Acton Green, London

File:Acton Green OS map 1894.png map of 1894]]

The public parkland of Acton Green common adjoins Chiswick Back Common; before they were divided by the railway embankment for the District and Piccadilly lines, both were part of the English Civil War battlefield of the Battle of Turnham Green.{{cite web |title=The Battle of Turnham Green |url=http://www.chiswickw4.com/default.asp?section=info&page=conhistory07.htm |website=Chiswick W4 |access-date=13 November 2015 |date=19 November 2004}}

South Acton, especially the Acton Green district, was once famous for its laundries, and was known as "Soapsuds island".{{cite web |title=Acton's Industry: South Acton - Soapsud Island |url=http://www.actonhistory.co.uk/acton/page10.html |website=Acton History |access-date=23 July 2021}} There were some 60 laundries in 1873, rising to over 170 in 1890, most of the washing being done by hand. The 1901 census recorded as laundry workers 568 men and 2,448 women. The number of laundries fell to 50 in 1956, by then all automated: still the largest concentration of such businesses in Britain at that time.{{cite book |title=A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 7, Acton, Chiswick, Ealing and Brentford, West Twyford, Willesden |date=1982 |publisher=Victoria County History |volume=7 |pages=23–30 |url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol7/pp23-30}} The business supported light industries that produced laundry requisites, including baskets, laundry hampers, mangles, washing machines, tubs, and wringers.

Facing the east of the common is St Michael and All Angels, Bedford Park; it and The Tabard Inn facing it across Bath Road, were built in 1880.{{cite book |last1=Cherry |first1=Bridget |author1-link=Bridget Cherry |last2=Pevsner |first2=Nikolaus |author2-link=Nikolaus Pevsner |title=The Buildings of England. London 3: North West |publisher=Penguin Books |publication-place=London |year=1991 |isbn=978-0-14-071048-9 |oclc=24722942 |page=409}}{{cite web |url=http://www.smaaa.org.uk/church/history.html |title=A brief history of the Church | publisher=St Michael & All Angels |accessdate=19 November 2015}} This is based on {{cite book |last=Broom |first=Michael |title=The Birth of A Parish – The Creation of St Michael & All Angels, Bedford Park |publisher=St Michael & All Angels}} The 1894 Ordnance Survey map shows Acton Green bounded to the west by railway lines, and to the east by the boundary of Bedford Park; at that time, both the west of Bedford Park and the east of Acton Green consisted of orchards.{{cite web |title=Map of Chiswick, 1893 - 1894 |url=https://www.francisfrith.com/acton-green,hounslow/chiswick-1893-1894_hosm65635 |publisher=Ordnance Survey |access-date=13 August 2021 |date=1894 |quote=Scale 1:10,560 Ordnance Survey County Edition Series}}

File:Acton Green to St Michael's by Frederick Hamilton Jackson.jpg|Painting, looking east, of Acton Green common to St Michael's and All Angels and The Tabard Inn by Frederick Hamilton Jackson, 1882. The Victorian era Bedford Park development is on the left, the London Underground railway embankment on the right.

Most of the housing of Acton Green is to the northwest of the common; to its east is the Bedford Park area, developed speculatively as a place for artists at the same time as St Michael's and The Tabard.{{cite book |last=Rowley |first=Trevor |title=The English landscape in the twentieth century |date=2006 |publisher=Hambledon Continuum |location=London |pages=[https://archive.org/details/englishlandscape0000rowl/page/84 84] |url=https://archive.org/details/englishlandscape0000rowl/page/84 |isbn=1-852853883 |oclc=61702983}} There were formerly numerous small shops in the centre of Acton Green on Cunnington Street and Kingswood Road. These included confectioners, fish and chip shops, grocers, and off-licences. The area also held a variety of schools, now all closed.{{cite web |title=History |url=https://www.actongreen.org.uk/history/ |publisher=Acton Green Residents' Association |access-date=13 August 2021 |date=2021}}

File:Corner house on Church Path, Acton Green.jpg|A corner house with end pediment and swag,
Church Path

File:Providence Villa, Cunnington Street, Acton Green.jpg|Providence Villa,
Cunnington Street

File:A former corner shop, Antrobus Road - Cunnington Street, Acton Green.jpg|A former corner shop,
Antrobus Road

File:The Gothic House, Rothschild Road, Acton Green.jpg|The Gothic House,
Rothschild Road

File:The Mosaic House, Fairlawn Grove, Acton Green.jpg|The Mosaic House,
Fairlawn Grove

File:Red brick terraced houses, South Parade, Acton Green.jpg|Red brick terraced houses,
South Parade

File:Decorative Swag, South Parade, Acton Green.jpg|Decorative swag,
South Parade

{{main|St Alban's Church, Acton Green}}

On the north side of the common, facing South Parade, is the red-brick with stone facings neo-Gothic Victorian era St Alban's Church, Acton Green by Edward Monson Jr; it was opened in 1888. It is described as the focus of the Acton Green Conservation area; the church building is Grade II listed. The nearby vicarage uses the same red brick and stone window surrounds and mullions.{{cite book |last=Pevsner |first=Nikolaus |authorlink=Nikolaus Pevsner |title=The Buildings of England: Middlesex |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w_5NAAAAMAAJ |year=1951 |publisher=Penguin Books}}{{cite web |title=Acton Green Conservation Area Character Appraisal |publisher=Ealing Borough Council |url=https://www.ealing.gov.uk/download/downloads/id/2084/acton_green_conservation_area_appraisal.pdf |pages=5, 7, 15–16 |date=March 2008}}{{cite web |title=St Alban's on South Parade, Acton Green, London W4 |url=http://www.victorianweb.org/art/architecture/monson/3.html |website=The Victorian Web |accessdate=2 November 2018 |date=7 July 2017}}{{cite book |title=A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 7, Acton, Chiswick, Ealing and Brentford, West Twyford, Willesden |date=1982 |publisher=Victoria County History |volume=7 |pages=35–39 |url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol7/pp35-39}}

