the fact that the beauty which has been admittedly secured is not
fictitious. A competent writer in the _Sporting and Dramatic News_
(September 27th, 1879), speaks very truly of this feature of the new
village: “We have here no unchangeable cast-iron work, but hand-wrought
wooden balustrades and palings; no great sheets of plate-glass,
but small panes set in frames of wood which look strong and solid,
although, the windows being large, they supply ample illumination for
the spacious rooms within. There is no attempt to conceal with false
fronts, or stucco ornament, or unmeaning balustrades, that which is
full of comfortable suggestiveness in a climate like our own--the house
roof; everything is simple, honest, unpretending. Within, no clumsy
imitations of one wood to conceal another, but a preserving surface of
beautifully flatted paint, made handsome by judicious arrangements of
color. Here brick is openly brick, and wood is openly wood, and paint
is openly paint. Nothing comes in a mean, sneaking way, pretending to
be that which it is not. Varnish is unknown. There is an old-world
air about the place despite its newness, a strong touch of Dutch
homeliness, with an air of English comfort and luxuriousness, but not a
bit of the showy, artificial French stuffs which prevailed in our homes
when Queen Anne was on the throne, when we imported our furniture from
France, and believed in nothing which was not French.”
Those who purchase or lease houses at Bedford Park are allowed the
choice where their wall-papers shall be purchased, what designs
shall be selected, and what colors shall be used on the wood-work. A
certain amount is allotted for the decoration of the drawing-room,
dining-room, and so on, and the occupants are invited to select up to
that sum freely; or, if they fancy some costlier paper or decoration,
the excess of price is added. As a matter of fact, a majority of the
residents have used the wall-papers and designs of Morris, the draught
on whose decorative works has become so serious that a branch of the
Bloomsbury establishment will probably become necessary in the vicinity
of Bedford Park. This natural selection of the Morris designs by so
many families, independently of each other, could hardly have occurred
a few years ago, or, if it had occurred, would have been a misfortune
of monotony; but recently these designs have been sufficiently varied,
and the new patterns, which may be had in divers colors and shades,
are now so numerous that it is quite possible for all to be satisfied
without a calamitous sameness. And this result is largely due to the
excellent taste and ingenuity of the founder of the village, who is
pretty certain to give those arranging the interiors of their houses
the best advice, not unfrequently guiding them about the place, to see
the effect of certain papers already on walls, and showing how by new
combinations of dado-paper and wall-paper, or distemper, repetitions of
neighboring decorations may be avoided. The besetting sin of the new
decoration--monotony--is thus measurably escaped.
[Illustration: QUEEN ANNE’S GARDENS.]
The best standards, indeed, Mr. Carr is generally able to show in
his own house. His taste and that of his wife have made their house
beautiful. It would be difficult to find a prettier room than the
dining-room, which our artist has drawn with care; but much of its
beauty depends upon the soft colors and tints of its walls and its
genuinely old furniture. This house, known as the Tower House, is as
elegant, comfortable, and charming as need be desired even by those
whose home is the seat of a continuous and liberal hospitality. The
hall, landings, and rooms are all spacious and well proportioned; yet
the entire building, arrangements, and decorations have probably not
cost four thousand pounds.
In Mr. Nash’s sketch of “Queen Anne’s Gardens” the observer may see
some characteristic features of the place, such as the venerable air of
our trees, and the relation of our streets to the old characters traced
upon the soil by the gardens which preceded these. It is said some of
the streets of Boston, Massachusetts, followed the old sheep-paths;
and it may now be entered in the archives of Bedford Park, against its
becoming a city, that its streets and gardens have been largely decided
by Dr. Lindley’s trees. Some of them curve to make way for the lofty
patriarchs of the estate, which we hope may long wave over us. There
has been an accompanying good result, that wherever the eye looks it
meets something beautiful.
[Illustration: CO-OPERATIVE STORES AND TABARD INN.]
[Illustration: TOWER HOUSE AND LAWN-TENNIS GROUNDS.]
