People who have lived in Chiswick include the poets Alexander Pope and W. B. Yeats, the Italian poet and revolutionary Ugo Foscolo, the painters Vincent van Gogh and Camille Pissarro, the novelist E. M. Forster, the rock musicians Pete Townshend, John Entwistle, and Phil Collins, the stage director Peter Brook, and the actress Imogen Poots.

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.

[7] The area included three other small settlements, the fishing village of Strand-on-the-Green, the hamlet of Little Sutton in the centre, and Turnham Green on the west road out of London.

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.

[31] With these changes, Chiswick Town Hall is no longer the local government centre but remains an approved venue for marriage and civil partnership ceremonies.

The river forms the southern boundary with Kew, including North Sheen, Mortlake and Barnes in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames.

[27] Chiswick High Road contains a mix of retail shops, restaurants, food outlets and office and hotel space.

[45] Chiswick is home to the Griffin Brewery, where Fuller, Smith & Turner and its predecessor companies brewed their prize-winning ales on the same site for over 350 years.

[54] Enduring legend has it that the body of Oliver Cromwell was also interred with her, though as the Fauconbergs did not move to Sutton Court until 15 years after his disinterment, it is more likely he was reburied at their home at Newburgh Priory.

It is an Anglo-Catholic church, and was attacked on the day it was consecrated for "Popish and Pagan mummeries" by the brewer Henry Smith, churchwarden of St Nicholas, Chiswick.

[56] Chiswick's principal Roman Catholic church, Our Lady of Grace and St Edward (the Confessor) in the Diocese of Westminster, lies on the corner of Duke's Avenue and the High Road.

It is a red brick building; the parish was founded in 1848, a school began c. 1855, and a church was opened by Cardinal Wiseman on the present site in 1864.

[63] The Bedford Park neighbourhood was described by Nikolaus Pevsner as the first place "where the relaxed, informal mood of a market town or village was adopted for a complete speculatively built suburb".

He also designed the focal buildings of the garden suburb, including the church of St Michael and All Angels and the Tabard Inn opposite it.

In recent years a local conservation charity, the Dukes Meadows Trust, has undertaken extensive restoration work, which saw a long-term project of a children's water play area opened in August 2006.

[68] The Gunnersbury Triangle local nature reserve, opposite Chiswick Park Underground station, is managed by London Wildlife Trust.

The reserve runs a varied programme of activities including wildlife walks, fungus forays, open days and talks.

[69][70][71] There are several historic public houses in Chiswick, some of them listed buildings, including the Mawson Arms,[72] the George and Devonshire,[73] the Old Packhorse[74] and The Tabard in Bath Road near Turnham Green station.

[81] In 1971, Erin Pizzey established the world's first domestic violence refuge at 2 Belmont Terrace, naming her organisation "Chiswick Women's Aid".

The local council attempted to evict Pizzey's residents, but were unsuccessful and she soon established more such premises elsewhere, inspiring the creation of refuges worldwide.

[84] The house used for filming the comedy show Taskmaster, a former groundskeeper's cottage, is just off Great Chertsey Road, near Chiswick Bridge.

[94] On Chiswick Common is the Rocks Lane Multi Sports Centre, where there are tennis, five-a-side football and netball courts available to hire to the public.

[113] In the 19th century, the Italian writer, revolutionary and poet Ugo Foscolo died in exile at Turnham Green in 1827,[114] and was buried at St Nicholas Churchyard, Chiswick, where his monument incorrectly states he was 50, not 49.

In 1871 his remains were taken to Italy and given a national hero's burial in Santa Croce, Florence alongside Michelangelo and Galileo, while his monument in Chiswick was lavishly refurbished.

[131] Notable people born before the Second World War include the cricketers Patsy Hendren (1899–1962)[132] and Jack Robertson (1917–1996),[133] the novelist Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) who lived on Eastbourne Road,[134] the theatre and film director Peter Brook (1925–2022),[135][136] the Winchester College headmaster John Leonard Thorn (1925–2023),[137] the zoologist and broadcaster Aubrey Manning (1930–2018),[138] and marine geologist Frederick Vine (1939– ).

[143] Those born in Chiswick during the post-war period include the rock musician Dave Cousins,[144] the cricketer Mike Selvey (1948– ),[145] the musician Phil Collins (1951– ),[146] the singer Kim Wilde (1960– ),[147] illustrator Clifford Harper (1949– ), the photographer Derek Ridgers (1952– ),[148] the actress Kate Beckinsale (1973– ),[149] the comedian Mel Smith (1952–2013),[150] and the cricketer Dimitri Mascarenhas (1977– ).

[151] Among those who have lived in Chiswick are the novelist Anthony Burgess (1917–1993), at 24 Glebe Street in the mid-1960s;[152] the playwright Harold Pinter (1930–2008) who lived at 373 Chiswick High Road;[134] the pianist and broadcaster Sidney Harrison (1903–1986) who in the 1960s lived at 57 Hartington Road[153] and later at 37 The Avenue;[154] the musical double act Bob and Alf Pearson, Bob (1907–1985) on Netheravon Road in the 1940s,[155] and Alf (1910–2012) on Linden Gardens in the 1950s;[156] the pop artist Peter Blake (1932–), in Chiswick since 1967,[157] with a "vast" studio in a former ironmonger's warehouse;[158] the actor Hugh Grant (1960– ), who grew up in Chiswick, living next to Arlington Park Mansions on Sutton Lane; the singer Bruce Dickinson (1958– ) of the band Iron Maiden;[159] the TV presenter Kate Humble (1968– );[160] the actress Elizabeth McGovern (1961– ) and her husband, film director Simon Curtis (1960– );[161] the American lawyer John Lowenthal (1925–2003),[162][163] the singer Lonnie Donegan,[144] the musician and songwriter Noel Gallagher (1967–),[164] and the model Cara Delevingne (1992– ).

[166] Chiswick residents have included the singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor,[167] the TV journalists Jeremy Vine,[167] Rageh Omaar[167] and Fergal Keane,[167] the actors Phyllis Logan,[167] Colin Firth,[167] David Tennant, Georgia Tennant,[168] and Vanessa Redgrave,[169] the TV presenters Clare Balding,[165] Sarah Greene,[167] Gavin Campbell,[167] and Mary Nightingale,[167] the journalist Alice Arnold,[167] and the celebrity duo Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly.

[170] The novel Vanity Fair (1847/8) by William Makepeace Thackeray opens at Miss Pinkerton's Academy for Young Ladies in Chiswick Mall.

Louis N. Parker's play Pomander Walk (1910) has the imagined setting of "a retired crescent of five very small, old-fashioned houses near Chiswick, on the river-bank.