Vaisakhi is the traditional New Year and harvest festival of the Punjab in India and Pakistan and gained added significance for Sikhs, the majority population in the area when at Vaisakhi in 1699 Guru Gobind Singh, the 10th Guru, founded the Sikh nation with the establishment of the Khalsa Panth.
Vaisahki is actually the 13th or 14th of April each year, but the festival is celebrated over several weeks at different Gurdwaras. You can read more about Vaisakhi and see some of my earlier pictures from various Nagar Kirtan (Sikh processions) on My London Diary posts from 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 and although they follow a similar pattern there are differences. In Hounslow the event seemed to me to have more active participation by women and girls than in some of the others.
I’d previously photographed the celebrations at most of of the Gurdwaras around London as a part of a larger project on religious celebrations in London, but had somehow missed out on covering the festival in Hounslow.
I’d always enjoyed photographing Vaisahki as the Sikhs were always very hospitable – I was made very welcome and guided and encouraged to take photographs and Hounslow was no exception. I wrote a fairly long description of the event on My London Dairy and included some of my personal history in the area where I – and my father – grew up.
The procession began at the Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha which was built on the site of the dye factory where I had my first full-time job – and where many of the shop-floor workers were Sikh. On the route various people had set up stalls offering free food and soft drinks to everyone in the procession – and I enjoyed their hospitality, but was soon too full to be able to accept more.
It went along streets that were very familiar to me, past the clinic where I was weighed and measured as a baby and my mother was given free orange juice and cod-liver oil (which I didn’t thank them for.) Past the nursery school, Major Drake Brockman’s Academy, from which I was expelled aged 4, past the school my father left in 1913 at the age of 14 (though he wouldn’t recognise it now) on to the Gurdwara Guru Nanak Nishkam Sewak Jatha where the procession halted for more celebrations before continuing back to its starting point.
I wrote this post some months ago but when I tried to publish it none of the pictures appeared. They seem to be working now, though I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
Poor Little Overlooked Images: I’m often asked “Is it worth putting images on Flickr?” My answer is it depends on why you take pictures, what you photograph and what you expect to get out of it.
Ionic Temple, lake and obelisk, Chiswick House Gardens, Chiswick, 1977 10c103
To state what I think is obvious, I don’t make a living out of Flickr, though I do get the occasional sale because people have found my pictures through it. It’s actually getting a little embarrassing now, as I shut down my business after Covid and I think I’m going to have to re-open it due to increasing sales.
Cheshire St, Tower Hamlets, 86-4r-23
But what I’ve always wanted to do is to share my images with other people, and Flickr is certainly doing that. When I was writing this some months ago there were over 45,000 views of my pictures on Flickr in a single day, and many days there are over 10,000 views. In total I’ve now had over 15 million views of my pictures there.
Brick Lane, Tower Hamlets 86-4r-11
Of course it isn’t the same as a gallery show, but most of those I’ve taken part in over the years have been lucky to get 100 visitors coming to view them in a day. So Flickr can get your work seen, and seen by a very much wider range of people than are interested enough to go into a gallery to see photographs.
Collegiale Notre-Dame de la Crypte, Cassel, France
Though I have to say that some of those people see very different things in the pictures than what interested me and what I was trying to say when I made the picture.
D933, France
I don’t mind this. Sometimes they give me information about the scene which I was totally unaware of – and occasionally it adds something to my appreciation. Often I get comments which are very personal to the viewers who may have lived or worked in somewhere that I photographed and it perhaps adds another layer to my view of the image, as well as being pleasing that they found it of interest.
Notting Hill Carnival, 1999. Peter Marshall 99-823-11_2400
But there are some things I don’t like. People who share my images on social media without naming me as the photographer is perhaps the top of the list, and if anyone should dare to colorize one of my black and white images I might to moved to take out a contract on them. So far as I’m aware it hasn’t happened yet.
St Omer, France
But while my most viewed images have been seen over 20,000 times (one now 35,699 views) there are also a few which have apparently never been viewed at all.
St Omer, France
They aren’t any worse than most of my other pictures – and in any case how would anyone know without viewing them. I think it may actually reflect some small glitches in Flickr’s recording of views, as when I click on them in the Flickr report it actually states “No recent stats available for this photo” and I’m fairly sure some at least will have been seen by some people.
St Omer, France
But here, illustrating this post. are some of the fifteen images which had apparently never been seen when I wrote this post a few months ago. And after writing I discovered why – Flickr had changed their privacy settings to private. Not me – all of my images are uploaded as public. Somehow a stray bit or byte in their database had flipped. I’ve just checked again and found a different half-dozen images hidden in the same way.
