Welcome back.
Bonfire Night is tonight, but the fireworks wait for Saturday, and so does the weekend's only likely shower. Sunday is Remembrance Sunday, and it looks like the clearest day of the three.
Inside: the stories behind the 128 names on the war memorials in Bedford Park, a reader's photo of pub chairs standing in the Thames, and the result of the pizza rematch. Plus a free talk on 200 years of Savile Row, a Michelin star on Devonshire Road, and Chiswick Rugby's perfect start to the season.
Here's the week.
🌊 The river came to visit
Last Thursday's high tide pushed the Thames up and over the path at Strand on the Green, and Graham H. was there with his camera. The pub chairs standing in the water are our favourite picture of the month.
High tide at Strand on the Green, Thursday 29 October. Photo: Graham H.
The riverside path under water. Photo: Graham H.
Keep them coming. Our W4 after dark callout is still open: lit-up shopfronts, Saturday's fireworks, the river at dusk. Hit reply and send yours by Monday 9 November, and we'll run the best of them next week, with your name on it.
🌺 Bedford Park's war artists, and the men of 1916
📍 St Michael & All Angels, Bath Road, W4 1TT | Exhibition open daily from 9am until Wed 11 Nov | Free
Every November, St Michael & All Angels fills with poppies, and with stories. Since 2014 the church has been researching the 128 names on its war memorials, and this year's exhibition is about 1916: the Somme, and the Bedford Park artists whose sons fought in it.
James Clark painted The Great Sacrifice, called the most popular painting of the war; his fresco The Salutation is still on the church's north wall, and his youngest son Cosmo volunteered at 17, won the Military Cross and was wounded on the Somme. Cecil Aldin, who illustrated Black Beauty, lost his son Dudley in May 1916. George Derville Rowlandson of Priory Avenue, one of the first official war artists, lost his at Ypres in 1918.
The Dugout, by Cosmo Clark, who drew what he saw in the trenches. Image: St Michael & All Angels Church
Twenty panels by the late David Beresford, the church archivist who led the project, are on show, eight of them on the Somme.
Remembrance Sunday, 8 November: Choral Requiem Mass at St Michael's at 9.55am, then the procession to the Bedford Park memorial for the Last Post and the silence at 11am. The town centre parade leaves the Chiswick Memorial Club on Bourne Place at 10.40am for the war memorial on Turnham Green, and St Nicholas holds its Parish Mass with an Act of Remembrance at 10.30am.
Sources: St Michael & All Angels news release (5 November), Hounslow Council, St Nicholas Chiswick
🍂 La Trompette
📍 3-7 Devonshire Road, W4 2EU
Chiswick's Michelin star, on Devonshire Road since 2001 and the sibling of Chez Bruce. This year's Michelin Guide calls it "the jewel in Chiswick's culinary crown".
The dinner menu is as autumnal as it gets: French onion and oxtail soup, Ibérico pork with an apple and black pudding tarte tatin, gnocchi with trompette mushrooms, venison with damson purée, and an apple and blackberry crumble soufflé to finish.
Three courses are £95 at dinner and £80 for two. Lunch is £65 for three courses, Wednesday to Sunday, with a shorter menu at £45 on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays.
Worth knowing: on Sunday evenings, according to its website, there's no corkage on one bottle per person, up to four a table.
🔗 latrompette.co.uk · t: 020 8747 1836
ig: @latrompettechiswick
Sources: Michelin Guide, La Trompette's website and menus
🍕 The pizza rematch: you voted
Napoli on the Road keeps the title with 35% of your votes. Doctor Dough took 27% and Yard Sale Pizza, barely a month on the High Road, 18%. Another 15% haven't tried any of them yet, and 5% go somewhere else in W4.
In September Napoli had more than half the vote, so the gap is closing. Devonshire Road still holds the crown, for now.
