chiswick Mall . Having good communications with London, Chiswick became a popular country retreat and part of the suburban growth of London in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was made the Municipal Borough of Brentford and Chiswick in 1932 and part of Greater London in 1965, when it merged into
7070-436: The rocket and many more suffered damage. There is a memorial where the rocket fell on Staveley Road, and a War Memorial at the east end of Turnham Green. Refuge was founded in 1971 in Chiswick, as the modern world's first safe house for women and children escaping domestic violence. By the start of the 21st century, Chiswick had become an affluent suburb. Chiswick St Nicholas was an ancient, and later civil, parish in
7171-408: The same site for over 350 years. The original brewery was in the gardens of Bedford House in Chiswick Mall. A weekly farmers' market is held every Sunday by Grove Park Farm House, Duke's Meadows. A monthly flower market is held on the first Sunday of each month on Chiswick High Road in the old market place, now mostly used as a car park, near the Hogarth statue. An antiques market is to be held on
7272-468: The second Sunday of each month, and a "Cheese and Provisions" market with 23 stalls on the third and fourth Sundays of each month in the same area, so there will in effect be a weekly market event on the High Road once again. Chiswick House was designed by the Third Earl of Burlington , and built for him, in 1726–29 as an extension to an earlier Jacobean house (subsequently demolished in 1788); it
7373-571: The site of the old Chiswick Empire . Between 1964 and 1966, the 18-storey IBM headquarters was built above Gunnersbury station , designed to accommodate 1500 people. It became the home of the British Standards Institution in 1994. Chiswick has an annual book festival. Chiswick is home to the Griffin Brewery , where Fuller, Smith & Turner and its predecessor companies brewed their prize-winning ales on
7474-478: The station. Chiswick railway station on the Hounslow Loop Line is served by a regular South Western Railway service to London Waterloo via Clapham Junction . The North London line crosses Chiswick (north-south); London Overground stations are Gunnersbury and South Acton . Chiswick's local rugby union teams include Chiswick RFC, formerly Old Meadonians RFC. The team plays league games on
7575-449: The suburb become that Bedford Park came in for some gentle ribbing in the St James's Gazette of 17 December 1881 in the lengthy "Ballad of Bedford Park", with verses such as 'I will seek out a brighter spot', continued Mr. Carr. 'Not too near London, and yet not what might be called too far.' 'Tis there a village I'll erect with Norman Shaw's assistance Where men may lead
7676-439: The suburb well, having met his future wife there; his depiction of it was "somewhat fantastic, somewhat inaccurate", as he liked to dramatise people, but his depiction was one of many, portraying Bedford Park as "Arcadian, Aesthetic, Bohemian; as ... a romantic Socialist Co-operative". Its residents were "artists, poets, academics, journalists, actors" and educated professionals, all self-conscious and articulate. So fashionable did
7777-399: The sunset side of London, as red and ragged as a cloud of sunset. It was built of a bright brick throughout; its sky-line was fantastic, and even its ground plan was wild. It had been the outburst of a speculative builder, faintly tinged with art, who called its architecture sometimes Elizabethan and sometimes Queen Anne, apparently under the impression that the two sovereigns were identical. It
7878-471: The tomb of Josiah Wedgwood 's business partner, Thomas Bentley , designed by Thomas Scheemakers. One of Oliver Cromwell 's daughters, Mary Fauconberg, lived at Sutton Court and is buried in the churchyard. Enduring legend has it that the body of Oliver Cromwell was also interred with her, though as the Fauconbergs did not move to Sutton Court until 15 years after his disinterment, it is more likely he
7979-559: The west end of Chiswick Mall . The shipyard built the first naval destroyer , HMS Daring of the Daring class , in 1893. To cater for the increasing size of warships, Thornycroft moved its shipyard to Southampton in 1909. In 1822, the Royal Horticultural Society leased 33 acres (13.4 ha) of land in the area south of the High Road between what are now Sutton Court Road and Duke's Avenue. This site
8080-400: The west to Abinger Road in the east, and from Flanders Road in the south to Fielding Road in the north; and where the estate had in 1877 been bordered by orchards and farmland, it had become part of an integrated network of streets. The plan of the estate was of three main roads, namely The Avenue from the north, Woodstock Road from the northeast, and Bath Road from the east, which converged on