Flickr has a reasonable search facility (though occasionally it goes haywire) and almost all of my images are keyworded. If you want to know if I have taken a picture of your street or town – or anything else – simply click this link to Flickr and type my name followed by what you want to find in the search box at the top of the page.
So to find if I have photographed Pegasus simply type:
Peter Marshall Pegasus
into the search box – and it should find all seven. Londoners in particular may find it useful to search on the names of London boroughs in this way.
Chiswick Waste, Stamford Brook, British Grove & St Peter’s Square: The fourth post on my walk which began at Kew Bridge Station on 10th of December 1989. The previous post was Bedford Park – 1989.
Bedford Park had played an important role in the development of suburban housing for the affluent with the Garden City movement, but after wandering around surrounded by red brick for more than an hour I was glad to get away from it and back to something rather different.
We sometimes think of recycling as being new and green, but it has long been important in our economy. Back in my young days there were ‘pig bins’ for waste food on our street, my father spent half an hour or so neatly smoothing out and rolling our waste newspapers into a neatly tied package to put out on the bin for salvage, and as kids we would eagerly search the neighbourhood for bottles to return to shops and scrap copper, brass, aluminium, lead and zinc to take to our local scrap dealer for pennies. When you only got 6d a week from your parents for pocket money every little helped.
Of course dealers like this one largely worked on an industrial scale – the prices here are in pounds per hundredweight – and a hundredweight was 8 stone – 112 lbs or 50.8 kilograms.
Stamford Brook is now be called one of London’s “Lost Rivers”. Wikipedia has a lengthy description of its complex courses with at least three sources, its six strands and four mouths into the Thames. When the county of London was carved from Middlesex in 1889 its most western course formed the boundary between the London Borough of Hammersmith and the Middlesex urban districts of Brentford and Chiswick – and since 1965 between the London Boroughs of Hounslow and Hammersmith & Fulham.
One northern part of the river is the Bollo Brook, and some of its water was diverted to the lakes at Chiswick House which still have and outflow to the Thames. But most of the rest of the river had been culverted by 1900, largely becoming a part of London’s sewage system. Hopefully the opening a few days ago of London’s supersewer will end the use of two of the mouths at Chiswick and Hammersmith being storm overlows and discharging untreated sewage into the Thames.
Grove House, 66, British Grove, Chiswick, Hounslow, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1989, 89-12b-14
British Grove also has a culvert running under it through some of Stamford Brook was diverted. There was a track here from at least the 18th century. The houses on Chiswick High Road immediately west of British Grove, some listed and dating from 1830-40, are named as British Terrace on the 1873 OS Map and British Grove appears as a narrow track along the boundary between Hounslow and Hammersmith & Fulham with houses only on its west side and the name British Grove across the long back gardens of the houses on the west side of St Peter’s Square. It had previously been a southern part of Chiswick Field Lane and
Later parts of those back gardens were built on and Grove House at No 66 appears to date from around 1930. It is now four flats.
Island Records, Royal Chiswick Laundry, British Grove, Hammersmith, Hounslow, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1989, 89-12b-16
British Grove has a several small claims to fame. It was here around 1863 that Frederick Walton first made linoleum having taken over the British Grove Works in 1860 from rubber manufacture Richard Beard. Unfortunately Walton’s works burnt down in 1862. They were insured and were rebuilt but were too small and Walton moved to Staines which became the centre for the development and manufacture of lino – though later much was made at Kirkaldy. The Staines works closed in 1974.
The Royal Chiswick Laundry was built in the rear garden of 22 St Peter’s Square in the 1890s, facing onto British Grove. The laundry closed in 1968 and the works were used briefly by “a company that added soundtrack to film before the property in 1973 became the offices, recording studios and premises of Island Records, who moved in with a staff of 65.” Their recording studio included “the base of the chimney, which was occasionally used in recordings to add reverberation” to vocals.
Many locals were relived when Island Records moved out and were in 2005 replaced by architects who retained and restored much of the buildings which were renamed Island Studios.
House, St Peter’s Square, Hammersmith, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1989, 89-12c-65
This is No 22, the house in whose back garden the Royal Chiswick Laundry was built, at the south-west corner of St Peter’ Square. The houses in the square were built in 1825-30 and 32 are Grade II listed.
Houses, St Peter’s Square, Hammersmith, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1989, 89-12c-52
The square was developed piecemeal by builders working to a master plan by the landowner George Scott on part of his Ravenscourt Park Esate, “mostly built in groups of three, with stucco fronts, pediments and Ionic porches.” Between these houses you can see the square chimney of the Royal Chiswick Laundry. And you can admire the architectural detail.
