Working together to make West Ealing a better place for residents, businesses and visitors.
Not these donkeys as they look happy on the beach! However, we have a friendly donkey coming to Dean Gardens to take children for a ride on Saturday for the SoundBite Festival. Actually, Dean Gardens used to be known as Jackass Common in the 1800s due to it being used for donkey races. No racing on Saturday but nice to be reuniting a donkey with Dean Gardens after more than 100 years.
More information on eveything at SoundBite here.
Bring the family to watch this special SoundBite event at The Apex site at 32-38 Uxbridge Road W5 (corner with Craven Road). The emergency services are opening up their crane driver rescue training event for the public to come and watch as the rescuers climb the tall cranes to lower the stricken crane drivers to safety many feet below. The event runs from 11.30am – 3.30pm and there will be a special secure viewing area set up by Galliard Homes.
More details about all the children’s activities, craft market, food stalls, cooking demos and live music on the SoundBite Facebook page.
It’s well worth your while taking a detour next time you’re near the Green Man Lane Estate. Look carefully at the hoardings surrounding part of the site and you’ll see a series of apples ‘hanging’ on the painted trees. Each one has a montage of fascinating photos of the estate and surrounding area over the past 100 years. Photos include the opening of the estate in the 1970s and the Autotype factory . Built in what at the time was descibed by Autotype as quite a rural area the factory was ‘neatly fenced along Brownlow Road and the boiler house became a local landmark’. The factory occupied what is now the western part of the Green Man Lane Estate (the old multi-storey car park and the land to its north). You can read more about the history of this area, known in Victorian times at Stevens Town, here.
There’s plenty of children’s entertainment at the SoundBite Festival on Saturday 21st September. Hugely popular at last year’s Family Day, Punch and Judy are back again for the SoundBite Festival. Catch them at 10.30am and midday at the farmers’ market in Leeland Road.
In the garden at St James Church (or inside if it’s wet) will be Relish Kids Cookery running cookery activities for primary school age children, alongside facepainting, table tennis and more. There’s also going to be a special community dance event for children to take part in. More news of that to follow.
To keep up to date with everything that will be happening at SoundBite on our Facebook page
More food news. This is a new event and it’s on Saturday 14th September at The Foresters ‘and is showcasing restaurants and specialist food sellers in and around Northfields and West Ealing
It will be in the garden at the Forester Pub in Northfields from 3.30-9.30pm. A variety of local restaurants and food specialists will be offering samples of their delicious food.
Taster Tokens will be available on the day for £5 for five tokens. We would love to see you there!’
I hope it goes well and anything that helps establish West Ealing and Northfields as good places to shop for food and eat can only help the local economy.
We’ve had a bumper crop of Marjorie Seedling plums this year. Other plum varieties seem to have suffered from last frosts but our tree is fairly well protected so must have avoided the late frosts which hit the blossom and stop any fruit developing. So, it’s been a busy weekend cutting up plums and making jam. The jam has an added ingredient to give it a little bit of a special taste -star anise. I’ve tried it and its delicious – a slightly sharp edge to the plums with a hint of aniseed.
It will be on sale at the SoundBite Festival on 21st September along with blackberry jam, elderflower cordial, lemon and elderflower marmalade and more.
For all the latest on SoundBite – stalls, bands, children’s entertainment, food follow the SoundBite Facebook page
This year we’ve managed to raise additional sponsorship to add Dean Gardens as a venue to our previous Famliy Day events. As a result, we’ve been able to expand the whole eent in to the West Ealing SoundBite Festival. The centrepiece will be a range of hot and cold food and community stalls and live music in Dean Gardens. There’s mush more to it than this but just as a taster two of the bans playing in Dean Gardens are the
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Follow SoundBite on its Facebook page to keep up to date with all the activities and events being planned for September 21st
This year the festival is in Blondin Park and has everything from live music and a dog show (maybe not at the same time) to a host of stalls, food and entertainment for all. It’s free to get in and should be a great day out. More details here.
Imagine an arts centre in a converted shop on a suburban London street. Then imagine an “erotic emporium” next door selling sex aids and lingerie. What would happen if a hole appeared in the dividing wall between the new premises? A new play about to be performed at OPEN Ealing examines just such a scenario… and as luck would have it, OPEN Ealing happens to currently occupy a converted shop right next door to the Cherry Pye erotic lingerie emporium.
Royal Wedding, a brand new play by Ealing-based writer Wally Sewell, imagines the chance encounter between the privately-educated artistic director of the centre and his brash, more worldly neighbour. Described as a light-hearted romp, the play sees sex shop owner Queen Bee step through the newly-created “entrance” to engage artist Tarquin Pritchard-Smith in a bout of combative wordplay, raising issues such as class, snobbery,and the place of the artist in wider society. It’s directed by Ealing-based Anthony Shrubsall and stars Francesca Wilde and Michael Murray.
OPEN Ealing is a local arts initiative originally set up in 2010. Performances of Royal Wedding will take place at OPENShop 13 Drayton Green Road, W13 0NG, at the following times:
Thursday 5, Friday 6 and Saturday 7 September 7.30 pm.
Matinee Saturday 7 September 3 pm.
Thursday 12, Friday 13 and Saturday 14 September 7.30 pm.
Matinee Saturday 14 September 3 pm.
Adm. £7
The performance will last one hour approx., and there will be an opportunity for discussion with the players, writer and directorafter each performance. The play is not suitable for children.
“The Green Man: West Ealing Past, Present & Future”
5th, 12th & 17th September. 7:30pm start – Just turn up!
Get a taster of what’s to come with this special preview of one of the play’s songs –
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKcS3i6AWEI
This is a play written by Murray Shelmerdine and sponsored by West Ealing Centre Neighbourhood Forum. It is about quality of life in West Ealing dating back to the first records of ‘modern’ human settlement here in the 13th Century. We hope the songs, facts and humour are to your liking and that you will come along and join in.
Its world premiere is on Thursday 5th September at St John’s Church in Mattock Lane at 7.30pm. Entry free.
It’s then on at The Drayton Court on Thursday 12th September and Tuesday 17th September at The Forester in Leighton Road. Both performances are at 7.30pm and entry is free.