Chiswick Timeline of Writers & Books: A quick guide
Chiswick’s writers have created some of the country’s greatest works, from Thackeray’s Vanity Fair to Osborne’s Look Back in Anger and Pinter’s The Caretaker. Our Writers Trail features 36 acclaimed novelists, poets and dramatists who have lived in Chiswick or written about the area. It boasts one Booker Prize, two Nobel Prizes for Literature, three Oscars, five plaques and a Poet Laureate. The Observer wrote: Chiswick may be the UK’s most literary location.
Click links below to read more information about the 36 writers. Pick up the free map/leaflet from St Michael & All Angels Church, Chiswick bookshops and elsewhere. To see the map in much greater detail, you can download a copy here.
To rotate the map on your phone or tablet, simply rotate the device; on a desktop, scroll down, click the third icon and use the rotate icon on the task bar) .
The Writers Trail map is part of the Chiswick Timeline of Writers & Books, which lists some 425 writers who have written a book and lived in Chiswick W4, or written books about the area. For an introduction, read A Quick Guide. See more local information at Exploring Chiswick.
The ‘Writers Tales’ pages contain anecdotes, pictures and Chiswick links – including ‘Six Centuries of Chiswick Poets’.
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DRAMATISTS
1 Carla Lane OBE 1928-2016. TV dramatist: 1970s & 80s hit sitcoms including The Liver Birds, Bread, Butterflies (with Chiswick actress Wendy Craig, who said: “She understood women and wrote the truth about them.”) In the 1980s lived in Zoffany House (blue plaque to painter Johann Zoffany).
Zoffany House, 65 Strand on the Green, W4 3PF (Private house, no access)
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2 Harold Pinter 1947-2008. One of theatre’s most influential dramatists. Wrote The Caretaker when he rented a flat here in 1958-63, and a tramp was invited to stay. Numerous plays and screenplays. Oscar nominee, Best Adapted Screenplay 1981 (The French Lieutenant’s Woman), 1983 (Betrayal). Nobel Prize for Literature 2005. Biography by Chiswick’s Michael Billington.
373 Chiswick High Road, W4 4AG (Private house, no access)
Read more at: ‘Writers Tales’
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3 Patrick Hamilton 1904-1962. Dramatist: Gaslight, Rope. Novelist: Autobiographical trilogy Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky: scenes set here where he lived on and off, 1914-28. BBC Four series directed by Chiswick’s Simon Curtis.
2 Burlington Gardens, W4 4LT – Blue plaque. (Private house, no access)
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4 Anthony Burgess 1917-1993. Poet, Dramatist: Jesus of Nazareth. Novelist: A Clockwork Orange. Moved to Chiswick in 1963 to review TV for The Listener and mark Shakespeare’s 1964 quatercentenary (with novel Nothing Like the Sun). While here wrote Tremor of Intent, Enderby Outside and a Shakespeare musical The Bawdy Bard. Left for Italy in 1968.
24 Glebe Street, W4 2BG (Private house, no access)
Read more at: ‘Writers Tales’
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5 Sir Arthur Wing Pinero 1855-1934. Dramatist: The Magistrate, The Second Mrs Tanqueray, Trelawny of the Wells. Lived in Bedford Park 1883-84 till success of The Magistrate led to him building a house in Harley Street.
10 Marlborough Crescent, W4 1HF (Private house, no access)
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6 Edgar Wallace 1875-1932. One of the most prolific and most filmed authors of all time. Novelist, dramatist, journalist. Creator King Kong, The Four Just Men, Sanders of the River,
Edgar Wallace Mysteries. Lived in Bedford Park c. 1904-06, son was born in Brentford.
16 Flanders Road, W4 (Private house, no access)
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7 Alun Owen 1925-1994. Dramatist. No Trams to Lime Street, Maggie May. Oscar nominee, Best Original Screenplay 1964 (A Hard Day’s Night). Lived in Chiswick 1985-94. Acted with Harold Pinter (ibid) in the restaurant scene in The Servant.
4 Upham Park Road, W4 1PG (Private house, no access)
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8 Lynn Redgrave OBE 1943-2010. Actor, dramatist: Shakespeare for My Father (about Sir Michael Redgrave), The Mandrake Root (about her mother Rachel Kempson), Nightingale (inspired by her grandmother). As a child, lived with her parents, sister Vanessa and brother Corin on Chiswick Mall (1945-54). Tony Award, Best Actress (Shakespeare for My Father).
Bedford House, Chiswick Mall W4 2PJ (Private house, no access)
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9 Robert Bolt 1924-1995. Dramatist: A Man for All Seasons. Screenwriter: Dr Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia. Oscar, Best Adapted Screenplay 1965 (Dr Zhivago) & 1966 (A Man for All Seasons). Lived in Hartington Road c. 1982-6.