House, St Peter’s Square, Hammersmith, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1989, 89-12c-41
Two lions look rather angry at each other beside the stairs to the door of Number 30, with an eagle above the doorway.
Houses, St Peter’s Square, Hammersmith, Hammersmith & Fulham, 1989, 89-12c-43
Some of the houses have gateposts with large pineapples – and perhaps others once did. And here again that impressive work above the side gates, as well as an eagle above the front door.
I took a few more pictures around the square, which really is worth a visit, before dragging myself away from one of London’s finest squares towards St Peter’s Church where the next account will begin.
Conveniently a large plaque on the house tells me this is Prioy Gardens and gives the date of its construction, 1880. The London Borough of Hounslow street sign confirms the street name and tells me it is in Chiswick, true, but more specifically it is in Bedford Park. Yet a third street name can be seen on the wall of the house in case anyone was still in doubt.
This Grade II listed house at 1 Priory Gardens is a part of the Bedford Park Estate, “a pioneering commercial development of some 350 houses and a few public buildings built between 1875 and 1886 by inexperienced developer Jonathan Carr.”
The estate was planned “to create a community of like-minded middle class aesthetes who were defined by modest financial resources and significant artistic aspirations” and was generally regarded soon after as ‘The First Garden Suburb’ and had a great influence on later suburban housing.
The whole estate reflects the Queen Anne Revival style of the period which the listing calls ‘Picturesque‘ and is also known as Domestic Revival. Most of the houses and public buildings on the estate built before 1880 were designed by Richard Norman Shaw, the leading architect of this style, but this was one of the earliest by his protégé E J May who had taken over as Estate Architect. A planning application to demolish the house and develop the site was turned down in 1973 and it is now the headquarters of the Victorian Society.
The Tabard Inn at the right of this row also dates from 1880 and is Grade II* listed, one of the public buildings in the area designed by Richard Norman Shaw. This building was was “a pioneering ‘improved’ pub and represented a rejection of the Gin Palace in favour of a more traditionally inspired and respectable inn” and retains much of its original interior features. The exterior of this group of properties was inspired by the well-known Staples Inn on High Holborn – which some may remember featured on tins of Old Holborn hand rolling tobacco.
To the left of the pub is the managers house, and closer to my camera at left are the Bedford Park Stores. Wikipedia has a long and interesting entry on this group of buildings. The stores later became a showroom for coachbuilder H. J. Mulliner & Co.
The buildings of Bedford Park which had become run-down and many in multi-occupation by the middle of last century were saved from ruin by an influential campaign by the Bedford Park Society and all of Carr’s buildings were listed in 1967. Ealing and Hounslow Councils created conservation areas covering the estate in 1970.
This is I think 15 Priory Avenue, one of 4 houses at the crossroads with Rupert Road, where I could have faced in any direction and photographed a listed house, or walked down either of the roads lined with them. I think this was the most distinctive corner, but it was a rather overwhelming ensemble.
Back on the Bath Road the Wendy Wisbey theatrical agency, address 2 Rupert Road, occupied what had previously been The Phildene Stage School. In 2010 it became part of Orchard House School, now part of Dukes Education.
This was another building designed by Richard Norman Shaw. Unfortunately because of the mass nature of the listing of buildings in this area the listing text is almost devoid of any information.
Another picture of this agency which was also a dance school which shows the fine window at the east of the Bath Road frontage.
Houses, Bedford Park, Turnham Green, 1989, 89-12b-51
Another picture from Bedford Park showing some rather less grand houses. I can no longer recall the exact location – perhaps someone wlll be able to recognise it.
St Michael & All Angels’ Parish Hall, Woodstock Rd, Bedford Park, Turnham Green, ,1989, 89-12b-44
The Parish Hall adjoins the church and is listed together with it. The church by Richard Norman Shaw was built in 1880 as a central element in the new Bedford Park Estate, but the parish hall was a later addition in 1887. The front of the church and the hall face The Avenue but there is a small grassed area in front and the street sign in the photograph is for Woodstock Rd.
The central pillar seems remarkably stout and the decorative ironwork includes two angels above each door.
I left the church and walked down past Turnham Green Station to Chiswick High Road to continue my walk. More later.
Turnham Green – 1989: The second post on my walk which began at Kew Bridge Station on 10th of December 1989. The previous post was Kew Bridge & Gunnersbury 1989.