In the 15% who haven't tried it? Yard Sale is giving away free slices at the shop, 88 Chiswick High Road, this Saturday 7 November from 12pm to 3pm, while stocks last. Turn up in person and sign up to their mailing list. We have tried the pizza, and it's excellent.
ig: @yardsalepizza
📅 Everything in this edition is on our events calendar, with times, prices and booking links, plus plenty more between now and Christmas. Worth a bookmark.
🎩 A free talk on 200 years of Savile Row
📍 POSK, 238-246 King Street, W6 0RF | Thu 12 Nov | Doors and bar 7pm, talk 8pm
The Arts Society Chiswick normally charges guests for its monthly talks. For November it has waived the fee, so this is the one to try. Russell Nash, a London Blue Badge guide and former actor, tells the story of men's tailoring through the men who commissioned, cut and wore it: Beau Brummell, the Duke of Windsor, Tommy Nutter, Montague Burton, Alexander McQueen and John Stephen, and the tailors, shirtmakers and hatters of Savile Row and Jermyn Street who built the trade.
No booking needed, just turn up. The society meets on the second Thursday of the month at POSK, the Polish centre on King Street, and the private bar opens with the doors at 7pm.
This week
🎤 Star Search opens | Fri 6 Nov | from around 8pm | George & Devonshire, 8 Burlington Lane, W4 2QE
The first Friday of the pub's singing competition, with a £500 Fuller's prize at stake in the final on 18 December. Free to watch and vote, and acts can still enter: call 0208 742 7342 or email the pub.
🎶 Who Put the Bomp? closes | Fri 6 Nov 7.30pm, Sat 7 Nov 2pm and 6pm | Tabard Theatre, 2 Bath Road, W4 1LW
The last three performances of the Tabard's doo-wop musical, nominated last week for its ensemble. Final-week prices £27.50, concessions £24.50. Book
🔥 Chiswick Rugby Community Fireworks | Sat 7 Nov | gates 5.30pm, bonfire 6.30pm, fireworks 7.30pm | Chiswick Rugby Club, Dan Mason Drive, W4 2SH
Chiswick's own display. Adults £12, children £8, family £30, with a donation to Maggie's built in. Online only and it sold out last year, but there were still tickets at the time of writing. Book
🐟 Schubert's Trout Quintet | Sat 7 Nov | 4pm, doors 3.30pm | St Michael & All Angels, Bath Road, W4 1TT
The Gustav Holst Ensemble, with broadcaster Sandy Burnett on double bass. Free thanks to sponsorship; register for a place. Reserve
♻️ Free pop-up tip and repair café | Sat 7 Nov | 11am to 3pm | Edensor Gardens, W4
Up to six items per household: furniture, mattresses, small electricals, textiles and general waste, but no cardboard, paint or rubble. The Chiswick Repair Café is at Dukes Meadows Community Centre, W4 2RZ, 12pm to 2pm. Details
🌺 Remembrance Sunday | Sun 8 Nov | 9.55am Bedford Park, 10.40am parade from Bourne Place, 11am silence
Times and places for St Michael's, the town centre parade and St Nicholas are in the feature above.