29 Hartington Road, W4 3TL (Private house, no access)
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10 John Osborne 1929-1994. Dramatist: Living on Chiswick houseboat, sent script of Look Back In Anger to George Devine
of the English Stage Company, who rowed out to option it for
£25 in 1955. Oscar, Best Adapted Screenplay 1963 (Tom Jones).
Cubitts Yacht Basin, now Chiswick Quay, W4 3UR (Private esta
te)
Read more at: ‘Writers Tales’
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+ See also: Dylan Thomas (26), WB Yeats (28)
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NOVELISTS
11 Nancy Mitford 1904-1973. Novelist: The Pursuit of Love, Love In A Cold Climate. Lived in Chiswick 1934-36 while married to Peter Robb. Wrote Wigs on The Green here, a satire on the Mosleys, causing a rift between the Mitford sisters.
Rose Cottage, 84 Strand on the Green, W4 3PU (Private house, no access)
Read more at: ‘Writers Tales’
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12 Geoffrey Household 1900-1988. Writer of novels, short stories and children’s plays. Rogue Male, filmed by BBC (1976) at suggestion of Chiswick’s Richard Broke, starring Peter O’Toole. Lived at Strand on the Green, 1949-54. Roasted a whole deer on Oliver’s Eyot for the Coronation!
29 Strand on the Green, W4 3PH (private house, no access)
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13 Dame Iris Murdoch 1919-1992. Novelist: The Bell, A Severed Head. Booker Prize 1978 (The Sea, The Sea). Brought up at 4 Eastbourne Road W4 3EB where her parents lived 1926-59. Lived briefly at 55 Barrowgate Road W4 4QT while their home was being repaired after bomb damage.
4 Eastbourne Road, W4 3EB (Private house, no access)
Read more at: ‘Writers Tales’
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14 JG Ballard 1930-2009. Novelist: Empire of the Sun, Crash. Lived in a flat in Barrowgate Road 1955-57 after 30 Fairlawn Avenue W4 5EF. Wrote short stories before living in Shepperton and writing full-time. Walked in Chiswick House Gardens with young daughter: pictured on Writers Trail website.
69 Barrowgate Road, W4 4QS (Private house, no access)
Read more at: ‘Writers Tales’
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15 EM Forster 1879-1970. Novelist: A Room with a View, Howards End, A Passage to India. Had ‘pied a terre’ here from 1939, when he broadcast reviews for the BBC and wrote short stories, till 1970. Nobel Prize nominee (in 16 different years). Companion of Honour, Order of Merit.
9 Arlington Park Mansions, W4 4HE – Blue plaque. (Private house, no access)
Read more at: ‘Writers Tales’
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16 Alain-Fournier 1886-1914. French novelist, anglophile: a key scene in Le Grand Meaulnes was inspired by a works fete at Sanderson & Sons in Chiswick where in 1905, aged 19, he worked as a translator. This in turn inspired a scene in The Great Gatsby. Letters from his time here appear in Towards the Lost Domain: Letters from London, 1905, edited by WJ Strachan.
Voysey House, Barley Mow Passage, W4 4PN (no access)
Read more at: ‘Writers Tales’
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17 Ralph Griffiths 1720-1803. Publisher: Fanny Hill. Editor: The Monthly Review, London’s first successful literary magazine. Lived in Chiswick c 1760-1803, among a literary circle.
Linden House, Turnham Green (demolished, now Linden Gardens W4 2EQ)
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18 Sergius Stepniak 1851-1895. Russian writer: Underground Russia. Said to be the model for the Russian exile in The Railway Children. Friend of William Morris and George Bernard Shaw. Killed by a train at Woodstock Road level crossing.
31 Blandford Road W4 1DX (1893-95) and 48 Woodstock Road W4 1UF (1895) (Private houses, no access)
Read more at: ‘Writers Tales’
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19 GK Chesterton* 1874-1936. Novelist, poet, critic, known for the Father Brown stories. In The Man Who Was Thursday, “Saffron Park” is a parody of Bedford Park: his fiancée lived in Bath Road and he knew WB Yeats and other residents.
Bath Road, Bedford Park, W4 1TT
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20 William Morris 1834-96. Poet, novelist, designer, printer, social activist, Arts & Crafts pioneer. The Earthly Paradise, News From Nowhere. Lived in Chiswick 1872-8, prior to Kelmscott House, Hammersmith.
Horrington House (demolished), near The Roebuck and Thornton Avenue
Read more at: ‘Writers Tales’
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21 Stephen Potter 1900-1969. Author: novels, biographies (DH Lawrence), parody self-help books. Gamesmanship, Oneupmanship. BBC TV series Oneupmanship, with Richard Briers as Stephen Potter. Lived Chiswick Mall on & off 1927-51.