One of our views is slightly utilitarian. It is taken from the old
Roman Road, and from the Co-operative Stores in the foreground commands
the railway, on which trains bear us to the heart of London in thirty
minutes. Indeed, one can start from our little station for a voyage
round the world, so many are the junctions to be reached from it. The
portico of the church is visible on the right in this picture, and in
the distance the steeple of Turnham Green parish church. Beside the
Co-operative Stores stands the one inn of Bedford Park. It is a part of
the contract of each lessee that he shall not allow any public-house
(or drinking-house) to be opened on his premises, nor allow any trade
to be carried on upon the same. Yet there is need of an inn, that
families may come to experiment on the place, and where lodgings may be
obtained when houses are overfull of guests, Bedford Park being much
given to hospitality. The inn is called “The Tabard.” That was the name
of the old inn in the Borough, near London Bridge, from which Chaucer’s
Canterbury Pilgrims started. The excellent artist, Mr. Rookh, whom
Bedford Park is fortunate enough to have as a resident, has painted a
beautiful sign for our “Tabard,” representing much the same scene as
our picture on one side, and on the other an old-time herald habited in
a tabard.
Another of Mr. Nash’s views shows our tennis lawn and Badminton floor
(asphalt), which are pretty generally the scene of merry games. These
beautiful grounds are at the west end of Tower House (seen on the
left), and contain beautiful trees, among others the first Wellingtonia
(as the English insist on naming that American institution) planted in
England.
[Illustration: READING AND BILLIARD ROOM, CLUB-HOUSE.]
The Club is the social heart of Bedford Park, and it is speaking
moderately to say it is as pure a sample of civilization as any on
this planet. After claiming that, my reader need hardly be informed
that in it ladies and gentlemen are on a perfect equality. Whatever
distinctions are made are such as instinct and taste suggest. The
ladies did not enter the billiard-room, possibly fearing that they
might put too much restraint upon gentlemen who not only smoke, but
sometimes like to take their coats off at the game; so there has been
added a ladies’ billiard-room, exquisitely panelled and papered. The
wainscot is of oak which was once in a church of London City built by
Sir Christopher Wren: the wood was so sound, after all those years,
as to “bleed” when sawed for this room. Above this panelling there is
a soft golden paper. A door opens between this and the reading-room,
beyond which is the gentlemen’s billiard-room. One of our two sketches
made in this room looks toward this door; the other shows its great
bay-window, on the seats about which ladies and gentlemen are wont to
sit to read the new books with which the table is always stocked, or to
take refreshments. Outside of this superb window may be seen flowers
and ornamental shrubs by day, but the time selected by our artist for
presenting it was somewhat after midnight, on an occasion when there
were prettier flowers inside--those of the night-blooming variety,
which never fail to spring up when the summons has gone forth for a
fancy-dress ball.
The book-shelves, settees, and, indeed, most of the furniture in these
rooms, are genuinely antique and finely carved oak of the seventeenth
century; other pieces are of the dark perforated pattern formerly
made in India. In the reading-room are to be found all the appliances
of the Pall Mall clubs, the journals and periodicals of the world,
and the newest works from the great circulating libraries. The Club
has a large hall for assemblies; it is appropriately decorated, and
especially rejoices in some panels, with classical subjects wrought
in gold on ebony, which fill the wall space above the mantel-piece.
There is a stage, with drop-scene, representing one of our streets,
and appointments for theatrical representations. Here the inhabitants
assemble to witness the performances of their amateur company, and
to listen to concerts by their musical neighbors. Here they enjoy
lectures, poetical and dramatic recitations, _tableaux vivants_, and
other entertainments, at the close of which they generally dance.
[Illustration: A FANCY-DRESS PARTY AT THE CLUB.]
Fancy-dress balls are an amusement much esteemed at Bedford Park. There
is, indeed, a rumor in the adjacent town of London that the people of
Bedford Park move about in fancy dress every day. And so far as the
ladies are concerned it is true that many of their costumes, open-air
as well as other, might some years ago have been regarded as fancy
dress, and would still cause a sensation in some Philistine quarters.
At our last fancy-dress ball, some young men, having danced until five
o’clock, when it was bright daylight, concluded not to go to bed at
all, but went out to take a game of tennis. At eight they were still
playing, but though they were in fancy costumes they did not attract
much attention. The tradesmen and others moving about at that hour no
doubt supposed it was only some new Bedford Park fashion. There seems
to be a superstition on the Continent that fancy-dress balls must
take place in the winter, and end with Mi-Carême. It does not prevail
here. It was on one of the softest nights of June that we had our last
ball of that character. The grounds, which in one of our pictures are
seen beyond the tennis-players, were overhung with Chinese lanterns,
and the sward and bushes were lit up, as it were, with many-tinted
giant glow-worms. The fête-champêtre and the mirth of the ball-room
went on side by side, with only a balcony and its luxurious cushions
between them. Comparatively few of the ladies sought to represent any
particular “character;” there were about two hundred present, and fancy
costumes for both sexes were _de rigueur_; yet among all these there
were few conventionally historical or allegorical characters. There
was a notable absence of ambitious and costly dresses. The ladies had
indulged their own tastes in design and color, largely assisted, no
doubt, by the many artists which Bedford Park can boast, and the result
was a most beautiful scene.
