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 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.
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.
My London Diary : London Photos : Hull : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage : Flickr
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