Thames Bank and No 2 Riverside, Chiswick Mall, W4 (private houses, no access)
Read more at: ‘Writers Tales’
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22 WM Thackeray 1811-1863. Novelist, satirist: Vanity Fair opens in Chiswick Mall at Mrs Pinkerton’s Academy, based on Walpole House where Thackeray went to school in 1817. Opening chapter is called ‘Chiswick Mall’.
Walpole House, Chiswick Mall, W4 2PS (private house, no access) but also see Chiswick Square W4 2QG – a sign claims it was where Becky Sharpe threw the dictionary.
Read more at: ‘Writers Tales’
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23 Samuel Richardson 1689-1761. Novelist and printer. Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded; Clarissa, or the History of a Young Lady. Described as “one of the fathers of the English novel”. Rented house near Corney House 1736-38.
House near Corney House (demolished), now Corney Reach Way
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24 Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire 1757-1806. Socialite, novelist: The Sylph was published anonymously in 1778 and reprinted four times. Republished 2007 on 250th anniversary of her birth. Called Chiswick House ‘my earthly paradise’.
Chiswick House and Gardens, W4 2QN. Free access to the gardens, for house see opening times, chiswickhouseandgardens.org.uk
Read more at: ‘Writers Tales’
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+ See also Patrick Hamilton (3), Anthony Burgess (4), Edgar Wallace (6)
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POETS
25 Lady Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke 1561-1621. Poet and literary patron. Sidney Psalter. Turned Wilton House, Wiltshire, into a “paradise for poets”. Daughter of Elizabeth I’s confidante – also named Lady Mary Sidney, nee Dudley – who lived behind Strand on the Green, 1574-86. From the age of 13, Lady Mary lived there too, visited by brother, Sir Philip Sidney, poet, courtier and soldier.
Sidney House, close to Stile Hall and Strand on the Green (demolished)
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26 Dylan Thomas 1914-53. Poet, dramatist, broadcaster. Do not go gentle into that good night, Under Milk Wood, A Child’s Christmas in Wales, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog. Lived in St Paul’s Vicarage, Grove Park c. 1938-41; 13 Hammersmith Terrace 1941-2. Also stayed at Ship Cottage, Strand on the Green and frequented local pubs.
64 Grove Park Road (St Paul’s Vicarage), W4 3SB (Private house, no access)
Read more at: ‘Writers Tales’
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27 Michael Flanders OBE 1922-1975. Writer: comic songs and opera librettos, actor, performer (with Donald Swann) and disability campaigner. At The Drop of A Hat including The Gnu Song, The Hippopotamus Song, A Transport of Delight. Lived in Bedford Park 1971-5. Ashes scattered in Chiswick House Gardens. Michael Flanders Centre in Acton founded in his honour.
63 Esmond Road, W4 – Ealing Civic Society plaque (Private house, no access)
Read more at: ‘Writers Tales’
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28 WB Yeats 1865-1939. Poet: The Lake Isle of Innisfree was written here, perhaps inspired by Chiswick Eyot. Grew up in Bedford Park 1876-80, 1888-94, among a literary circle – visitors included GB Shaw. Wrote first play here, later founded Irish National Theatre (Abbey Theatre, Dublin). Nobel Prize for Literature 1923. See WB Yeats Smartphone Trail.
8 Woodstock Road W4 1UE and 3 Blenheim Road, W4 1UB (Green plaque, Bedford Park Society) (Private houses, no access)
Read more at: ‘Writers Tales’
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29 James Berry OBE 1924-2017. ‘Poet of the Windrush generation’. Collections incl Windrush Songs, A Story I Am In, Only One of Me (republished 2022). Winner: National Poetry Competition, Cholmondeley Award. Plus poetry and short stories for children. Smarties Prize, Signal Poetry Award. Lived in Chiswick from 1983 to 2011, latterly at Homecross House.
Homecross House, Fishers Lane, W4 (Private, no access)
Read more at: ‘Writers Tales’
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30 Sir John Betjeman* 1906-1984. Poet Laureate (1972-1984), heritage campaigner. The dogs do bark in Bedford Park. Patron of the Bedford Park Society from 1963 and Bedford Park Festival from 1967, helping save first garden suburb from developers.
St Michael & All Angels Church, Bedford Park, W4 1TT
Read more at: ‘Writers Tales’
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31 Elizabeth Moody 1737-1814. Poet and critic, Monthly Review, St James’s Chronicle. To a Lady Who Sent The Author a Present of a Fashionable Bonnet (Guardian Poem of the Week 2018), To a Lady Who Was A Great Talker. Married the dissenting minister Christopher Lake Moody in 1777; they moved to Turnham Green Terrace to be closer to Ralph Griffiths (ibid).
