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7.30 for 8pm: House Histories: Melanie Backe-Hansen

Discover the history behind your front door, with Melanie Backe-Hansen, research consultant for the popular BBC television programme, A House Through Time.

Supported by Chimni.
Doors and bar open, and books on sale, from 7.30pm.
St Michael & All Angels Parish Hall (downstairs), £10.

As a new edition of her book House Histories is published, Britain’s leading house historian, Melanie Backe-Hansen, uncovers the hidden stories and secrets of ordinary and extraordinary houses across the country. She will reveal fascinating stories of people and events she has uncovered in her work researching the history of houses, with particular examples of houses from Chiswick and west London (see Daily Telegraph article below). Introduced by Torin Douglas, Director, Chiswick Book Festival.

Melanie will also cover the main sources to be used, while providing top tips on how to research the history of your own home.

Unearthing the secret revolutionary history of Britain’s first garden suburb

From the Daily Telegraph, 18 September 2016. Photo of Melanie Backe-Hansen and Nigel Walley of Chimni: Andrew Crowley for the Telegraph

Just north of Chiswick High Road in west London, a short walk from Turnham Green tube station, is a quietly revolutionary neighbourhood. Built in 1875, Bedford Park was the world’s first garden suburb, inviting the more famous Hampstead, Welwyn and Letchworth to follow its lead. It seems unlikely that this unassuming corner of west London, with its tree-lined streets and wide avenues, could have spawned such a progressive urban movement, and yet families are queuing around the block to live in a piece of its history.

Now, Bedford Park is set to be the first digital suburb, too. A new project, the Bedford Park House History Initiative, aims to democratise the history of the area, collating individual house records across the 356 properties in the Bedford Park conservation area, and opening them to the wider community. Read more