The Victorian Society

Image above: Victorian Society magazine, February 2023, with articles written by younger members  "We don't do dressing up" The Victorian Society is based in Chiswick, at 1 Priory Gardens in Bedford Park, opposite the vicarage of St Michael & All Angels Church. The organisation, which champions Victorian and Edwardian architecture, is a national body which campaigns across the UK, and is a registered charity. "We don't do dressing up" director Joe O'Donnell told The Chiswick Calendar. We were talking about fundraising and I had asked the question which apparently many people ask them. They have dinners and talks but decided it did not really give the right image for a serious campaigning organisation to be swanning about in top hats, crinolines and capes,

Chiswick in Pictures

West Middlesex University Hospital

London Wetland Centre, Barnes

Strand on the Green

Alzheimer’s Society Hounslow

Hounslow Community FoodBox

Heat Bank – St Nicholas Church

Chiswick In Film festival – six films with ties to Chiswick

  Chiswick In Film The idea of a festival showing films made locally or by locals, was born from a random conversation with chief-editor-in-command of The Chiswick Calendar Bridget (she might hate me for that…but then again, she never censors me… and if you’re reading this she hasn’t). This wasn’t just a great occasion to celebrate our community, but a way to combine our love for both movies and our leafy neighbourhood in the splendid new Chiswick Cinema (without which this could never happen). We came up with dozens and dozens of titles and to pick just six of them seemed an impossible task, but we kept on telling ourselves “well, we'll keep that for next year”. The Chiswick Film Festival 2022 runs between the Friday 30 September and Sunday 2 Oct

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The Chiswick Cinema

The Chiswick Cinema Chiswick’s first new cinema since 1934, with five screens and a members’ bar, is now open. Film fans can choose from three cinema screening rooms seating around 100 people each and two smaller screens, one of them for hire as a private screening room seating 15 people, with a private dining space adjacent. The main café serves a wide range of food and beverages throughout the day and evening. One of the features of the cinema is its ‘green wall’. At over 100 metres squared and using over 5000 plants, the Living wall, which enhances the Founders Members’ Terrace, has already become a fe

The W4th Plinth

The W4th Plinth The W4th Plinth art project was launched in September 2019 with an artwork by Sir Peter Blake. It offers a temporary space for large scale artworks which is displayed on a blank railway wall, as part of the refurbishment of the piazza area at Turnham Green Terrace. The project is run by Abundance London, a local community organisation which runs volunteer environmental and horticultural projects around Chiswick. Sir Peter Blake now sits on the selection jury to choose new artworks. Every six months the large image on the TfL brick wall of the railway embankment at Turnham Green Terrace will change, showcasing an exciting artwork, short-listed by Abundance and voted on by the public. Read more about some of the things Abundance London has done in Chiswick: 

Pub in the Park

Petros Singers

Petros Singers This choir is considered to be one of London’s leading amateur chamber choirs. The Petros Singers’ musical director Richard Bannan is himself a well-known singer who sings in the choir of St George’s Chapel, Windsor and has performed at recent royal weddings. They give three or four concerts each year, mainly in West London but also regularly in major venues in Central London and sometimes further afield. They perform a wide variety of music to a high standard, placing particular emphasis on vibrant and communicative singing. Repertoire is often idiosyncratic, eschewing the typical canonical works to shine a light on forgotten masterpieces and rare choral treasures. The choir has around 35 auditioned singers. The standard is high and ris

Rock Choir Chiswick

Rock Choir Chiswick Rock Choir is the UK’s leading contemporary award-winning choir experience offering local weekly rehearsals, performances and life-affirming events to more than 400 towns and communities across the UK. Rock Choir was created by singer and musician, Caroline Redman Lusher and remains a family-run organisation originating in Farnham, Surrey in 2005. She initiated a brand new, accessible and glamorous approach to contemporary community singing which grew quickly and dramatically from humble beginnings into what it is today. Rock Choir is recognised as the first of its kind to offer a no-audition and no-requirement-to-read-music choir experience in the UK and invites anyone with any level of musical experience to join. It attracts everyone who loves to sin