8181-421: The west with large gardens, have been demolished by developers to make way for blocks of flats. Among these was Carr's own property, Tower House on Bedford Road. Shaw designed it for him in 1878; it had 16 rooms, and its grounds were large enough to include both tennis and badminton courts. It served as St Catherine's Convent from 1908 to 1933, when it was replaced by St Catherine's Court. The Bedford Park Society,
8282-449: The whole country". The historian of London Stephen Inwood writes that it "looks and feels like a true garden suburb, probably the best in London". John J. Duffy, reviewing Ian Fletcher's essay "Bedford Park: Aesthete's Elysium?", calls Bedford Park "timidly self-conscious and physically ill-constructed", and "that imaginary museum in the London suburbs where inhabitants tried to break down the limits between art and life by time-travelling in
8383-498: Was a British architect who worked from the 1870s to the 1900s, known for his country houses and for commercial buildings. He is considered to be among the greatest of British architects; his influence on architectural style was strongest in the 1880s and 1890s. Shaw was born 7 May 1831 in Edinburgh, the sixth and last child of William Shaw (1780–1833), an Irish Protestant and army officer, and Elizabeth née Brown (1785–1883), from
8484-497: Was a reputation for being aesthetic and arty. Many of the best-known architects of the Victorian era contributed buildings in a mixture of styles in Bedford Park; two of them, E. J. May and Maurice Adams, chose to live on the estate. Major architects involved in the early period of the creation of the estate included Edward William Godwin , Richard Norman Shaw , Edward John May , Henry Wilson , and Maurice Bingham Adams ; later,
8585-794: Was added after the First World War by Canon Egan as a war memorial. The Cathedral of the Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God and the Holy Royal Martyrs with its characteristic blue onion dome with gold stars is in Harvard Road. The Russian Orthodox church built it in 1998. Chiswick Mall is a waterfront street on the north bank of the River Thames in the oldest part of Chiswick near St Nicholas Church. It consists mainly of some thirty "grand houses" from
8686-481: Was at 414 Chiswick High Road. It had 2,140 seats, and staged music hall entertainment, plays, reviews, opera, ballet and an annual Christmas pantomime . The Q Theatre (1924 to 1959) was a small theatre opposite Kew Bridge station. It staged the first works of Terence Rattigan and William Douglas-Home , and many of its plays went on to the West End. The 96-seat Tabard Theatre (1985) in Bath Road, upstairs from
8787-520: Was born in Chiswick in 1872; his father, John Isaac Thornycroft , had founded the Chiswick-based John I. Thornycroft & Company shipbuilding company in 1864, which Thornycroft later joined and developed. The artist Montague Dawson , regarded as one of the best 20th-century painters of the sea , was born in Chiswick in 1895. Norman Shaw Richard Norman Shaw RA (7 May 1831 – 17 November 1912), also known as Norman Shaw ,
8888-513: Was buried at St Nicholas Churchyard, Chiswick, where his monument incorrectly states he was 50, not 49. In 1871 his remains were taken to Italy and given a national hero's burial in Santa Croce, Florence alongside Michelangelo and Galileo , while his monument in Chiswick was lavishly refurbished. The inventor of the electric telegraph , Francis Ronalds , lived on Chiswick Lane from 1833 to 1852. Another engineer, John Edward Thornycroft
8989-441: Was described with some justice as an artistic colony, though it never in any definable way produced any art. But although its pretensions to be an intellectual centre were a little vague, its pretensions to be a pleasant place were quite indisputable. The stranger who looked for the first time at the quaint red houses could only think how very oddly shaped the people must be who could fit in to them. Fletcher wrote that Chesterton knew
9090-506: Was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy . Shaw worked for, among others, the artists John Callcott Horsley and George Henry Boughton , and the industrialist Lord Armstrong . He designed large houses such as Cragside , Grim's Dyke , and Chigwell Hall , as well as a series of commercial buildings using a wide range of styles. Shaw was elected to the Royal Academy in 1877, and co-edited (with Sir Thomas Jackson RA )
9191-679: Was gifted at drawing and Shaw's career is assumed to have been an influence in Cecil Wood becoming an architect. In later life he lived at 6 Ellerdale Road, Hampstead, London. He died in London and is buried in St John-at-Hampstead Churchyard, Hampstead , London. One of Shaw's major commissions was the planning and designing of buildings for Bedford Park, London. Shaw was commissioned in 1877 by Jonathan T. Carr though his involvement only lasted until 1879. He designed St Michael and All Angels, Bedford Park , as