Empire House, Chiswick High Rd, Turnham Green, Hounslow, 1989 89-12a-64
It might be thought odd that this tall office building which was built starting in 1959 should have been called Empire House, when the British Empire was almost completely gone, but the Empire from which this tower got its name was the Chiswick Empire, built for theatre owner and manager Oswald Stoll at 414 Chiswick High Road, replacing some shops and a smithy which opened in 2012.
The architect was the leading theatre architect Frank Matcham and it was a grand example of the Edwardian ‘Jacobean’ style. Built to seat 4,000 it featured mainly variety shows, but also more serious theatre and perhaps was in its heyday in the 1940s and early 50s. Wikipedia has a great list of some of those who appeared in its final years “Tommy Cooper, Max Miller, Max Bygraves, Julie Andrews, Morecambe and Wise, Ken Dodd, Max Wall, Dickie Valentine, the Ray Ellington Quartet, Peter Sellers and Dorothy Squires (1952), Laurel and Hardy on a return visit (1954), Al Martino, Alma Cogan, Terry-Thomas (1955) and Cliff Richard (1959).” Cliff wasn’t quite the man who brought the house down, with the final shows being by Liberace with the theatre being demolished within a month of his stepping away from the piano.
I don’t know who was the architect responsible for Empire House. It has recently been bought and redeveloped into flats and town houses.
This elegant wallpaper factory was designed by C F Voysey and built in 1902. It was the only commercial building designed by the celebrated Arts & Crafts architect and designer and is Grade II* listed.
Arthur Sanderson & Sons Ltd, now just Sanderson, was founded in Islington in 1860 and made fabrics and wallpaper. The company came to Chiswick in 1879 and this building was an extension on the other side of the road to their earlier factory, built in 1893. After a fire in 1928, the company moved to Perivale selling off the Voysey building. They had also built a factory in Uxbridge in 1919 to produce fabrics. Sandersons moved back to into the Voysey building in 2024.
Sandersons had bought the business of Jeffrey & Co who had printed William Morris’s wallpapers and in 1940 when Morris & Co dissolved they also bought the rights to use the Morris name.
Dukes Avenue runs south from Turnham Green towards Chiswick House. Lord Burlington’s grandson was able after the Chiswick enclosures act of 1814 to build the road from his estate to Chiswick High Road. The road is lined with lime trees.
Houses along here seem seldom to be sold, but one went recently for over £3 million. Most appear to be large, solid and Edwardian but of no great interest.
This former Sandersons factory, the “Devonshire works”, was used for light engineering in the 1960s by Evershed & Vignoles of Acton Lane. From 1971 it stood empty until restored by the Cornhill Insurance Co. as the Barley Mow Workspace, for individuals or small firms of designers or craftsmen, the first of whom arrived in 1976.”
After Lord Burlington who built Chiswick House died the property was inherited by the Dukes of Devonshire. I think this works probably dates from 1893.
Afton House, built around 1800 is the only remaining example of the grand houses which were bilt in around 1800 along Chiswick High Road, and it Grade II listed. In the 1850s it was called Falkland House and was a school, but was renamed Afteon House in 1861. From then until 1887 it remained a school but then became a laundry until 1913. Empty and bcoming derelict it was bought in 1919 by Dan Mason of the Chiswick Polish Company (best remembered for their Cherry Blossom Shoe Polish) and given as a club for ex-servicemen.
Linden Gardens, Chiswick High Rd, Turnham Green, Hounslow, 1989, 89-12a-34
Dr Ralph Griffiths who founded the Monthly Review and edited it for 50 years was one of the many “noble, artistic and scholarly residents” of the area in the 18th century and he lived in Linden House where Linden Gardens now is. He was a London bookseller and publisher Ralph Griffiths, with “bookshops at St. Paul’s Churchyard from 1747 until 1753, then at 20 Pater Noster Row until 1759, and finally on the Strand near Catherine Street until 1772 – all under the sign of the Dunciad.”
Griffiths was notably involved in the 1746 publication of Acanius or the Young Adventurer, a fictionalized account of the Young Pretender, and may have been its author. The government attempted unsuccessfully to suppress the book and it remained in print for over 150 years.
Chiswick Fire Station, Chiswick High Rd, Turnham Green, Hounslow, 1989, 89-12a-36
Chiswick Fire Station at 197 Chiswick High Road is an elegant building with a tower and is now a bar and restaurant. It was for sale when I made this picture. Built in 1891 the tower at right was used to hang up fire hoses to dry and also to store the long fire escape ladder. A new fire station was built in 1963 and this became redundant.