File:St Alban's, Acton Green from the East.jpg|St Alban's Church, opened 1888

File:Old Vicarage, South Parade, Acton Green.jpg|Old Vicarage, South Parade, sharing architectural idioms with its church

{{anchor|Evershed & Vignoles|Fairlawn Court}}

Facing the west of the common are the mansion flats of the locally listed four-storey red brick Fairlawn Court, built around 1900. Just to its north are the loft apartments of Chiswick Green Studios, a "modish conversion" of a group of industrial buildings. The buildings from 1930 and 1950 had been the military electronics components factory of Evershed & Vignoles. They were converted to form apartments, including new penthouses through the addition of a curved roof; a third building retained only the original frame and was made into cheaper "loft style" apartments.{{cite web |title=Chiswick Green Studios |url=http://architecturearc.com/chiswick-green-studios |website=Architecture Arc |access-date=22 July 2021}}

File:Fairlawn Court, Acton Lane, Acton Green.jpg|Detail of Fairlawn Court, Acton Lane

File:Chiswick Green Studios, Acton Green.jpg|Chiswick Green Studios, formerly an Evershed & Vignoles factory

{{main|Duke of Sussex, Acton Green}}

Nearby, facing the north of the common is the 1898 Duke of Sussex public house; it replaced an earlier beerhouse founded by 1842. The current "elaborately decorated" building was designed by the pub architects Shoebridge & Rising, and is Grade II listed. It has two storeys, with dormer windows for the attic and cellars below. The main front faces east on to Beaconsfield Road, with three bays, two of them with dormers, separated by a small half-round Diocletian window, and the third an extension to house the kitchens and staircase. The walls are covered in white stucco, with the first storey hung with flat red tiles.{{cite book |last1=Cherry |first1=Bridget |author1-link=Bridget Cherry |last2=Pevsner |first2=Nikolaus |author2-link=Nikolaus Pevsner |title=The Buildings of England. London 3: North West |publisher=Penguin Books |publication-place=London |year=1991 |isbn=978-0-14-071048-9 |oclc=24722942 |page=162}} The first storey and attic windows below the dormers are "Ipswich oriels" under ornamental cornices. The ground floor bar area has big arched windows, and an elaborate corner doorway; the doorway to the north is adorned with ornamental ironwork. Parts of the original interior partitioning survive, providing "an unusually rich, turn-of-the-century pub interior".

File:Duke of Sussex Corner View.jpg|Exterior

File:Duke of Sussex ornamental ironwork.jpg|Ornamental ironwork

{{anchor|The Bollo}}

On the corner of Bollo Lane, which marks the western edge of the area, and Montgomery Road is the Bollo, a gastropub. It opened soon after 1900 as 'The Railway Hotel', complete with a painting of a railway locomotive on the outside wall. It then became in turn 'The Railway Tavern', 'The Orange Kipper' (1988), 'The Bollo House', and finally the Bollo.{{cite web |last1=Clegg |first1=Gillian |title=Pubs |url=https://brentfordandchiswicklhs.org.uk/search-discover/chiswick-history-homepage/pubs/ |publisher=Brentford and Chiswick Local History Society |access-date=23 July 2021}}

{{anchor|The Swan}}

On the corner of Evershed Walk and Acton Lane is The Swan, opened in 1871 by the Phoenix Brewery of Latimer Road in what had been a beerhouse owned by James Brown. Its exterior featured in a 1980s television situation comedy.{{cite web |title=Swan |url=https://www.london.camra.org.uk/viewnode.php?id=105284 |publisher=Campaign for Real Ale |access-date=23 July 2021}} It is described by Harden's guide as a "lovely panelled pub" with attractive garden, serving good food.{{cite web |title=The Swan |url=https://www.hardens.com/az/restaurants/london/w4/the-swan.htm |publisher=Harden's |access-date=23 July 2021}}

File:The Bollo pub, Bollo Lane.jpg|The Bollo, Bollo Lane

File:The Swan, Acton Lane, Chiswick.jpg|The Swan, Acton Lane

Chiswick Park tube station on the District line, opened in 1879 as 'Acton Green' station, and renamed in 1887, is at the Western end of Acton Green common.{{cite web |title=Chiswick Park |url=http://vipauk.org/transport/tube/district/cp.html |website=vipauk.org |access-date=2 November 2024}}

The London Buses route 94 to Piccadilly Circus terminates at the northwestern corner of Acton Green common.{{cite book |last=Blacker |first=Ken |title=Routemaster: 1970–2005 |edition=2nd |volume=2 |year=2007 |publisher=Capital Transport |location=Harrow Weald |isbn=978-1-85414-303-7 |pages=116, 167, 168}}

{{reflist|30em}}

{{Geographic Location |title = Adjoining districts|North = Acton |West = Gunnersbury|Centre = Acton Green |East = Bedford Park|South = Turnham Green}}

{{Chiswick}}

{{LB Ealing}}

{{London Districts}}

Category:Acton, London

Category:Areas of London

Category:Common land in London

Category:Districts of the London Borough of Ealing