Turnham Green Terrace, W4
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32 Sir John (J. C.) Squire 1884-1958. Poet (The Survival of the Fittest) and man of letters; editor, New Statesman, the London Mercury for 20 years; loved (and detested) by great names of literary society; satirised by Evelyn Waugh in Decline and Fall; founder of legendary cricket club (in England, Their England). Lived in Chiswick Mall 1913-25.
Swan House, Chiswick Mall, W4 2PS (Private house, no access)
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33 John Donne* 1572-1631. Poet, priest, Prebendary of Chiswick 1621-31. The Flea, Death Be Not Proud, The Sun Rising. Dean of St Paul’s from 1621 to his death. He probably visited Chiswick and would have used the Prebendal Manor House which stood on Chiswick Mall. ‘Among his finest sermons are five on the psalms he was required to recite as Prebendary of Chiswick’ – Church Times.
Prebendal Manor House, Chiswick Mall (demolished)
Read more at: ‘Writers Tales’
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34 Alexander Pope 1688-1774. Poet, essayist, satirist. The Rape of the Lock, The Dunciad. Translated Homer’s Iliad while living with his parents in Mawson Row (“ye New Buildings Chiswick”), from 1716-19. Portrait of him by William Kent in Chiswick House, owned by his friend Lord Burlington.
House in Mawson Buildings, later the Mawson Arms pub (since closed), Chiswick Lane South W4 2QD (plaque and sign)
Read more at: ‘Writers Tales’
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35 Ugo Foscolo 1778-1827. Italian poet and patriot: Dei Sepolcri. Lived in Chiswick High Road for last months of his life, buried in St Nicholas churchyard in marble chest tomb, but remains were returned to Florence at the King of Italy’s request.
St Nicholas Churchyard, Chiswick Mall W4 2PJ
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36 Rev Henry Francis Cary 1772-1844. Poet. Translated Dante’s Inferno and Divine Comedy – the best translation in any language according to Ugo Foscolo (ibid). From 1814, Reader or Curate at St Nicholas Chiswick. Lived with his family at Hogarth’s House. Moved to Bloomsbury when he became Assistant Librarian at the British Museum 1826-37. Buried in Poet’s Corner, Westminster Abbey.
Hogarth’s House, Hogarth Lane (admission free, see days/times at www.hogarthshouse.org)
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+ See also Anthony Burgess (4), GK Chesterton (20), William Morris (21)
From the Writers Trail leaflet, published in 2023:
Chiswick’s writers have created some of the country’s greatest works, from Thackeray’s Vanity Fair to Osborne’s Look Back in Anger and Pinter’s The Caretaker. Follow this Writers Trail map to find places in W4 linked to 36 notable dramatists, novelists and poets. It boasts one Booker Prize, two Nobel Prizes for Literature, three Oscars, five plaques and a Poet Laureate.
The Writers Trail forms part of the Chiswick Timeline of Writers & Books, an online archive of more than 400 writers who have lived in Chiswick – or are linked with the area* – and written a book. It is listed chronologically and by genre at www.chiswickbookfestival.net
It was inspired by the Chiswick Timeline: A History in Art and Maps, the remarkable mural situated under the bridges outside Turnham Green tube station. This was created by Karen Liebreich and Sarah Cruz of Abundance London, with Transport for London, and includes the Legible London map. See details at www.chiswicktimeline.org.
Each September, the Chiswick Book Festival brings together top authors and their readers for a week of talks on a range of fiction, non-fiction and children’s books. It is a non-profit-making community event, raising money for three reading charities and St Michael & All Angels Church, which organises the festival withsupport from local businesses, media and many volunteers. Sign up for news updates: www.chiswickbookfestival.net/join-our-mailing-list.
Festival venues include St Michael & All Angels Church & Parish Hall, Chiswick House & Gardens, ArtsEd, Chiswick Library, the Theatre at the Tabard, George IV, Orchard House School, Hogarth’s House and The Chiswick Cinema, the sponsor of this Writers Trail map. See its latest programme and membership details at www.chiswickcinema.co.uk. 94-96 Chiswick High Road, W4 1SH
The Chiswick Cinema also runs the Chiswick In Film Festival with The Chiswick Calendar, including several names on this Writers Trail. See: www.chiswickcalendar.co.uk/chiswick-in-film-festival-2022
Enlarge this map/trail on your mobile device.
Discover more of Chiswick’s Arts and Heritage trails at ‘Exploring Chiswick’: www.chiswickbookfestival.net/exploring-chiswick-2022.