Bedford Park
| Bedford Park | |
| Middlesex | |
|---|---|
 Housing on Bedford Road | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | TQ207793 |
| Location: | 51°30’0"N, 0°15’42"W |
| Data | |
| Post town: | London |
| Postcode: | W4 |
| Dialling code: | 020 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Ealing / Hounslow |
Bedford Park is a suburban development in Middlesex, immediately north of Chiswick and east of Acton, and running into both and the wider metropolitan conurbation. It forms a conservation area. The nearest underground station is Turnham Green (on the District Line).
History
Bedford Park has been described as the world's first garden suburb.[1] 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 the Garden city movement, but by suburban developments around the world. Sir John Betjeman described Bedford Park "the most significant suburb built in the last century, probably in the western world".[2] Herman Muthesius, the celebrated German critic who wrote The English House in 1904 said, "It signifies neither more nor less than the starting point of the smaller modern house, which spread from there over the whole country."
The developer was Jonathan Carr (brother of J. Comyns Carr), who in 1875 bought 24 acres of land just north of Turnham Green Station in West London which had been constructed six years earlier. The City of London was only 30 minutes by steam train and the site was blessed with many fine trees. The desire to protect the mature trees led to the informal plan that is major feature of Bedford Park. The first architect for the estate was Edward William Godwin, a leading member of the Aesthetic Movement, but his plans came in for some criticism in The Builder, the leading professional journal of its day, and Godwin and Carr parted company. Some designs were commissioned from the firm of Coe and Robinson, but in 1877 Carr hired Richard Norman Shaw the leading architect of his day to be the Estate architect. By then the layout of the Park had been set but Shaw's house designs, in the Queen Anne style, proved remarkably successful in creating an impression of great variety whilst employing a limited number of house types.
Living in Bedford Park, with its church, St Michael and All Angels, parish hall, club, stores, pub and school of art, was the height of fashion in the 1880s. W. B. Yeats, the actor William Terriss, the actress Florence Farr, the playwright Arthur Wing Pinero and the painter Camille Pissarro lived here. Bedford Park is Saffron Park in G. K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday and Biggleswick in John Buchan’s Mr. Standfast. So fashionable did it become that Bedford Park came in for some gentle ribbing in the St James's Gazette in the "Ballad of Bedford Park", a lengthy piece which includes such verses as:
'Here trees are green and bricks are red
and clean the face of man;
We'll build our houses here', he said,
'In style of good Queen Anne'.
And Norman Shaw looked up and saw,
and smiled a cheerful smile.
'This thing I'll do', said he, 'while you
the denizens beguile'.
To work went then these worthy men,
so philanthropic both;
And none who sees the bricks and trees
to sign the lease is loth.
…..
Thus was a village builded
For all who are aesthete
Whose precious souls it fill did
With utter joy complete.
For floors were stained and polished
And every hearth was tiled
And Philistines abolished
By Culture's gracious child...
Now he who loves aesthetic cheer
and does not mind the damp
May comen and read Rossetti here
By a Japanese-y lamp.
As the 20th century drew on, the place became less a centre of fashion; the houses were multi-occupied and bus conductors called out "Poverty Park" when they stopped on the Bath Road. The demolition of a key building led directly to the foundation in 1963 of the Bedford Park Society, through the activities of which in 1967 the government listed the greater part of the estate, a total of 356 houses. A few years later Bedford Park was designated a conservation area. Since that time the area has gradually improved. Houses have returned to family use and many have been renovated.
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Bedford Park) |
References
- ↑ Affleck Greeves, T. 1975 "Bedford Park, the First Garden Suburb", Jones; Bolsterli, M. 1977 "The Early Community at Bedford Park: 'Corporate Happiness' in the First Garden Suburb".
- ↑ Rowley, Trevor, 1942- (2006). The English landscape in the twentieth century. London: Hambledon Continuum. pp. 84. ISBN 1852853883. OCLC 61702983. https://archive.org/details/englishlandscape0000rowl/page/84.
- Binns, Sheila (2013). The Aesthetics of Utopia: Saltaire, Akroydon and Bedford Park, Spire Books, ISBN 978 1 904965 45 9
- Budworth, David. Jonathan Carr's Bedford Park, The Bedford Park Society
- Girouard, Mark (1977). Sweetness and Light: The "Queen Anne" Movement, 1860–1900
- Greeves, Tom. Bedford Park: the first Garden Suburb, The Bedford Park Society
