Torin Douglas on Bedford Park’s 150th anniversary celebrations

Image: Orchestra; Photograph Jim Cox

A Viennese New Year

Guest blog by Torin Douglas

Celebrations for the 150th anniversary of Bedford Park got off to a flying start on New Year’s Day, highlighting the area’s reputation – which continues to this day – as a great place for creative people to live and work, and for the arts to thrive.

St Michael & All Angels was bursting at the seams as more than 350 people streamed into the church for ‘A Viennese New Year at St Michael’s’ – a joyous teatime concert with violinist David Juritz and the Strauss Orchestra of London, which also marked the bicentenary of ‘the Waltz King’, Johann Strauss II.

Introduced by broadcaster and bass-player Sandy Burnett, the specially chosen programme included star turns by soprano Milly Forrest, virtuoso pianist Mark Viner and Father Kevin Morris, the vicar of St Michael & All Angels. As well as traditional Viennese classics such as the The Blue Danube, Radetzky March and Thunder and Lightning Polka, the music reflected life, past and present, in the world’s first garden suburb.

Image: Soprano Milly Forrest; Photograph Jane Davies

The opening composition was a delightful waltz entitled Artist’s Life or Künstlerleben which set the tone for a programme that was rich in Bedford Park and Waltz King connections, marking the two major anniversaries. Johann Strauss wrote this waltz for the Vienna Carnival season of 1867, as Sandy Burnett explained:

“The occasion was the annual ball organised by the Vienna Artists’ Association, Hesperus, and in this waltz Strauss pays homage to all of the sculptors, painters, poets, authors, performers and musicians who made Vienna the great capital of culture that it still is today. It’s a great fit for our celebration since one of the founding principles of Bedford Park all those years ago was that it should be a great place for artists to live, and for the arts to thrive.”

Bedford Park was founded in 1875 as the first garden suburb and its origins were inspired by the Aesthetic Movement of the 1870s. It immediately attracted a community of artists, architects and other aesthetic types and was immortalised in G.K. Chesterton’s story, The Man Who Was Thursday.

Among Bedford Park’s ‘progressive’ early residents were the poet W.B. Yeats,  dramatist Sir Arthur Pinero, architects C.A. Voysey, Maurice Adams and E.J. May, actors William Terriss and Florence Farr and artists T.M. Rooke and Lucien Pissarro, whose father Camille painted several views from the house.

Image: Sandy Burnett

Burnett told the audience: “It was a man called Jonathan Carr who first dreamed Bedford Park into existence by buying 24 acres of land from his father in law. Carr was a cloth merchant turned property developer with a mixed track record. At one point in his life he clocked up a remarkable 342 bankruptcy petitions, which even in that sometimes murky line of work is something of a record. But with Bedford Park he was onto a winner.

Carr wanted to create an ideal suburb for middle class people of an artistic bent who couldn’t afford to live in Chelsea any more. John Ruskin and William Morris helped to shape Carr’s opinions; they both lived in nearby Hammersmith and led a campaign against what they saw as mid Victorian vulgarity and materialism.

“In a letter in 1874, William Morris mused about what it would be like if ‘people lived in little communities among gardens and fields, so that they could be in the country in five minutes.’ That’s what Carr set out to achieve in Bedford Park. He advertised it as ‘the healthiest place in the world’, and called on some of the leading architects of the time, including Norman Shaw who designed St Michael & All Angels Church and several houses nearby.”

The architecture of Bedford Park is described as Queen Anne Revival – there’s a Queen Anne Gardens and a Queen Anne’s Grove just up the road from the church – and a nod to that legacy came in the next group of music, which featured an Annen or Ann Polka, that Johann Strauss II wrote in 1855. But before that came a song inspired not by Vienna but by Covent Garden (the flower market, not the Royal Opera House).

Image: Orchestra; Photograph Jane Davies

Burnett went on: “Creative people flocked to the new Bedford Park right from the start: painters and illustrators, and actors, writers and poets a plenty. Although as our friends in the Bedford Park Society put it, early residents tended to be ‘B list celebrities with A list connections.’

One illustrious visitor in those early days was George Bernard Shaw. And we have him to thank in a roundabout way for the song that comes next. His 1913 play Pygmalion inspired the 1956 Broadway musical My Fair Lady by Lerner and Loewe and to sing one of its standout numbers, I Could Have Danced All Night, we have our wonderful soprano – Milly Forrest.”