9292-549: Was in Acton . Chiswick High Road contains a mix of retail shops, restaurants, food outlets and office and hotel space. The wide streets encourage cafes, pubs and restaurants to provide pavement seating. Lying between the offices at the Golden Mile Great West Road and Hammersmith , office developments and warehouse conversions to offices began from the 1960s. The first in 1961 was 414 Chiswick High Road on
9393-418: Was initially a temporary iron building from 1876 on Chiswick High Road facing Chiswick Lane. The current building's foundation stone was laid in 1879 and consecrated in 1880. It was designed, along with much of Bedford Park, by Norman Shaw , and was called "a very lovely church" by John Betjeman . It is an Anglo-Catholic church, and was attacked on the day it was consecrated for "Popish and Pagan mummeries" by
9494-775: Was more sparingly used, and finally disappeared entirely. On 16 July 1867, Shaw married Agnes Haswell Wood at the parish church in Hampstead . She was the daughter of James Wood and was born in New South Wales , and most of the Wood siblings were sent to England for part of their education. All the children but Agnes returned to New South Wales and from there, most of the family moved to Christchurch in New Zealand. Agnes lived with an aunt in England and in 1866, she became engaged to Shaw. Her nephew, Cecil Wood (1878–1947),
9595-595: Was once home to the Chequered Flag garage and its associated motor racing team. In the 18th century, the poet Alexander Pope , author of The Rape of the Lock , lived in Chiswick between 1716 and 1719, in the building which is now the Mawson Arms at the corner of Mawson Lane. The actor Charles Holland was born in Chiswick in 1733. The artist William Hogarth bought the house now known as Hogarth's House in 1749, lived there until his death in 1764, and
9696-458: Was one of 35 major centres identified in the statutory planning document of Greater London, the London Plan of 2008. Chiswick occupies a meander of the River Thames , 6 miles (9.7 km) west of Charing Cross . The district is built up towards the north with more open space in the south, including the grounds of Chiswick House and Duke's Meadows . Chiswick has one main shopping area,
9797-655: Was originally a wallpaper printing works, now used as office space. It is a Grade II* listed building . It faces the main factory building and was once joined to it by a bridge across the road. It was Voysey's only industrial building, and is considered an "important Arts and Crafts factory building". In 1971 Erin Pizzey established the world's first domestic violence refuge at 2 Belmont Terrace, naming her organisation " Chiswick Women's Aid ". The local council attempted to evict Pizzey's residents, but were unsuccessful and she soon established more such premises elsewhere, inspiring
9898-666: Was purchased by the local council, who developed it as a recreational centre. A promenade and bandstand were built, and the meadows are still used for sport with a rugby club, football pitches, hockey club, several rowing clubs and a golf club. In recent years a local conservation charity, the Dukes Meadows Trust, has undertaken extensive restoration work, which saw a long-term project of a children's water play area opened in August 2006. The Gunnersbury Triangle local nature reserve , opposite Chiswick Park Underground station,
9999-573: Was reburied at their home at Newburgh Priory. Private Frederick Hitch VC , hero of Rorke's Drift , is also buried there. The church of St Michael, Sutton Court was designed by W. D. Caröe in 1908–1909. It is a red brick building on Elmwood road, in Tudor style. St Paul's Church, Grove Park is a Gothic style stone building designed by H. Currey. It was built largely at the Duke of Devonshire's expense in 1872. St Michael and All Angels, Bedford Park
10100-408: Was seen to be necessary to protect the suburb, as conservation areas did not then exist in Britain. In 1969, with the law updated, the London Borough of Ealing made Bedford Park a conservation area; in 1970, the London Borough of Hounslow followed suit for its part of the suburb. Before the estate was developed, John Lindley (1799–1865), botanist, lived at Bedford House, The Avenue, marked with
10201-465: Was used for its fruit tree collection and its first school of horticulture, and housed its first flower shows. The area was reduced to 10 acres (4.0 ha) in the 1870s, and the lease was terminated when the Society's garden at Wisley , Surrey, was set up in 1904. Some of the original pear trees still grow in the gardens of houses built on the site. The population of Chiswick grew almost tenfold during
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