Design Exhibition to Be Held at Voysey House
Zoffany scholars' work to be displayed in Second Life Exhibition
Fabric taken from the Zoffany x Benedict Foley Entrance Hall is being repurposed
Design Exhibition to Be Held at Voysey House
Zoffany scholars' work to be displayed in Second Life Exhibition
An iconic Chiswick brand is about to return home after an absence of nearly a hundred years.
Arthur Sanderson established a wallpaper factory at a former barracks in what is now Barley Mow Passage in 1879 and it became one of Chiswick’s largest companies reaching a peak of over 1,000 employees.
What was Arthur Sanderson and Sons is now the Sanderson Design Group PLC , a luxury interior design and furnishings group listing on AIM. It has informed the exchange that it will be moving its head office back to Voysey House later this year. Around 80 staff employed in design sales, marketing, finance and administrative functions along with the Sanderson and Morris & Co. archives, will be relocating. The fit-out of the building to the company’s specification is currently underway and it is envisaged that it will include showroom space, a design hub and events location.
Manufacturing will not take place in Chiswick but when production was based here, many of the papers were printed by hand with wooden blocks but roller machine production also was utilised with eight of these machines operating by the end of the nineteenth century.
63 employees of Sanderson, including Herbert the son of Arthur Sanderson, signed up to fight in the First World War and in 1924 Sanderson received a Royal Warrant as a wallpaper supplier to King George V.
There was a lively social life around the factory and Sanderson employees took part in an extensive programme of activities outside working hours. The company’s social club was called ‘Bleak House’ and its premises were close by on Chiswick High Road, 100 yards from the factory. Bleak House Lane still links Chiswick High Road with Barley Mow Passage. The club was equipped with a bowling green, billiard rooms, reading rooms and a dining room where meals were provided to staff at cost price. The club organised social events such as swimming galas and flower shows and one of these fetes is believed to be the inspiration for a scene in The Grand Meaulnes, a novel by French author Alain-Fournier who had worked at the factory as a translator in 1905.
In 1928 a fire gutted the premises, in what has been described as the largest ever fire in Chiswick, and it continued to smoulder for over a week. The company relocated to Perivale, but it retained a connection with the area with its Chiswick Grove range.
Voysey House was built as an extension to the factory in 1902 with a footbridge linking the two buildings across Barley Mow Passage and was recently sympathetically restored to its original state.
Voysey House with the Lamb pub in the foreground
Like Reading Articles Like This? Help Us Produce More This site remains committed to providing local community news and public interest journalism. Articles such as the one above are integral to what we do. We aim to feature as much as possible on local societies, charities based in the area, fundraising efforts by residents, community-based initiatives and even helping people find missing pets. We’ve always done that and won’t be changing, in fact we’d like to do more. However, the readership that these stories generates is often below that needed to cover the cost of producing them. Our financial resources are limited and the local media environment is intensely competitive so there is a constraint on what we can do. We are therefore asking our readers to consider offering financial support to these efforts. Any money given will help support community and public interest news and the expansion of our coverage in this area. A suggested monthly payment is £8 but we would be grateful for any amount for instance if you think this site offers the equivalent value of a subscription to a daily printed newspaper you may wish to consider £20 per month. If neither of these amounts is suitable for you then contact info@neighbournet.com and we can set up an alternative. All payments are made through a secure web site. One-off donations are also appreciated. Choose The Amount You Wish To Contribute. If you do support us in this way we’d be interested to hear what kind of articles you would like to see more of on the site – send your suggestions to the editor. For businesses we offer the chance to be a corporate sponsor of community content on the site. For £30 plus VAT per month you will be the designated sponsor of at least one article a month with your logo appearing if supplied. If there is a specific community group or initiative you’d like to support we can make sure your sponsorship is featured on related content for a one off payment of £50 plus VAT. All payments are made through a secure web site. |
August 17, 2024