Chiswick open house festival
Aug 22, 2025
Open House Festival is a London-wide event that celebrates the city’s architecture, special sites and neighbourhoods, with open days and events taking place across all 33 London boroughs. Chiswick is one of nine neighbourhoods included in the 2025 London programme.
New Fauconberg Cottage replaced a building that had been on the site since 1931. The building’s local renown is largely due to its unique cladding, which is sculptural and functional for weather protection. There is no boiler or central heating system. Hot water for the kitchen and bathrooms is provided by two instant electric water heaters. As a result, the electricity bills very low per month and can be fully produced via solar energy. No other forms of energy are used.
Walk through the landscaped grounds of Chiswick House and Gardens to another domestic dwelling, this time the home of William Hogarth, 18th century English artist and satirist. Hogarth’s House at Hogarth Lane, Great West Road, W4 2QN.
Extended significantly c. 1749-1764, the 2020 extension, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, added the new Weston Studio for learning and activities, and a curved glass wall in the shape of Hogarth's Line of Beauty. The delightful re-landscaped and reinterpreted walled garden contains a famous ancient mulberry tree.
From there you can walk up to Chiswick Town Hall overlooking Turnham Green. Opened in 1876, it was built in the Italianate style as a purpose-built Parish Council meeting place. It now acts as a resource for the community including marriage and civil partnership ceremonies.
Keeping with the period, next visit The Victorian Society at 1 Priory Gardens, Bedford Park, W4 1TT. This building, dated 1880, forms part of the Bedford Park development, one of the original garden suburbs. It’s a three-storey red and yellow brick structure built in the Picturesque style and restored by the Society.
Bedford Park is worth looking at in its own right, with connections to luminaries such as WB Yeats and William Morris. Bedford Park Walking Tour and Exhibition allows you to explore the area and its history. Known since the early 20th century as ‘The First Garden Suburb’ Bedford Park was a pioneering commercial development of some 350 houses and a few public buildings built between 1875 and 1886 by developer Jonathan Carr.
Hear about one of London’s hidden rivers the Stamford Brook on a walking tour of local streets, parks and a delightful square. The architecture is diverse, ranging from a plantation owner's house, the home of an impressionist painter and a writer, Victorian mansion blocks, a hospital and the site of a medieval manor house, home to a king's mistress. And of course, residential homes and businesses.
Emery Walker's House at 7 Hammersmith Terrace, W6 9TS was the home of the printer, antiquary and mentor to William Morris. it is a unique Arts and Crafts domestic interior with furnishings by Philip Webb and William Morris, 1750, It has a homely feel and quirkiness which distinguishes it from other Arts & Crafts house museums. The photographs in the Archive confirm that both Walker and Morris had an eclectic mix of belongings in their homes, which is why this interior is believed to be the most authentic Arts & Crafts home in Britain.
Aside from Chiswick, the festival includes Brentford, Fleet Street, Isleworth, St Paul's and Cheapside and The Square Mile.