War Memorial, Turnham Green, Hounslow, 1989, 89-12a-26
Erected in 1921 ‘In grateful and affectionate memory of the men of Chiswick who fell in the Great War, 1914 – 1918’ this simple obelisk is a rather plain reminder of their sacrifice designed by Edward Willis FSI, Engineer and Architect to the Chiswick Urban District Council. More names were added after the Second World War. There seems to be little reason to justify its Grade II listing
I walked on to Bedford Park. More from there in a later post .
Kew Bridge & Gunnersbury 1989: I didn’t get our for a walk again in 1989 until the 10th of December, probably partly because of the weather with drizzle, mist, fog and some very cold days. But it was just a little warmer and I decided to go out. But at this time in London sunset is before 4pm and so I decided to take pictures fairly close to home so I could make an earlier start. Kew Bridge station is only around a half hour journey from my home.
I made my first picture from the footbridge in the station taking me to the station exit. As you can see the station buildings were in pretty poor condition. The view includes the local landmark water pumping tower and the top of the engine house of Kew Bridge Engines, opened as a remarkable museum in 1975 (now renamed as London Museum of Water & Steam) and the tower blocks further down Green Dragon Lane. Six 23 storey blocks were built here as the Brentford Towers Estate in 1968 to 1972 by the London Borough of Hounslow.
Green Dragon Lane apparently got its name from a 17th century pub but there appears to be no record of where this was, though there are or were around 40 other pubs of that name elsewhere in the country. The name is usually thought either to have come from the Livery Badge worn by servants of the Herbert family, the Earl of Pembroke, which showed a bloody arm being eaten by a dragon or a reference to King Charles II’s Portuguese Catholic queen, Catherine of Braganza whose family badge was the Green Wyvern.
Kew Bridge station gets rather crowded at times now, as Brentford’s new football stadium is next door.
I walked up to Gunnersbury Avenue where on the north-east corner of the Chiswick roundabout was this magnificently derelict former works of Spenklin Ltd. They appear to have made Power-operated work clamping devices and other engineering tools including boosters, clamps, cylinders and hydraulic ram heads. The company name was a contraction of Spencer Franklin. I think the next factory along – demolished by the time I took this – had been Permutit water softeners.
I think this building probably dates from around 1925 when the Brentford Bypass – soon better known as the Great West Road – was opened. The roundabout here came later along with its flyover in 1959.
A closer view of the entrance with its boards showing it had been acquired by Markheath Securities PLC a London property developer, though 49 per cent owned by The Adelaide Steamship Co Ltd. They appear to have been responsible for several developments in the area and to have made Section 106 contributions to Hounslow Council for improvements to nearby Gunnersbury Park.
National Tyres, Gunnersbury Avenue, Gunnersbury, Hounslow, 1989 89-11i-33
My memory – often false – tells me that this was on the west side of Gunnersbury Avenue (the North Circular Road) to Spenklin House and I think is probably from the same era. At least it is clear what the business of the National Tyre Service was and the building has a rather fine squad of Michelin men.
Chiswick Rd, Acton Lane, Chiswick Park Station, Chiswick Park, Houslow, Ealing, 1989 89-11i-36
Quite a long walk along Chiswick High Road took me to Acton Lane where I took this picture on the corner of Chiswick Road. A station was built here in 1879 when the District Railway was extended from Turnham Green to Ealing Broadway, but clearly that in the distance here is from the 1930s.
On the corner we have a rather unremarkable post-war building but with some rather remarkable Christmas decorations. The long shop front is now divided into separate shops.
Chiswick Park Station, Chiswick Park, Ealing, 1989 89-11i-23
A closer view of Chiswick Park Station, one of many characteristic stations by architect Charles Holden for London Underground and built in 1931-2. Holden’s first complete Underground stations were built on the Northern Line southern extension from 1926, but he later designed many more. This station remains almost as it was built and shares its features with many of his others. It was Grade II listed in 1987.
Chiswick Park Station, Chiswick Park, Ealing, 1989 89-11i-1
The interior of the tall drum-shaped ticket hall with a shop, Midas Gold Exchange at right. Useful signs above the exit tell the way to buses and to Acton Green, while the lower advertising panels are all for Underground posters. The Underground were pioneers in various ways in advertising – not least in the tall tower at this and other stations whose main if not only purpose was to carry their branding with the trade-mark roundel and station name.
I think the brick building at left which I think housed the ticket office was perhaps a later addition to the building which otherwise has been altered little.
Chiswick House & Gardens: On Wednesday 1st November 1989 I took the train to Chiswick and walked around the gardens of Chiswick House, making a brief detour to the Thames at Chiswick Mall and then returning to the gardens and then walking back to the station.
