page_title: Chiswick
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Chiswick / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Richard Taylor memorial St Nicholas Chiswick 1716
context_page_description: Chiswick is a district of West London, England. It contains Hogarth's House, the former residence of the 18th-century English artist William Hogarth; Chiswick House, a neo-Palladian villa regarded as one of the finest in England; and Fuller's Brewery, London's largest and oldest brewery. In a meander of the River Thames used for competitive and recreational rowing, with several rowing clubs on the river bank, the finishing post for the Boat Race is just downstream of Chiswick Bridge.
  Chiswick was an ancient parish in the county of Middlesex, with an agrarian and fishing economy beside the river. Having good communications with London, Chiswick became a popular country retreat and part of the suburban growth of London in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It became the Municipal Borough of Brentford and Chiswick in 1932 and part of Greater London in 1965, when it merged into the London Borough of Hounslow. Chiswick is an affluent area which includes Bedford Park, Grove Park, the Glebe Estate, Strand-on-the-Green and Tube stations Chiswick Park, Turnham Green and Gunnersbury, as well as the Gunnersbury Triangle local nature reserve.
context_section_description: Chiswick was first recorded c.1000 as the Old English Ceswican meaning "Cheese Farm"; the riverside area of Duke's Meadows is thought to have supported an annual cheese fair up until the 18th century.
  Chiswick grew up as a village around St Nicholas Church from c. 1181 on Church Street, its inhabitants practising farming, fishing and other riverside trades including a ferry, important as there were no bridges between London Bridge and Kingston throughout the Middle Ages. The area included three other small settlements, the fishing village of Strand-on-the-Green, Little Sutton and Turnham Green on the west road out of London.
  A decisive skirmish took place on Turnham Green early in the English Civil War. In November 1642, royalist forces under Prince Rupert, marching from Oxford to retake London, were halted by a larger parliamentarian force under the Earl of Essex. The royalists retreated and never again threatened the capital.
  From 1758 until 1929 the Dukes of Devonshire owned Chiswick House, and their legacy can be found in street names all over Chiswick.
  In 1864, John Isaac Thornycroft, founder of the John I. Thornycroft & Company shipbuilding company, established a yard at Church Wharf at the west end of Chiswick Mall. The shipyard built the first naval destroyer, HMS Daring of the Daring class, in 1893. To cater for the increasing size of warships, Thornycroft moved its shipyard to Southampton in 1909.
  In 1822, the Royal Horticultural Society leased 33 acres (13.4 ha) of land in the area south of the High Road between what are now Sutton Court Road and Duke's Avenue. This site was used for its fruit tree collection and its first school of horticulture, and housed its first flower shows. The area was reduced to 10 acres (4.0 ha) in the 1870s, and the lease was terminated when the Society's garden at Wisley, Surrey, was set up in 1904. Some of the original pear trees still grow in the gardens of houses built on the site.
  The population of Chiswick grew almost tenfold during the 19th century, reaching 29,809 in 1901, and the area is a mixture of Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian housing. Suburban building began in Gunnersbury in the 1860s and in Bedford Park, on the borders of Chiswick and Acton, in 1875.
  During the Second World War, Chiswick was bombed repeatedly, with both incendiary and high explosive bombs. Falling anti-aircraft shells and shrapnel also caused damage. The first V-2 rocket to hit London fell on Staveley Road, Chiswick, at 6.43pm on 8 September 1944, killing three people, injuring 22 others and causing extensive damage to surrounding trees and buildings. Six houses were demolished by the rocket and many more suffered damage. There is a memorial where the rocket fell on Staveley Road, and a War Memorial at the east end of Turnham Green. By the start of the 21st century, Chiswick had become an affluent suburb.
caption: Memorial to Richard Tayler, d. 1716, complete with Corinthian aedicule, heraldic cartouche, statues of Father Time and Angel of Death, in the bell tower of St Nicholas Church, Chiswick
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