Posts Tagged ‘Turnham Green’

1987 Bedford Park

Thursday, July 30th, 2020
Blenheim Rd, Woodstock Rd, , Bedford Park, Turnham Green, Ealing,  Hounslow, 1987 87-2n-45-positive_2400
Blenheim Rd, Woodstock Rd, Bedford Park, Turnham Green, Ealing, Hounslow, 1987
Bedford Rd, Bedford Park, Turnham Green, Ealing, 1987 87-2n-53-positive_2400
Bedford Rd, Bedford Park, Turnham Green, Ealing, 1987

The Bedford Park Society has an informative History of the garden suburb about this development close to Turnham Green station now on the borders of the London Boroughs of Ealing and Hounslow. Widely seen as the first garden suburb, it was the brainchild of Jonathan Thomas Carr (1845-1915), a man subject of a “record 342 bankruptcy petitions” who, inspired by Ruskin, William Morris and the Aesthetic Movement, “created an ideal suburb for the artistically inclined middle classes who could no longer afford Chelsea.” The station offering half hour journeys to central London had opened in 1869 and Carr bought 24 acres of land from his father-in-law in 1875 to begin the estate.

The Avenue, Bedford Park, Turnham Green, Ealing, 1987 87-2n-56-positive_2400
The Avenue, Bedford Park, Turnham Green, Ealing, 1987
Bath Rd, Bedford Park, Turnham Green, Hounslow, 1987 87-2n-34-positive_2400
Bath Rd, Bedford Park, Turnham Green, Hounslow, 1987
Tabard Inn, Bath Rd, Bedford Park, Turnham Green, Hounslow, 198787-2m-15-positive_2400
Tabard Inn, Bath Rd, Bedford Park, Turnham Green, Hounslow, 1987

The designs involved several leading architects of the era, most notably Richard Norman Shaw (1831-1912) who worked with the project for a few years from 1877 before withdrawing as Carr was slow to pay his bills. There were some intense arguments over the designs but the results were remarkable. Carr’s Bedford Park Company Ltd failed in 1886 but development of the wider area continued, and the estate had set a standard for buildings and the environment as well as for community development, providing the Club, Anglican Church and the Tabard pub which were a model for the Garden City movement.

South Parade, Bedford Park, Turnham Green, Ealing, 1987 87-2n-65-positive_2400
South Parade, Bedford Park, Turnham Green, Ealing, 1987

Among later buildings was the remarkable 14 South Parade facing Chiswick Green by by Charles Francis Annesley Voysey (1857-1941). Voysey was born in Hessle on the outskirts of Hull where his father Charles Voysey was curate, one of a number of clerical positions he held before being found guilty of promulgating “doctrines contrary and repugnant to or inconsistent with the Articles of Religion and Formularies of the Church of England” and forming his own church which denied the perfection of Jesus and the authority of the Bible. The Voyseys were direct descendants of Samuel and Susanna Wesley, often described as “the Mother of Methodism” and C F A Voysey ascribed “what little moral courage & independent spirit he happily inherits” to this Methodist connection.

More on Page 2 of 1987 London Photos.


All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.