Obelisk, Chiswick House Gardens, Chiswick, Hounslow, 1989 89-10j-11
It was a place we often took our photography students for a day’s outings early in their one or two year course, a public park where they could wander freely and safely with a brief to take pictures. The park is owned by the London Borough of Hounslow and surrounds the house and the gardens are open every day and free to enter, but English Heritage charge for entry to the house. We never took the students inside.
The obelisk was erected here in 1732, but the classical sculpture on the base is much older, and had been given to Lord Burlington in 1712. It was replaced by a copy in 2006, with the original now inside the house.
Classic Bridge, Chiswick House Gardens, Chiswick, Hounslow, 1989 89-10j-14
The gardens changed greatly over the years as Lord Burlington and his friend William Kent who had helped in design the house in a neo-Palladian style – completed in 1729 – put in their ideas. Kent later became largely responsible for the gardens, which are one of the earliest examples of a grand English landscape garden.
But this bridge only arrived after Burlington’s death in 1753, added in 1774 to the designs of James Wyatt for Georgiana Spencer, the wife of William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire who then owned the property. It is over the Bollo Brook which runs through the gardens and was used to fill its lakes and run fountains, but later became too polluted so was culverted under the lake to continue towards the Thames close to Chiswick Bridge.
The house was probably never a comfortable place to live, having been designed primarily as a place to show off the considerable classical purchases Burlington had acquire during his three ‘Grand Tours’ as a young man and to demonstrate his devotion to the architectural ideas of Andrea Palladio which had begun on his tour of the Venice region in 1719.
Chiswick House Gardens, Chiswick, Hounslow, 1989 89-11a-53
Development of the gardens continued under the Cavendish family, including the building of a 300ft long conservatory in 1813 for the cultivation of camelias, then incredibly expensive and thought to be tender plants – though they grow quite well in the icy winters of Japan and the Himalayas. A formal garden in an Italian style was built around it. But this formal arrangement of hedges dates from Burlingtons own plans for the garden with vistas and statuary and columns.
Sphinx, Chiswick House Gardens, Chiswick, Hounslow, 1989 89-11a-43
The Cavendish family let out the property to various tenants and in 1892 it became a mental hospital for wealthy patients, the Chiswick Asylum until 1929 when it was sold to Middlesex County Council. After war damage the house became run by the Ministry of Works in 1948, latter English Heritage and in 2005 they formed the Chiswick House and Gardens Trust with Hounslow Council to bring management of house and gardens together.
I’d visited the house and gardens at intervals over the years, often with my family, and by 1989 the gardens were in rather better shape having been rather let go a little wild in some earlier years. On Flickr there is a very different picture taken from more or less the same viewpoint in 1978, and you can also find more pictures from a visit with my family in 1984 and with students in 1988.
I think this is another classical relic in at the entrance front of the house.
An urn in a very formal garden area. The next frame on Flickr shows the entire urn. I also made a very similar image in colour.
Urn, Chiswick House Gardens, Chiswick, Hounslow, 1989 89-11b-43
During the day there I made over 60 black and white exposures of the house and gardens, but most were rather similar to pictures I had made in earlier years and so I haven’t bothered to digitise them.
Racist Borders Agency & University Protest Ban: On Thursday October 24th 2013 I photographed a protest against the racist actions of the UK Borders Agency outside the Home Office Reporting Centre in Hounslow, West London before travelling into central London where supporters of the campaign calling for proper sickpay, holidays and pensions for all workers at the University of London defied a ban on protests by the University authorities.
Southall Black Sisters Protest Racist UKBA – Eaton House, Hounslow
The racial profiling of the UK Borders Agency in their spot checks at rail and underground stations in areas such as Southall, Slough, Brent and East London cause great anxiety in our minority communities, many of whom are British citizens born in this country.
Home Secretary Theresa May had in 2012 announced that her aim “was to create here in Britain a really hostile environment for illegal migration”, and set out to do so by a series of measures, some illegal and all morally reprehensible.
After a successful legal challenge to the Home Office use of slogans on advertising vans, the UKBA had, according to Southall Black Sisters had “shifted the ’Go Home’ message to reporting centres in Glasgow, Croydon and Hounslow.” And so they had decided to hold this protest at the Hounslow centre inviting others to join with them “in demonstrating against the Government’s anti-immigration campaigns.“
They said “We will not tolerate underhand tactics used to instil fear and divide us. Let us return to the streets and make our voices heard. We need to fight for our rights.”
Most of the 30 or so people who made their way to the centre, housed in the former offices of a pharmaceutical company on the edge of London, opposite Hounslow Heath, poorly served by public transport (perhaps deliberately remote to make life more difficult for migrants and asylum seekers who have to report there) were from Southall Black Sisters, but there were a few from other groups with a banner with the message ‘F**K ALL RACISM – NO ONE IS ILLEGAL’.
