Edition 22 in partnership with W4 Gong Bath
🎐 W4 Gong Bath, now at Chiswick House
A gong bath is meditation with the effort taken out. You lie down on a mat, the gong starts, and the sound does the rest. The vibrations slow your brainwaves and pull you towards stillness without you having to concentrate on anything at all.
Gabi Lozano has been running these around W4 for a while, and has now added the new Learning Hub at Chiswick House & Gardens to her Hammersmith Quakers sessions. Two are coming up: Tuesday 22 September at Hammersmith Quakers, and Thursday 24 September at the Learning Hub. Both run 7pm to 8pm.
Mats are provided. You lie down, and that is the whole ask.
Welcome back.
The funfair is on Turnham Green from tonight, and it runs with the music off, which is the entire point of it.
Sunday is the fullest day Chiswick has had in a while: the dog show at Chiswick House, the Learning Hub opening to everyone, the artist studios' open day, and the cheese market on the High Road. All within a mile, all the same morning.
Also inside: a new all-day restaurant and wine room lands on the High Road next week, five artists move into the studios at Chiswick House, and a cancer charity a lot of local families know quietly turns 25.
Glad to have you with us.
🎡 The funfair opens tonight
Turnham Green | Thu 17 to Mon 21 September
George Irvin's funfair is back on Turnham Green from this evening, and as ever it runs with no music and no amplified sound at all. That is the whole design of it: children with autism, ADHD, SEN or sensory sensitivities get a fair without the wall of noise.
Entry is free every day. Rides are half price tonight and again on Monday, and tokens booked online in advance are 20% off on the other days. Open 3pm to 10pm tonight, Friday and Monday, and midday to 10pm across the weekend.
🍽️ Brook & Green opens on the High Road
The all-day restaurant and wine room we mentioned a fortnight ago now has dates. Bookings open on Thursday 24 September for lunch and dinner, and it runs all day from Friday the 25th.
Eighty-nine covers: 49 on the ground floor, 14 on the terrace and 26 in the wine room downstairs, which is built around the restaurant's own working collection and does pre-dinner drinks and private dining. The opening creates 18 to 19 jobs.
The menu is ingredient-led rather than showy, pulling on Mediterranean, Asian and British cooking. Owner-operator Tim Price says the aim was somewhere Chiswick actually needs, rather than a place people save for an occasion.
Breakfast 8am to 11.30am on weekdays, to 12.30pm at weekends. All-day menu from midday to 11pm Monday to Thursday, midnight on Friday and Saturday. Sundays are brunch and lunch only, closing at 6pm. Wine room from 5pm.
🔗 brookandgreen.co.uk
📍 142 Chiswick High Road, W4 1PU
The local wins, openings and milestones worth knowing about this week.
🎨 Five new artists move in at Chiswick House
Five artists have taken space in the newly converted Artist Studios at Chiswick House & Gardens, which brings the number working there to 24.
They are Sophie Balhetchet (ceramics and watercolour), Anna Booth (photography and printmaking), Margarida Fernandes (mixed-media painting), Tony Lancaster (born and raised in Chiswick, painting local scenes) and Emma Turpin (textile sculpture from second-hand materials).
The studios sit in the historic working buildings between the Conservatory and the Kitchen Garden, and completing them finishes the £5.5 million project that also delivered the Learning Hub, the Foyle Learning Yard and the Kitchen Garden Hub.
You can see them at work at an Open Day on Sunday 20 September, the same day as the Learning Hub celebration and the dog show. One trip, three things.
Source: Chiswick House & Gardens Trust
🌳 Twenty-five years of free cancer support, marked on the High Road
Mulberry Cancer Support turns 25 this year, and marks it with an anniversary ball at the Clayton Hotel on Chiswick High Road on Saturday 26 September.
The charity has spent a quarter of a century giving free support to people affected by cancer, and to those around them: counselling, support groups, practical help, none of it charged for. It works out of West Middlesex Hospital and covers this corner of West London, so a good number of readers will know someone who has used it. Worth marking even if a black-tie ball is not your sort of evening.
Source: Mulberry Cancer Support. More at mulberrycancersupport.org.uk
Tony Lancaster is one of the five artists who have just moved into the studios at Chiswick House, and the only one of them who grew up here.
He paints landscapes, people and local scenes, which makes the feed an oddly satisfying record of streets you walk down every week without really looking at them. Worth a follow before Sunday, because the studios are open that day and he will be in his.
📸 Send us your dog show photos
Sunday's fancy dress theme is The Traitors, which should produce a few things worth looking at. If you get a good shot, send it over and we'll run the best of them next week.
Just reply to this email, or tag us @inside_chiswick.
This week
🎺 The Phil Brown Swingtet plus guests | Thu 17 Sept | 8pm to 10.30pm | The Duck and Ball, Chiswick Cricket Club, 12 Riverside Drive, W4 2SP
Six-piece band, Armstrong through to Basie, every third Thursday. Free entry.
🩰 Chiswick Silver Swans ballet | Sat 19 Sept, 11am to 12pm, and Tue 22 Sept, 2pm to 3pm | Age Concern Hall, Oxford Road North, W4 4DN
The Royal Academy of Dance's programme for dancers of mature years, running in Chiswick since 2018, for anyone starting out or picking it back up after a few decades. Taught by an RAD-registered Silver Swans licensee. £15 a class paid on the day. Contact Judy on 07905 242 898.
🎨 The next W4th Plinth is unveiled | Sat 19 Sept | 2pm | Turnham Green Terrace piazza
New image, special guests, and the last chance to see Tanya Meditsky's before it comes down. Details
🧀 Chiswick Cheese Market | Sun 20 Sept | 9.30am to 3pm | Old Market Place, W4 2DR
Third Sunday of the month, opposite M&S. Steve's free tasting tour leaves Market HQ at 9.45am. Details
🏛️ Learning Hub Community Celebration Day | Sun 20 Sept | 10.30am to 3.30pm | Chiswick House & Gardens
The building the crowdfunder paid for, open at last, with the Artist Studios holding an open day alongside it. Free throughout, including entry to the House. Details
🐕 Chiswick House Dog Show | Sun 20 Sept | 11am to 4.15pm | Cricket Pitch, Chiswick House
22nd year, 17 classes, and this year's fancy dress theme is The Traitors. £6 a class, spectators free. Details
🥖 The Food Market at Dukes Meadows | Sun 20 Sept | 10am to 2pm | The Pavilion, Market Drive, W4 2RX
Every Sunday, proceeds back into the park. Details
Further ahead
🎐 Gong Bath at the Learning Hub | Thu 24 Sept | 7pm to 8pm | Chiswick House & Gardens
Gabi Lozano's first session in the new Hub. Book
🧘 The Body Reset Day | Sun 27 Sept | 9.30am to 1pm | Chiswick Catholic Centre, 2 Duke's Avenue, W4 2AE
Three 45-minute sessions from Anny at Personal Best Fit, covering Pilates, resistance-band strength and mobility, with breaks between each. £65. Book
🎷 ReBeL Yell Jazz Orchestra | Fri 2 Oct | 7.30pm | St Nicholas Church, Church Street
A full jazz orchestra in the parish church by the river. £15 on the door. Details
✨ Divine Light | Thu 8 Oct | 7pm | St Nicholas Church, Church Street
Janet Gough OBE on the church's stained glass. £10 on the door. Details
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