Chard Estate Agents - Chiswick area guide

Local know-how

If you are looking for a property to rent in Chiswick, Chard lettings has the experience and local know how to help you.

For more information on renting in Chiswick or to arrange an appointment to view our current selection of flats and houses to let in Chiswick, please contact us at the office above.

Chiswick, W4

This highly desirable residential area with its wide streets, and gracious although not over-grand houses is now being excitedly discovered by renters for its relaxed pace of living, easy access to both Central London and Heathrow Airport, and the fabulous shopping, restaurants, pubs and clubs in and around the wide High Road.

Chiswick is an ideal compromise between Central London and the outer suburbs, near to Richmond and Kew Gardens but also next to Ravenscourt Park and Hammersmith. It is very much an area for professional middle-class families, and is staid rather than swinging, but we understand that Chiswick is working hard to update its rather stuffy, old-fashioned image.

There are some excellent state and private schools in the area, and Chiswick is known as an area of educational excellence.  

It grew up as a fishing village but Chiswick (pronounced Chizzick) now consists of four former villages: Chiswick itself, Strand on the Green, Little Sutton, Turnham Green and Bedford Park. The area is also the home to the famous brewery Fuller, Smith and Turner.

Most properties are Victorian or Edwardian and range from small workers’ cottages to large architect-designed houses in Bedford Park. Flats and apartments are mainly conversions although there are a few newer developments such as the Old Fire Station on Chiswick High Road. There are some imposing mansion blocks off the High Road and the most elegant houses are on the riverside on Chiswick Mall – the area made famous by Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. 

Chiswick Quay, built in the 1970s, is a development of 68 town houses surrounding a marina and every house overlooks either the marina or the river, but otherwise there is not very much new or contemporary housing available. 

In recent years Chiswick has become a highly popular interior and exterior location for films and TV dramas. The exterior of Chiswick House was used as the evil Marisa Coulter’s house in the 2007 Philip Pullman film, The Golden Compass. Exterior shots of Chiswick Town Hall have appeared in the Inspector Morse series; Bath Road has been used in the films Nuns on the Run and Love, Actually and a riverside sequence filmed at Strand on the Green was featured in the Beatles’ film Help.

Chiswick has always been favoured by celebrities and famous residents, past and present, include: Hugh Grant, Pete Townshend, Ant and Dec, Vanessa Redgrave, Eamonn Andrews, Kim Wilde, Phil Collins, Dennis Waterman, Toyah Willcox, Felicity Kendal, Sheila Hancock and Clare Balding. The area is studded with blue plaques. Its most famous resident ever is the artist William Hogarth.

Pubs: Many, many pubs, both traditional and more modern gastropubs. In fact, Chiswick is studded with pubs of all kinds, owing perhaps to the presence of a brewery in the area for the past 350 years.  The Tabard on Bath Road near Turnham Green Station is famous for its William Morris interior.
Chiswick also has many restaurants and coffee shops. The south Indian vegetarian restaurant on the High Road, Woodlands, is particularly recommended.  

Sport: Chiswick is home to seven rowing clubs and is a centre of rowing excellence, so if rowing is your sport, Chiswick is the location to head for.