A few police had turned up to watch, and one officer complained about the language used by one of the women present. She complained strongly that she had been responding to a racist remark by a passer-by, and asked why the officer had not responded to that. He replied that he had not heard the remark, but had heard her reply, and was surrounded by a group of women blowing whistles and horns and banging drums for a couple of minutes before being rescued by Pragna Patel, Director of Southall Black Sisters, who told the group they should get on with their demonstration.
The protest was still continuing when I left after about an hour to get one of the infrequent buses to the centre of Hounslow to catch the tube.
3 Cosas Defy London University Protest Ban – Senate House, University of London
Supporters of the ‘3 Cosas’ campaign for sick pay, holidays and pensions for all workers at the University of London and others today defied University management ban of protests by holding a noisy protest in and around Senate House.
The ban was seen by students and staff at the University, including cleaners as an attempt to prevent free speech and freedom of assembly at the university and the threat to bring in the police to prevent further protests as one which recalls the actions of authoritarian regimes overseas, rightly condemned across academia and the rest of society. The university was threatening to bring charges of trespass against any protesters.
The protest was called by the 3 Cosas campaign (Spanish for ‘3 things), University of London Union (ULU) and the IWGB (Independent Workers of Great Britain) which represents many of the cleaners in the university, and was supported by others including members of Unison and the UCU.
They began with a noisy protest outside the gates on the east of the site, before going around to continue their protest at the south entrance to Senate House, opposite the queues waiting to enter the north entrance of the British Museum before going on the the locked West Gates.
From outside we could see a few protesters already being ejected from the lobby under Senate House. Some people climbed over the gates to join them, but most of us found an easier way through an open gate and across a lawn, and soon the protest was taking place outside the now locked gates to the lobby at the bottom of Senate House.
After a while the protesters moved out to the area in front of SOAS and I thought the protest was over. But a group with the IWGB banner had other ideas, rushing down the narrow path into the Senate House East car park, and the rest of us followed.
At Senate House they were met by two police and management representatives who told them they were not allowed to protest. The only result of this was to add the slogan ‘Cops Off Campus!‘ to that of ‘Sick Pay, Holidays, Pensions, Now!’ and the protest continued, getting rather louder as more police arrived.
ULU Vice President Daniel Cooper used a megaphone to question why the protest was being filmed from a first floor window and then talked about the shame that the University was bringing on itself by its refusal to insist on decent conditions of employment for all workers in the university, for attempting a ban on freedom of speech and assembly in the university and for bringing police onto the campus against staff and students of the university.
More police arrived and made an ineffectual attempt to kettle the protesters, who simply walked through gaps in the police line. The police regrouped and tried to stop them leaving in a narrower area, but by now some officers were trying to stop them while others were shouting to their colleagues to let them leave. At last realising that their presence was only inflaming the situation and prolonging the protest and marched away. The protesters held a short rally in front of the SOAS building before dispersing.
Southall Black Sisters Protest Racist UKBA – Eaton House, Hounslow – Thu 24th Oct 2013
Pragna Patel of Southall Black Sisters speaking in front of the Hounslow Reporting Centre
Although I grew up in Hounslow, ten miles west of the centre of London, I’ve not often returned there in recent years, and the protest organised by Southall Black Sisters outside the Hounslow Reporting Centre on Thursday 24th October 2013 was the only one I’ve so far photographed in the town.
The UK Borders Agency reporting centre is at the western edge of the town, opposite Hounslow Heath where highwaymen once roamed and was the aerodrome from where the British Empire’s first scheduled daily international commercial flights took off in 1919. The large brick block once housed the UK laboratory and factory of US chemical manufacture Parke-Davis, once the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, now a subsidiary of Pfizer, who had set up a dyestuffs factory here before the first world war, though the Research and Administration building in front of which the protest was held only dates from 1954.
Southall Black Sisters (SBS) say that after the Refugee & Migrant Forum East London (RAMFEL) succeeded in its legal challenge over Theresa May’s Home Office advertising vans (which were also criticised by the Advertising Standards Authority) “the UKBA has shifted the ’Go Home’ message to reporting centres in Glasgow, Croydon and Hounslow.”
Their protest against the Government’s anti-immigration campaigns outside the Hounslow reporting centre stated “We will not tolerate underhand tactics used to instil fear and divide us. Let us return to the streets and make our voices heard. We need to fight for our rights.”
