Raising funds to maintain and improve St Michael & All Angels since the 1880’s.
Residents of Bedford Park and the wider community have been generous contributors to the upkeep and improvement of our Grade II* listed church, ever since it was designed in the 1870s by the acclaimed Victorian architect Richard Norman Shaw as “the crowning edifice” of the world’s first garden suburb.
- 140 years ago, local people helped pay for the construction of the ‘New Parish Room’ (see above, Building News, May 1884) with events including a ‘Garden Fete & Fancy Fayre’ (see flyer below). They later supported its regeneration in 2001 as a two-storey community centre fit for the 21st Century. We now call it St Michael & All Angels Parish Hall and it’s in regular use for education, talks, concerts and parties.
The Garden Fete & Fancye Fayre of 1886 and the first Bedford Park Festival in 1967
- In 1966, the vicar of St Michael & All Angels, Canon Jack Jenner, enlisted the help of John Betjeman in a campaign to restore the church (see newspaper photo and report).
The launch of the 1966 restoration campaign with John Betjeman, the Mayor of Ealing and Canon Jack Jenner
- In June 1967, with members of the Bedford Park Society, he set up the Bedford Park Festival to pay for church repairs and to highlight the area’s Arts & Crafts architectural heritage. Within a month, 356 houses had been listed for conservation. The Festival has been raising money for charities and the church ever since.
- In 1981 the Bedford Park Society won a Civic Trust ‘Pride of Place’ award for its plans to landscape the front of the Parish Hall, proposed by its founder Tom Greeves and carried through by its chairman Nigel Woolner and church architect Oliver West. The same year, extensive restoration work on the roof and fabric of the church won a grant from the GLC Historic Buildings Department, a Civic Trust commendation – and Green Days support from Hayley Mills and the two local MPs (see photos below).
The Bedford Park Society & St Michael & All Angels unite to transform the landscape outside the Parish Hall
Hayley Mills & MPs Barney Heyhoe & Sir George Young promote the Roof Fund in 1981
+ the ‘Be An Angel’ campaign, 2000
The 1981 restoration of St Michael & Angels’ roof and fabric , led by the vicar Rev Michael Champneys
- From 1998 to 2001, a Millennium Project funded the regeneration of the Parish Hall as a two-storey community centre fit for the 21st Century. We now call it St Michael & All Angels Parish Hall and it’s in regular use for education, talks, concerts and parties. (See photos below)
The Parish Hall, before and after the 2000 regeneration: Chiswick Book Festival & Christmas Crafts Fair
- In 2006, the church’s interior was transformed by the repainting of its walls and woodwork, nearer to the colours of 1880s (photo below). In 2014, we installed a new pipe organ, greatly enhancing the musical life of the church and local community. Funding came from generous donations, the Bedford Park Festival, several balls and a Hymnathon.
- Recently much less visible but equally important work has been undertaken: to repair and preserve the exterior wall on the South and West facades of the church for the first time for many years (see photo above). Now money is needed to complete the North and East faces, as well as some essential work on the roof, where squirrels have been eating the lead! Wetter winters have not helped.