There is hardly an evening of the spring and summer when Bedford Park
does not show unpurposed tableaux, which, were they visible any evening
at the Opera, would be declared fine achievements of managerial art.
Through the low and wide windows, on which the curtains often do not
fall, the light of wax-candles comes out to mingle with the moonlight,
and many are they who wend their way from the more dismal suburbs to
gaze in at the happy families _en tableau_, and listen to the music
stealing out on the ever-quiet air.
The new suburb which has thus come into existence swiftly, yet so
quietly that the building of it has not scared the nightingale I
heard yesternight nor the sky-larks singing while I write, has gone
far toward the realization of some aims not its own, ideals that have
hitherto failed. There is not a member of it who would not be startled,
if not scandalized, at any suggestion that he or she belonged to a
community largely socialistic. They would allege, with perfect truth,
that they are not even acquainted with the majority of their neighbors,
have their own circle of friends, and go on with their business as men
and women of the world. Nevertheless, it is as certainly true that a
degree in social evolution is represented by Bedford Park, and that
it is in the direction of that co-operative life which animated the
dreams of Père Enfantin and Saint-Simon. All society, indeed, must
steadily and normally advance in that direction. For a long time there
have been tendencies to put more and more of the domestic work out
upon establishments which all have in common. As one baker prepares
bread for many families, and one laundry washes for many, and the
railway, omnibus, cab, ply for many, so other accommodations needed by
all are found to be within reach of the co-operative principle; even
the luxuries of life are found to be largely within reach of it. This
village has been rendered possible by that principle, though it had
another aim. Houses of similar architecture have in recent years been
built here and there in London and other cities, but they have probably
cost their owners a third more than they have cost here, because the
large number of families which agreed to buy or rent houses enabled
the landlord and founder of Bedford Park to make large, therefore
comparatively cheap, arrangements for the supply of materials and
labor, elsewhere special or exceptional. By this means one of the chief
advantages of co-operation was to some extent secured. We have also our
co-operative stores; our newspapers and current literature are obtained
in common; we have billiard-rooms, tennis lawn, club conveniences, and
entertainments to a considerable extent in common; and by the time
this is read the Tabard, which has an excellent cook, may be supplying
the _table d’hôte_ at a rate sufficiently moderate to place a daily
dinner within reach of families who may find that desirable. Thus the
co-operative principle has shown its applicability to the requirements
of the cultured class, who are especially interested in making for
their families beautiful homes, without, as Thoreau said, sacrificing
life to its means. Incomes are largely increased when they need no
longer be expended on the physical appliances of comfort beyond the
actual advantage derived. To keep a private carriage in order that it
may be used an hour or two each day is not economy, if an equally good
carriage can be hired for the hours needed. Now and then we hear a
little gossip when some of the dishes at a distinguished dinner-party
are suspected of having been prepared by Duclos instead of a private
_chef_, but the tendency of refined society is to smile still more at
large outlays for ostentation.
But while in some regards Bedford Park must be considered a socialistic
village, it is almost the reverse of any community which has been
so called hitherto, and is far away from the rocks on which most of
them have been wrecked. No step in the planting or development of the
village has been artificial, or even prescribed; each institution has
appeared in response to a definite want. It was not in consequence of
any original scheme that the co-operative stores, the club, or the
Tabard Inn were built. The entire freedom of the village and of its
inhabitants is unqualified by any theory whatever, whether social,
political, or economic. It is the home of such various minds as James
Sime, the biographer of Lessing and Schiller; of Bowdler Sharpe, the
ornithologist (active protector of our birds); Dr.Todhunter, who has
written a fine book on Shelley; Spalding, who wrote “Elizabethan
Demonology;” Julian Hawthorne; Fox Bourne, author of the Life of John
Locke, Miss Richardson, of the London School Board, and Miss Mary Cecil
Hay, the well-known novelist. The eloquent and philanthropic chaplain
of Clerkenwell Prison, Mr. Horsley, is a resident of Bedford Park. The
professions are all well represented. Artists are especially numerous.