Another flower-market link followed. To celebrate the success of the Chiswick Flower Market, which has grown to ten thousand visitors and 40 stalls on the first Sunday of every month, the orchestra played Strauss II’s Blumenfest-Polka.

Image: Fr Kevin Morris with the orchestra; Photograph Jim Cox

Strauss had composed it for a Flower Festival that the Imperial Court had planned to take place in Vienna in May 1852 at the Imperial-Royal Glashausgarten, with a star-studded array of guests in attendance. Unfortunately, an outbreak of poor weather meant that the event had to be postponed, and the work was actually first performed on another occasion, but the name Blumenfest remained.

There were more musical nods to life in Chiswick. This was Bahn Frei by Eduard Strauss, a reference to the steam train that used to run from London to Turnham Green, made famous by Camille Pissaro’s painting. Burnett explained: “It’s a Polka schnell or fast polka, written around the time that the Viennese were discovering the pleasures of their suburban rail travel, popping out to the countryside to visit villages or perhaps just have a picnic.

Back in those days it was quite usual to board the train and then wait for it to get under way. The cue for that to happen was a shout of “Bahn frei!” which means “the track is free,” and that’s the name of this polka.”

Keeping the music on track was the station master, Fr Kevin, maintaining order with the appropriate hat, flags, bell and whistles!  See full programme and performers.

After the interval Sandy Burnett introduced two more Bedford Park musical links, starting with “the Feuilleton-Walzer that Johann Strauss II composed for the

Image: Fr Kevin Morris conducting;p Photograph Jane Davies

‘Concordia’ ball given by the Vienna Authors’ and Journalists’ Association in 1855. Bedford Park is rich in both journalists and authors, something that’s celebrated in the Chiswick Book Festival that takes place here at St Michael’s and all around every September – and is very much a fixture on London’s cultural calendar.

The word ‘feuilleton’ though might take some explaining: it was an arts supplement that was tucked into daily newspapers. Although it was originally a French idea – the Parisian newspaper La Presse was the first to do it – but the feuilleton really caught on when it was adopted in Vienna.”

The final link, said Burnett, was to the “dark side” of Chiswick. “Thefts are not unknown around here, and it’s a good idea to keep your Rolex under wraps. Our local bandits often make their escape through so-called Mugger’s Alley at the top of Woodstock Road – but local councillors have come up with a brilliant solution.

Building on the well-known principle that playing classical music in tube stations scares away criminals, they’ve employed a violin virtuoso to practise a ferociously difficult piece by Pablo de Sarasate at the top of that road, at full volume, with his windows open. Step forward David Juritz who has very kindly agreed to give us a flavour, in the shape of Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen.”

The piece is indeed ferociously difficult and Juritz performed it to perfection, prompting a huge ovation from the audience.

The concert was generously sponsored by Home Instead, Hammersmith & Chiswick and profits will be divided between two charities : The Upper Room and St Michael & All Angels Church for its new Heritage Conservation Fund, raising funds to maintain and preserve its listed building.

The church was built as the centrepiece of Bedford Park, which  was described by the Poet Laureate and heritage campaigner John Betjeman as “the most significant suburb built in the last century, probably the most significant in the western world.”  Bedford Park’s buildings and community spirit became an inspiration and model for the creators of later garden suburbs and cities in Britain and around the world.

Image: Soloist Milly Forrest with the orchestra; Photograph Jim Cox

During the 1960s some of the houses were demolished and others increasingly came under threat. In 1967, after a campaign supported by Betjeman, The Bedford Park Society and St Michael & All Angels Church, Bedford Park became a conservation area. More than 350 houses are listed as Grade II and the church and inn are Grade II*.

Further celebratory arts events will take place throughout 2025, organised by the Bedford Park Society and St Michael & All Angels in partnership with other organisations such as the WB Yeats Bedford Park Artwork Project and The Victorian Society.

Torin Douglas is the Director of the Chiswick Book Festival, former BBC Media correspondent and a long term resident of Chiswick.

Read more stories on The Chiswick Calendar

See also: Amber cold-health alert issued as snow and ice forecast for London this weekend

See also: Man from Chiswick arrested after police stand-off in Southampton

See all the latest stories: Chiswick Calendar News & Features

Support The Chiswick Calendar

The Chiswick Calendar CIC is a community resource. Please support us by buying us the equivalent of a monthly cup of coffee (or more, if you insist). Click here to support us.

We publish a weekly newsletter and update the website with local news and information daily. We are editorially independent.

To subscribe to the weekly newsletter, go here.