I joined the group of around 30 people, mainly SBS members, most wearing t-shirts with the message ‘Do I look illegal?’, but they were joined by others from Sol-Fed and other groups who had brought a large banner with the message ‘F**K ALL RACISM – NO ONE IS ILLEGAL’.
And no person is illegal, but those called it lack permission to be here, though many will in time be granted it. In France, such people are said to be ‘without papers’, but none of us in the UK needs papers to live here, so an appropriate but less biased term might be ‘without status’. The term ‘illegal immigrants’, a deliberately biased description of people who do not currently have a legal right to live in this country.
The protesters blew plastic horns and whistles and generally made a lot of noise, as well as shouting a number of chants including ‘Theresa May, drop the pretence, Go home vans cause offence’, ‘We are humans not illegal, We want justice for our people’ and ‘Money for jobs and education, Not for racist deportation.’
3 Cosas Defy London University Protest Ban – Senate House, Thu 24th Oct 2013
The ‘3 Cosas’ campaign is for sickpay, holidays and pensions for all workers at the University of London, where many low paid workers are outsourced to companies who employ them often in the legal minimum wage and conditions of service, and also often employ bullying managers to overwork staff. They often fail to provide proper safety equipment to do the job.
The workers, many of whom are Spanish speaking, have for some years been demanding they should be directly employed by the university where they work rather than these contracting companies, and there have by now been many long and successful campaigns to achieve this.
The University management in 2013 had responded to their campaign with a ban of protests in and around Senate House, and threatened to bring police onto campus to prevent further protests and to bring charges of trespass against any protesters. This was seen by workers and staff and students as an attempt to prevent free speech and freedom of assembly at the university similar to that of of authoritarian regimes overseas, rightly condemned across academia and the rest of society.
On Thursday 24th October, staff students, the IWGB (Independent Workers of Great Britain) trade union which represents many cleaners and other trade unionists defied University management ban of protests by holding a noisy protest in and around Senate House.
After protesting on the streets around the Senate House, some of the protesters walked in around another building while others scaled the gates to protest at the bottom of Senate House. Eventually police came and tried to stop them walking out. But there were too few of them to be effective. The protesters walked out and ended their protest in front of SOAS.
Classic Bridge, Chiswick House Gardens, Chiswick, Hounslow, 1988 88-9b-56
I think we managed to get most of our students together at Kew Bridge after our walk along Brentford Riverside to take the train for the single stop to Chiswick, from where we walked the third of a mile or so to Chiswick House Gardens.
Sphinx, Chiswick House, Chiswick House Gardens, Chiswick, Hounslow, 1988 88-9b-35
As it says on the web site, “Chiswick House and Gardens is one of the most glorious examples of 18th-century British architecture and landscaped gardens, with over 300 years of discovery, inspiration and delight.” The house and gardens were created between 1725 and about 1738 by William Kent working for his friend Richard Boyle, the third Earl of Burlington and represent the birth of the English Landscape Movement and the house one of the finest examples of neo-Palladian architecture in England.
Lion, Exedra, Chiswick House Gardens, Chiswick, Hounslow, 1988 88-9b-32
I don’t think we told the students a great deal about this, but we had showed them some pictures before the outing, including some fine photographs by Bill Brandt and Edwin Smith, and perhaps even some of my own.
Over the years the grounds and the house had deteriorated and before it had been sold to Middlesex County Council in 1929 had been a mental health institution. The house was taken over by the Ministry of Works (now English Heritage) in 1948, and they embarked on a major project to restore both house and gardens to their original state.
Bust, Chiswick House Gardens, Chiswick, Hounslow, 1988 88-9b-15
The gardens at the time of our visit in 1988 were in parts rather less restored than they are now, and I think access was a little less restricted and we could wander freely around them. The park is open free of charge to the public every day and is well worth a visit. Back in 1988 there were relatively few visitors and apart from our group they were mainly locals walking their dogs. Now after another major restoration with £12m of national lottery money and a new café completed in 2012 it gets rather more visitors.
Bust, Chiswick House Gardens, Chiswick, Hounslow, 1988 88-9b-16
The café was the London Building of the year in 2011, and the ‘artisan’ food isn’t bad if you like that sort of thing, though back in 1988 we brought sandwiches.
From Station footbridge, Burlington Lane, Chiswick, Hounslow, 1988 88-9c-63
We didn’t get all of the students back to catch the train home from Chiswick station on any of the occasions we took them there. I think this may have been the year when police held two of them as they ran across the park to try and get to the train on time and held them for several hours without allowing them to contact anyone. But normally when we took students out some would disappear and go clubbing in London, coming back bleary-eyed to college the following morning to sleep in our lessons.
