Travels in South Kensington / with Notes on Decorative Art and Architecture in England

by Moncure Daniel Conway

I was almost afraid to rub my eyes, lest the antique townlet should vanish, and crept softly along, as one expecting to surprise fairies in their retreat. But when across the Common a Metropolitan train came thundering, and the buildings did not disappear, I began to feel that they were fabrics not quite baseless. That they should be real seemed even stranger than that they should be fantasies. The old trees still stood, the poplars waved their green streamers in the summer breeze, the huge willows branched out on every side; but the turnips and pumpkins they once overhung had become æsthetic houses, and amid the flowers and fruit-trees rosy children at play had taken the place of grimy laborers. I passed beneath a medlar—who ever before heard of a medlar-tree out on a sidewalk?—on through a wide avenue of houses that differed from each other sympathetically, in pleasing competition as to which could be prettiest. Their gables sometimes fronting the street, their door-ways adorned with varied touches of taste, the windows surrounded with tinted glass, the lattices thrown open, and many comely young faces under dainty caps visible here and there, altogether impressed me with a sense of being in some enchanted land. After turning into several streets of this character, and strolling into several houses not yet inhabited, watching the decorators silently engaged upon their work, I recognized that this was the veritable land of the lotus-eaters, where they who arrive may sit them down and say, “We will return no more.”

My summer ramble ended in a conviction that Bedford Park was an adequate answer to Mr. Mallock’s question, “Is life worth living?” If lived at Bedford Park, decidedly yes! In one year’s time an architectural design adapted to our taste and needs stood finished in brick, amid trees planted by Lindley; the last convenience was completed, the ornamentation added; and therein I now sit to write this little sketch of the prettiest and pleasantest townlet in England, while my neighbor Mr. Nash is out on the balcony sketching the trees and houses that wave and smile through my study windows. For those who dwell here the world is divided into two great classes—those who live at Bedford Park, and those who do not. Nevertheless, we of the first class are not so far removed from those of the second as not to feel for them, and to help them as well as we can to see our village, so far as it can be put on paper in white and black. It is with that compassionate feeling that Mr. Nash with his pencil and I with my pen have prepared some account and illustration of what has been done toward building a Utopia in brick and paint in the suburbs of London.

For a long time cultured taste in London for persons of moderate means had been able to express itself only on paper. Any deviation from the normal style could be achieved only by the wealthy. The Dutch have the proverb, “Nothing is cheaper than paint,” but the Dutch might have discovered their mistake had they lived in London within recent years, and ventured to desire any variation from the conventional decoration of houses. Even twenty years ago the artistically decorated (modern) houses in this vast metropolis might almost be counted on one’s fingers and toes, and they were the houses of millionnaires or of artists. The artists could do much of the work themselves, and the millionnaires could command special labors. But meanwhile the people who most desired beautiful homes were those of the younger generation whom the new culture had educated above the mere pursuit of riches, at the same time awakening in them refined tastes which only through riches could obtain their satisfaction. However, London is a vast place. One of the best things about it is that nearly every head, however ingeniously constructed, can find a circle of other heads to which it is related. The demand of a few expanded until its supply was at hand. Jonathan Carr, member of a family to which much of this kind of artistic activity in London is due, had become the proprietor of a hundred acres of land out here at Chiswick. It was land on which art had already been at work; a considerable part of it had been the home garden of Bedford House, where, as already said, Lindley had resided. Around the large garden were orchards and green fields. Mr. Carr believed that his land might fairly be made the site of a number of picturesque houses, both as to architecture and decoration, such as many of his acquaintances were longing for; he believed that if a considerable number of persons should contract for such houses, that kind of work which has been costly because exceptional might be much reduced; he believed also that there were architects and decorators who, out of materials sufficiently alike to be secured in large quantities, could produce a rich variety of combinations, so that a maximum of individual taste might be expressed at a minimum of cost. Mr. Carr consulted Norman Shaw on the matter; that architect encouraged the project, and agreed to devote himself personally to it. And I may say here that the speedy success of the scheme was largely due to the well-known characters of the landlord and the architect. Their enthusiasm for art, their liberality and honor, excluded all suspicion that the scheme was a money-making bubble; the slow-growing plant of confidence was already grown in their case for the kind of people who really wanted these houses. In the course of little more than five years three hundred and fifty houses have been erected. They are embowered amid trees, and surrounded by orchards; their generous gardens are well stocked with trees, flowers, and fruits, so that these houses appear as if they had been here for generations. No one could imagine that seven years ago they were all little sketches on paper, passing between landlord, architect, and house-hunters; and indeed my friend Abbey, the artist, who has visited us occasionally, says he cannot yet get it out of his head that he is walking through a water-color.

The first consideration is health. Bedford Park is naturally healthy. It is situated upon a gravel-bed, remote from the fogs of London, and with easy access to the river for its drains. Kensington is but twelve minutes nearer the centre of London than Bedford Park, yet at Kensington few afternoons between October and February can be passed without gas-light, whereas here there were only four or five occasions last fall and winter when the lights were required before evening. There are beautiful walks around, and in ten minutes by train we reach Kew Gardens. The Chiswick Horticultural Gardens are under ten minutes’ walk. Near these is the long avenue, overarched by trees, the Duke’s Walk; it leads to famous Chiswick House, whose sixty acres of ornamental wooded ground is the most beautiful private park in the suburbs of London, to say nothing of the charms of romance investing the old Italian villa where statesmen consulted the fair Duchess of Devonshire. There is thus no lack of breathing space. The houses are built with fourteen-inch brick walls, and without cellars. It is in conformity with what has been decided to be the prudent plan in London that underground rooms are unknown here, each house being founded on a solid bed of concrete, the floors raised sufficiently high above this to allow of full and free ventilation beneath every house.

DINING-ROOM IN TOWER HOUSE.

Sanitary considerations are not neglected in the decorations. Matting is used in the lining of halls and staircases; it is easy to keep clean, and does not gather or send forth dust every time a door is opened, as is often the case with paper. Tiles are also much employed, which are also easy to keep clean; and although stained glass is used, it is as a decorative casement, and is not allowed to impede the light, which can never be spared in England.

What at once impresses the intelligent visitor to Bedford Park is 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.