SIXTY years ago, the Vicar of St Michael and All Angels, Bedford Park, in London, had an idea. The roof needed fixing, the area was run down, and the council in Chiswick was knocking down fine Victorian houses, which were out of fashion in the “Swinging Sixties”.
He founded a festival — to celebrate the arts, raise money for repairs to the church, and “foster a spirit of friendliness and community”. With support from parishioners and the Bedford Park Society (a heritage group with Sir John Betjeman as its patron), the Bedford Park Festival was launched the following year (bedfordparkfestival.org).
The first festival programme carried a message from the Bishop of London which rings as true today as it did then: “As London grows bigger and bigger, it becomes increasingly important that there should be a real sense of community in the various areas. To foster such a spirit in Bedford Park is the object of this Festival and I hope that it will be supported by all who live in the area.
“Since it is one of the tasks of the church to be a centre of community I hope, too, that your parish church of St Michael and All Angels will be increasingly at the heart of the community.”
Sixty years on, the Bishop’s wish has been more than fulfilled. The festival is the centrepiece of St Michael’s arts and community outreach. While the church is rightly seen as a centre of community, it should also be recognised as a centre of “the community economy”.
NEXT month, our Green Days Fête and Craft Fair, conveniently close to Turnham Green Tube station, will bring together families, performers, businesses, schools, and charities in a weekend of fun, friendship, . . . and spending.
Bedford Park FestivalSunday-morning mass on the green
Despite the economic situation (which has had an impact in Chiswick as it has everywhere else), businesses are queuing up for a spot on the Green, to engage with local people, promote their wares, and be seen to help to fund our festival charities. More than 50 are sponsoring stalls and arts events, many as “Diamond partners”, who donate more than £1000 in money, goods, or services.
Three Diamond partners have returned after a year or two, because they recognise the power and importance of “community”: the estate agent Knight Frank; Chiswick’s Sipsmith distillery; and Porsche West London, which will display its new electric Cayenne model in our electric-vehicle zone. The others can be seen on our Partners page, and will be highlighted with thank-yous in social-media and other publicity (bedfordparkfestival.org).
There is a waiting list for the Craft Fair, which will feature 20 local artists, jewellers, and textile and wood workers. The beer tent and barbecue, supplied by a pub and a butcher’s shop, will do a roaring trade, as will the funfair, refreshment tent, and stalls selling books, plants, and bric-a-brac. About 40 restaurants will donate a meal for two for the win-a-meal raffle. On the Sunday, we open the stalls to local charities to promote their causes, sell raffle tickets, and recruit volunteers.
After the fête, a fortnight of arts events will include the violinist Braimah Kanneh-Mason and other top young musicians, who will perform in the church and at workshops for schools, under our programme “Widening access to great live music in Chiswick”, which is funded by Pladis (UK&I), the manufacturer of McVitie’s biscuits, which is based in Chiswick Park.
THIS has not happened overnight. This month, our Vicar, the Revd Kevin Morris, celebrates 30 years in the parish; like the festival’s founder, the Revd Jack Jenner, he is a strong believer in the arts as a force for community outreach. We have been building fruitful partnerships with businesses and arts groups throughout this time.
For its Millennium project, St Michael and All Angels restored its dilapidated Victorian parish hall as a community centre fit for the 21st century, installing an upstairs floor to double its size. It was a huge financial risk, because we didn’t get the Heritage Lottery grant that we had hoped for, and had to raise all the money from the community. That was stressful: it took several years of fund-raising events — and faith.
But it has had a positive impact on the Chiswick economy. The construction work was handled by local architects, builders, and craftspeople, and the hall soon generated new income — from a long-term partnership with schools, and from talks, concerts, dance classes, and dozens of children’s parties.
Bedford Park FestivalPeter Clarke and Tom Greeves were inspired to design a Christmas card with an illustration, The Battle of Bedford Park (after the battle of Turnham Green fought during the Civil War), depicting Betjeman and others defending Bedford Park with umbrellas and sticks. The original is kept by the Victorian Society at 1 Priory Gardens, London W4
It re-energised the Bedford Park Festival, allowing us to hold more — and more ambitious — arts events, raising more money for the church and its charities through ticket sales and sponsorship. Once there was a more modern and welcoming hall, choirs and orchestras flocked to perform in the church. We now have a Heritage Conservation Fund to help pay for maintenance (smaaa.org.uk/heritage-conservation-fund).
Together, the hall and church gave us the space to launch the Chiswick Book Festival, which also gives its profits to charities and the church; in 17 years, it has donated more than £150,000. The church has formed valuable venue partnerships with Chiswick House and Gardens, the Tabard Theatre, and the Chiswick Cinema, sharing profits, audiences, and promotion.
We found space for a group to launch a Cookbook Festival; now they run the only specialist cheese market in the UK — one of four monthly Sunday markets that have helped to turn Chiswick into a weekend destination throughout the year.
IT IS a far cry from the 1950s and ’60s, when Chiswick — and Bedford Park in particular — had fallen on hard times, to the extent that bus conductors used to call out “Poverty Park” on reaching the church. Once a fashionable Arts and Crafts garden suburb, with fine houses designed by architects such as Norman Shaw and E. J. May, many of the buildings had been poorly divided into flats and bedsits, leading to a period of deterioration. Some of the largest houses had been demolished to make way for modern blocks of flats.
Sir John Betjeman and the Bedford Park Society fought the developers for five years, without success. The turning point was the first Bedford Park Festival, when the Society organised an exhibition in the vicarage to highlight the history, art, and architecture of Bedford Park, and the dangers that it faced.
One visitor was a Ministry of Housing and Local Government inspector, Arthur Grogan, who was so impressed that he recommended the Grade II listing of 356 houses and other buildings, including the Tabard Inn, St Michael and All Angels, and its parish hall. It was one of the great heritage campaigns of the 20th century, and the “Exhibition that Saved Bedford Park”, as it has become known (bedfordpark.org.uk), laid the foundations of the area’s current prosperity (and Porsches).
“Green Days weekend” became the highlight of the “village” year, regularly opened by the area’s celebrities, who come with their families to enjoy their parish-church fête. In 1981, Hayley Mills launched the buy-a-tile campaign to repair the church. For the 60th festival, Sophie Ellis-Bextor will open the fête — which may be another reason that local businesses are keen to be seen and take part.
For 25 years, we have also made it really “green”, recycling all the waste and encouraging people to change their transport habits through our Cycle Zone and Electric Vehicle Zone.
FIVE years ago, a report commissioned by the Association of English Cathedrals said that the 42 Anglican cathedrals in England contributed £235 million to their local economies, as drivers for cultural tourism; as heritage sites, commissioning work from artisans; and as venues hosting art exhibitions, concerts, and film and television shoots.
On a smaller scale, parish churches can have a similar effect by making the most of their buildings and forming mutually beneficial partnerships with businesses, schools, arts groups, and charities. This summer, hundreds of church fêtes will bring people together in fun and friendship, raising money for good causes. The impact could be multiplied, with benefits for all, if more churches capitalised on their place at the heart of “the community economy”.
Torin Douglas is a writer and public speaker. He was for 24 years the BBC’s media correspondent, and, in 2013, was awarded the MBE for services to the community in Chiswick. He is director of the Chiswick Book Festival.
What’s needed:
- Welcoming modernised spaces, outdoors and indoors
- Plenty of volunteers, some with arts and business connections
- Good website, finance, and booking systems
- Good PR support and social media
- Commitment and hard work
- Vision, direction, confidence — and faith