- Residents invited to ‘Big Sing 150’ & Bedford Park Society Exhibition in May
- Bedford Park Festival and Green Days will continue celebrations in June
A summer of celebratory events to mark the 150th anniversary of Bedford Park will begin next month with a community ‘Big Sing’ on the May Bank Holiday and a special exhibition of stories and images created by the Bedford Park Society. Celebrating the rich architectural heritage and social history of Bedford Park, the first garden suburb, the events are open to everyone and are being widely promoted under the specially designed 150th logo.
Following Chiswick’s ‘Big Sing for the King’ (photo below) and ‘Big Jubilee Sing’ in recent years, St Michael & All Angels Church and The Tabard pub are inviting local residents to take part in the ‘Big Sing 150’ on the lawn outside the church. From 4.30pm on Bank Holiday Monday May 5th, when street parties are being encouraged, songs will mark VE Day 80 as well as celebrating 150 years of Bedford Park. They will include hits from the ‘golden’ charts of 1967 – the year the Bedford Park Festival was launched.
Two days later, the Bedford Park Society will preview its anniversary exhibition at a celebratory event in the Boston Room of the George IV. Entitled “The Community at Bedford Park 1875-2025 – Ahead of the World in Everything?”, the exhibition focuses on the various communities of Bedford Park from its earliest days to modern times. Stories and rarely seen images and illustrations will paint a vivid picture of the many different groups attracted to the first garden suburb – political, social, professional and recreational. The event on Wednesday May 7th runs from 7:30pm to 9:30pm. Tickets cost £35 per person and include drinks and canapés: a full bar will also be available. See image below:
Two more events take place before the end of April: a concert performance of two WB Yeats poems, which the Nobel Prize winner wrote in Bedford Park, and a Walking Tour of Bedford Park by Peter Murray OBE, for NLA which runs the London Festival of Architecture.
In May, the 40th anniversary of the theatre at the Tabard pub in Bedford Park will be marked by an article in the Brentford & Chiswick Local History Society Journal by Wesley Henderson-Roe.
Events will continue in June at Green Days weekend and the Bedford Park Festival, which will include sessions and walks celebrating WB Yeats, John Betjeman and other key figures in the area’s history. Watch for separate announcement. During that month, the Bedford Park Society will publish an anniversary publication celebrating the architectural beauty of the first garden suburb.
Forthcoming events celebrating 150 years of Bedford Park (links to be inserted)
- Friday April 25th: Performance of WB Yeats’ Lake Isle of Innisfree and Down by the Salley Gardens in a concert by Harriet Burns and Ian Tindale, at St Peter’s Acton Green, 7pm.
- Saturday April 26th: NLA Walking tour of Bedford Park, led by Peter Murray OBE, 10.30am to 12.30pm.
- Monday May 5th: The Big Sing 150, marking 150 years of Bedford Park and VE Day 80, led by St Michael & All Angels Church and the Tabard pub, 4.30pm
- Wednesday May 7th: Bedford Park Society Anniversary Event & Exhibition Preview – Boston Room at the George IV, 7.30pm to 9.30pm – Tickets on sale here
- Friday May 9th to 23rd: Bedford Park Society Exhibition in St Michael & All Angels Church, open 9am to 5pm
- In May: The theatrical history of The Tabard pub, marking the 40th anniversary of its theatre upstairs. Article in the Brentford & Chiswick Local History Society Journal, on sale here.
- Friday June 6th to 22nd – Bedford Park Festival, including Green Days weekend (June 7th and 8th) and other commemorative events
- In June – Bedford Park Society anniversary publication, to be distributed free to homes in Bedford Park
In the autumn there will be further anniversary events, including:
- September 10th to 15th: Chiswick Book Festival, featuring anniversary sessions,
- September 24th: Bedford Park Society’s annual lecture with 150th anniversary theme.
- October 22nd: I Dreamt I Dwelt: Irish Composers and Bedford Park’s Heyday, organised by the WB Yeats Bedford Park Artwork Project.
See more news of these events on these websites: St Michael & All Angels Church and Bedford Park Society.
and social media #BedfordPark@150.
Further information from: Kate Bowes, Bedford Park Society,
information@bedfordparksociety.org.uk and
Torin Douglas, St Michael & All Angels, torindouglas@gmail.com
NOTES TO EDITORS
* Bedford Park was founded in 1875 as the first garden suburb and its origins were inspired by the Aesthetic Movement of the 1870s. It immediately attracted a community of artists, architects and other aesthetic types and was immortalised in G.K. Chesterton’s story, The Man Who Was Thursday. An advertisement of the time proclaimed it to be “the healthiest place in the world (Annual Death Rate under 6 per thousand)”.
* Bedford Park houses, in the Queen Anne style of architecture, are based on designs by Victoria architects Norman Shaw, E. W. Godwin, E.J. May and Maurice B. Adams. Pretty tree-lined avenues of family homes with gardens were interspersed with artists’ studios. Community buildings, including the Church and Parish Hall, the Stores, a School of Art, the Tabard Inn and the Club, helped to create an integrated ‘village-like’ community, living in ‘sweetness and light’. See Bedford Park Society’s Galleries.
* Among Bedford Park’s ‘progressive’ early residents were the poet W.B. Yeats, dramatist Sir Arthur Pinero, architects C.A. Voysey, Maurice Adams and E.J. May, actors William Terriss and Florence Farr and artists T.M. Rooke and Lucien Pissarro, whose father Camille painted several views from the house.
* It was described by the Poet Laureate and heritage campaigner John Betjeman as “the most significant suburb built in the last century, probably the most significant in the western world.” Bedford Park’s buildings and community spirit became an inspiration and model for the creators of later garden suburbs and cities in Britain and around the world.
* During the 1960s some of the houses were demolished and others increasingly came under threat. In 1967, after a campaign supported by John Betjeman, The Bedford Park Society and St Michael & All Angels Church, Bedford Park became a conservation area. More than 350 houses are listed as Grade II and the church and inn are Grade II*.