🏺 Two Sunday markets | Sun 8 Nov | Antiques & Vintage 9am to 3pm, Chiswick High Road, W4 2DU; Duck Pond Market 10am to 4pm, Gunnersbury Park
The second-Sunday antiques market on the High Road, and Duck Pond Market back at Gunnersbury after five years. Antiques · Duck Pond
🎭 The Phantom of the Opera at ArtsEd | Tue 10 to Sat 14 Nov | 7pm, plus 2pm matinees Thu to Sat | ArtsEd, 14 Bath Road, W4 1LY
The drama school's students take on Lloyd Webber in its own theatre. £20, concessions £14, which is as cheap as Phantom gets. Book
🛋️ Freud's Last Session | from Wed 11 Nov | 7.30pm | Tabard Theatre
Freud meets C.S. Lewis, to 28 November; Wed to Fri 7.30pm, Sat 6pm; previews £20, then £25.50. Also Thu 12 Nov: Hogarth's House after dark, a talk on the 18th-century sex trade (6pm, £12, 16+), or Lea Ypi on Indignity at Waterstones (7pm, £8). Freud · Hogarth · Ypi
Further ahead
🎨 Whistler at St Nicholas | Thu 19 Nov | 7pm | St Nicholas Church, Church Street, W4 2PJ
Professor Daniel Sutherland on James McNeill Whistler, buried a few yards away, with the Friends of St Nicholas, the Old Chiswick Protection Society and the Whistler Society. The bronze figures were stolen from his tomb some years ago; the night includes the restoration plan and appeal. £10 on the door, students £5, under-18s free, pay bar. Details
🧀 Chiswick Cheese Market | Sun 15 Nov | 9.30am to 3pm | Old Market Place, W4 2DR
Third Sunday of the month, opposite M&S. The December market is on the 20th. Details
🏷️ Chiswick Yard Sale Day | Sun 15 Nov | 12pm to 4pm | across Chiswick
Residents sell from their own front doors, organised through Loppa. Free to browse; sign up on loppa.market for the addresses. Details
🎷 Jazz at the George: Momentum | Sun 15 Nov | doors 7pm, show 7.30pm | George IV, 185 Chiswick High Road, W4 2DR
Six-piece jazz fusion for the EFG London Jazz Festival. £16, £14 with a Club Card. Book
🎭 Cock and Bull | Sun 15 Nov 3pm and 6pm, Mon 16 Nov 7.30pm | Tabard Theatre
Gilbert and Sullivan fall out in song. 80 minutes, no interval. £24.50, concessions £22.50. Book
🗿 London Sculpture Prize | Wed 18 to Sun 22 Nov | 10am to 4.30pm | Gunnersbury Park Museum, Popes Lane, W5 4NH
Contemporary sculpture from this year's finalists, shown in the mansion. Free, no booking. Details
🎄 Christmas at Kew | from Fri 13 Nov | 4.20pm to 10pm, selected dates to 3 Jan | Kew Gardens, TW9 3AE
The light trail is back. From £25.50, timed entry, book ahead. Book
🏫 A new specialist base at Chiswick School
Chiswick School has opened the Orchard, a specialist resource base for pupils with cognition and learning needs who have an Education, Health and Care Plan. Pupils in Years 7 and 8 split their week between mainstream classes and the base. Funding was agreed in July and it opened in September, part of Hounslow's first wave of specialist bases in mainstream schools alongside Cavendish, Hounslow Town and Wellington primaries, Springwest and Logic Studio School. The council says it has commissioned 290 such places.
Year 13 performing arts students at the school are now working with the Orchard's pupils on a drama, dance and music piece about moving from specialist into mainstream education. It will be performed at the council's free International Day of Persons with Disabilities event at Hounslow House on Thursday 3 December.
Sources: Hounslow Council, The Chiswick Calendar
🏉 Six from six for Chiswick Rugby
Chiswick Rugby's first XV have won all six league games this season and sit top of Counties 1 Middlesex, five points clear of London Welsh II. October went 54-21 against Hackney, 38-22 against Hampstead, 59-24 away at Old Streetonians, 24-17 against CS Stags, then 47-0 at Ruislip last Saturday. Points difference: plus 162.
The next home game is against UCS on Saturday 14 November at Dukes Meadows, the same ground that hosts the fireworks this Saturday.
Source: Chiswick Rugby Club
🌿 Chiswick House's Italian Garden goes back to 1814
The Italian Garden at Chiswick House is being replanted to a design that returns to Lewis Kennedy's original 1814 layout while making it fit for hotter summers. Gardener Freya, who took the garden on in April, drew it up with head of gardens Rosie Fyles after this summer's drought. Expect Mediterranean and drought-tolerant plants, more for pollinators, sunken beds in place of raised mounds, grit in the soil for drainage, more shade trees and some shaded seating, with elements dropped in the 1830s coming back.
With around 1,800 trees across 65 acres to look after, a border that needs less water matters. No completion date has been given yet.
Source: Chiswick House & Gardens
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