Fuller’s Griffin Brewery

Fuller's Griffin Brewery Perhaps best known for their signature London Pride, Fuller's distribute a wide range of beers to pubs across the country and export to over 80 countries worldwide. Their beers have consistently earned praise from ale drinkers and awards from groups such as the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), with brewery tours themselves earning excellent reviews on Tripadvisor and through word of mouth. The brewery occupies an impressive spot in the heart of Chiswick, just off the Mall. With its gargantuan chimneys and wrought iron gates, it is easy to draw parallels with Roald Dahl’s fictional giant chocolate factory. For my brother and I growing up, it was a source of fascination, wit

Chiswick Brownies, Guides and Rangers (Girlguiding)

Chiswick Cheese Market

Image above: The Parma Ham and Mozzarella Stand at Chiswick Cheese Market; photograph Lucinda MacPherson Chiswick Cheese Market Chiswick Cheese Market takes place on the third Sunday of every month in the Old Market Place, outside George IV pub in Chiswick High Rd. You will find around 20 stalls selling 90 or so different artisan cheeses. Chiswick was originally known as Cheesewick. Chiswick was first recorded c.1000 as the Old English Ceswican meaning “Cheese Farm”; the riverside area of Duke’s Meadows is thought to have supported an annual cheese fair up until the 18th century’. (Source Gillian Clegg, Chiswick Past & Present). The organisers of Chiswick Cheese Market, a group of local women who are all cooks, collectively known as

Chiswick Antiques & Vintage Market

Image above: Chiswick Antiques & Vintage Market; photograph Barbara Chandler Chiswick Antiques & Vintage Market Chiswick Antiques & Vintage Market takes place on the second Sunday of every month on Chiswick High Rd. Opened in May 2021, it's run by Jennifer Titmuss, who also has a long established antiques market in St Albans and has brought many of the dealers with her to Chiswick. The market occupies the same space as the Chiswick Flower Market and the Cheese Market, Old Market Place, outside George IV and spreads out along the south side of Chiswick High

Chiswick Flower Market

Image above: Chiswick Flower Market in the early days easing our way out of the pandemic, when wearing a mask was required; photograph Anna Kunst Chiswick Flower Market Chiswick Flower Market takes place on the first Sunday of every month in the Old Market Place, outside George IV pub in Chiswick High Rd. The idea of running a flower market on the spot where soldiers returning from the First World War set up the first outdoor market in Chiswick 100 years earlier, was mooted by Ollie Saunders, a local resident and commercial property surveyor who used to trek regularly from his home in Devonshire Rd to Columbia Rd Market for flowers. READ ALSO: Re

Explore Chiswick’s cultural history, online and on foot

The Glebe Estate considered for Conservation status

Image above: Coronation Celebrations, Glebe St, 1953 / Chiswick Local Studies Residents of Chiswick’s Glebe Estate have never been so thankful for their wide streets, front and back gardens, and the community spirit that has helped us all survive nearly a year of Covid lockdowns. On Tuesday 12 January 2021, at the Chiswick Area Forum, LB Hounslow launches a consultation on awarding Conservation Area status to the Estate, not because it’s one of Chiswick’s prettiest and most popular places to live in, but due to its heritage value. For its streets and houses were built 150 years ago to provide healthy lives for working families formerly consigned to overcrowded and unhealthy dwellings. The urban historian and Glebe Estate resident Tracey Logan says this cou

Jill Spearman

Videos

Open Gardens

Theatres mark the centenary of the death of the greatest theatre architect

When someone says 'theatre', the image which pops into your head is probably something like this, the Lyric, Hammersmith, pictured above, all red velvet and gilt curlicues. That's because the Victorian / Edwardian theatre architect Frank Matcham designed so many of Britain's theatres. Those that still exist - 26 out of the 100 - 150 which he either built himself or in which he played some part in the design - will be marking the centenary of his death next Sunday, (17 May) not in the way they would have liked, but at least by sharing pictures on social media. I talked to Mark Fox, Chairman of the Frank Matcham Society, about this fascinating character, who designed both Richmond theatre and the Lyric, as well as the Chiswick Empire, sadly pulled down in the 1950s. "He was an amaz

Summer Exhibition

Napoli on the Road