The new Chiswick Art School has been erected at Bedford Park. It is
connected with the Science and Art department of the government, and
under the direction of E. S. Burchett and Hamilton Jackson, has already
become a flourishing institution.
[Illustration: AN ARTIST’S STUDIO.]
Bedford Park is in danger of becoming a show-place. Now and then the
fair riders of Hyde Park extend afternoon exercise to enjoy a look at
the new suburb. And sometimes the statesman, weary with his midnight
work in Parliament or in Downing Street, finds relief in this quiet
retreat. Professor Fawcett is apt to put in an appearance on Sunday
afternoons, and one day the grand face of John Bright, with its
white halo of silken hair, was seen among us. M. Renan, when he was
delivering his Hibbert lectures, was entertained in one of our homes,
and pronounced Bedford Park “que véritable utopie.” He appeared quite
amazed at finding in London that ideal place which French enthusiasm
has often dreamed of, and which differs from the “plain living and
high thinking” of the English philosophers. For here, where we have the
scientific lecture one evening, we may have theatricals on the next;
and if we have ambrosial poetry or classic music one day, on the next
the ladies will be found attending the School for Cookery, and learning
how to make dishes dainty enough to set before any gourmand. Minister
Lowell has also paid us a visit, and I believe he thought Bedford Park
ought to be somewhere in the neighborhood of Harvard University. But
our most memorable visitor was “H. H.,” whose eyes illuminated our town
for a day or two, and then went away with such pictures as can only be
painted when such vision as hers comes upon such a vision as she found
here. She came from a beautiful home in a beautiful land; from bright
rooms decorated with many a brilliant stripe and spot contributed by
the wild creatures and growths of Colorado, and touched all over with
her own poetic taste; and she realized at once that she had come to
sister homes with hers, where there was the same desire to cultivate
beauty in harmony with nature. The brilliant letter she wrote about
her visit here comes back to Bedford Park just as I write this my last
page, and among the many reports that have been written of us none
is more true. My distant readers will perceive that my enthusiasm is
not of delusion, if I conclude my rambling paper by borrowing for a
moment the pen of “H. H.” “Only thirty minutes by rail from Charing
Cross--gardens, country air, lanes, bits of opens where daisies grow,
where fogs do not hang, and from which far horizons can be seen--is not
the London prisoner lucky that can flee his jail at night, and sleep
till morning in such a suburb? Lucky indeed, no matter to what sort
of house he escaped, so it stood on a spot like this. But when to the
opens, the clear air, lanes, and daisies, it is added that, fleeing
thither, the London prisoner may sit down and rest, lie down and sleep
in, and rise up and enjoy, a charming little Queen Anne house, built,
colored, and decorated throughout with good taste by artists who know
what souls need as well as what bodies require, there is conferred
on him a double, nay, an immeasurable, benefit and unreckonable
obligation.”
THE END.
PRINTED BY BALLANTINE, HANSON AND CO.
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[A] The “Stoning of Stephen,” the “Conversion of St. Paul,” and “Paul
in the Dungeon at Philippi.”
[B] “Catalogue of Spanish Works of Art in the South Kensington Museum
in 1872.” By Señor Juan F. Riaño, of the Educational Board of the
Ministry of Fomento, Spain. Reprinted in Mr. Robinson’s Catalogue of
the Loan Exhibition of 1881.
[C] Since this was written General Pitt Rivers has offered his grand
collection to the nation as a free gift, and I am ashamed and astounded
to learn that it has been declined! The great men connected with the
South Kensington institutions--Huxley, Poynter, Cunliffe Owen, and
others--were felicitating themselves at this splendid acquisition,
when this mysterious refusal came. Sir John Lubbock, as I write, is
questioning the Government on the subject, and it is possible the
outrageous folly may be checked. I regret to say there are indications
that the cause of it is a certain jealousy that has sprung up in
influential quarters at the prodigious growth of the South Kensington
collections. For the moment they have managed to make the British
Museum a sort of dog-in-the-manger. I cannot believe, however, that
the country will consent that such jealousy shall become a contest
so costly to itself. The incident I have just mentioned tempts me to
strike out from this work some complimentary things I have written
concerning the administration of the Science and Art Department; but
the facts have not yet been publicly sifted, and I leave what is
written in hope that the result of this strange affair may not turn all
its admiration to satire.
[D] Heine. Translated by Charles Leland.
* * * * *
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
explanatory catalogue of 1247=> explanatory catalogue of 1847 {pg 80}
which all from the cornice to the floor=> which fall from the cornice
to the floor {pg 197}