The History Behind Your Front Door
An extra Chiswick Book Festival event with Melanie Backe-Hansen
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The Chiswick Book Festival is inviting local residents to discover the history behind their front doors, with Melanie Backe-Hansen, research consultant for the popular BBC television programme, A House Through Time.
The ‘Festival Extra’ event will be held at 8pm on Thursday 21 November in St Michael & All Angels Parish Hall.
Tickets cost £10 and refreshments will be available from 7.30pm
As a new edition of her book House Histories is published, Britain’s leading house historian, Melanie BackeHansen, uncovers the hidden stories and secrets of ordinary and extraordinary houses across the country.
She will reveal fascinating stories of people and events she has uncovered in her work researching the history of houses, with particular examples of houses from Chiswick and west London.
Torin Douglas, the director of the Chiswick Book Festival, said “It’s several years since we last held a ‘Festival Extra’ event outside the main Festival, and we are delighted that Melanie Backe-Hansen will be launching the new edition of her book here. Among her wide researches, she has studied houses in Bedford Park, the first garden suburb, so this will be of particular interest to local residents.”
The event is supported by Chimni, a local company which is developing a ‘digital toolkit’ for home owners, to give them online access to their home information and history.
Now in its eleventh year, the Festival is a non-profit-making community event, raising money for St Michael & All Angels Church, which hosts the event, and three other charities: InterAct Stroke Support, which employs actors to read to stroke patients at Charing Cross Hospital; Doorstep Library, which brings the magic of books into children’s homes in deprived parts of west London; and a new charity this year – The Felix Project, which distributes food to charities and schools that would otherwise go to waste.
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October 21, 2019
