No, not the former Prime Minister
AT THE WESTERN END of Chiswick’s Turnham Green, there is a striking church, which was designed in the Arts and Crafts style by the architect Richard Norman Shaw (1831-1912) and consecrated in 1880. It served the community that was beginning to settle in the recently established Bedford Park, which I described as follows in my book “Beyond Marylebone and Mayfair: Exploring West London”:
“Bedford Park near Turnham Green is probably the first example of what has become known as a ‘Garden Suburb’ development, although originally it was not known as such. Pevsner noted:
‘Its reputation as the earliest garden suburb needs some qualification. Trees and green spaces … are found in many earlier suburbs; the novelty of Bedford Park is their combination with ‘artistically designed’ houses … inspired not by classical or Gothic pattern books but by the red brick and tiled idiom derived chiefly from the home counties vernacular of the c17 and c18…’
He added that the idea was to recreate the:
‘… relaxed informal mood of a market town or village…’, in ‘… a completely speculatively built suburb.’
And, in the case of Bedford Park this ideal has been almost but not quite fully achieved, because the suburb, attractive though it is, has a somewhat staid, bourgeois feel about it. Created by Jonathan Thomas Carr (1845-1915), its development began in 1875 …”
If you want to know more, you can find it in my book.
Returning to the church, which we re-visited today (20th of June 2023), I showed my wife the interesting clock on one of its exterior walls. It is held away from the building by a sturdy beam on which there are some words. On one side, you can read: “Spion Kop Africa 1900”, and on the other, you will see: “In memoriam Harold Wilson”.
In case you are wondering, the clock has nothing to do with the former Prime Minister Harold Wilson (1916-1995). Instead, it commemorates 2nd Lieutenant Harold AC Wilson, who fell at the battle of Spion Kop in January 1900 during the 2nd Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902).
[My book is available from Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/BEYOND-MARYLEBONE-MAYFAIR-EXPLORING-LONDON/dp/B0B7CR679W/ ]
