Chiswick School of Art The
arts and crafts architect
Maurice Bingham Adams designed the Chiswick School of Art as part of the
Bedford Park Garden Suburb's community focus on the site on Bath Road in 1881. The school was depicted by
Thomas Erat Harrison in an 1882 book
Bedford Park, celebrating the then-fashionable garden suburb. The Chiswick School of Art building was destroyed by a
V-1 flying bomb in 1944. File:Chiswick School of Art, Bath Road, 1881.jpg|Design for Chiswick School of Art by
Maurice Bingham Adams, 1881 File:School of Art, Stores and Tabard Inn by Thomas Erat Harrison 1882.jpg|
School of Art, Stores and Tabard Inn by
Thomas Erat Harrison, 1882
Cone-Ripman School ArtsEd was founded in 1939. It was formed as a result of a merger between the
Cone School of Dancing founded in 1919 by Grace Cone, and the
Ripman School founded in 1922 by Olive Ripman. Both Cone and Ripman offered curricula combining a general academic education with training in the arts, in preparation for professional careers connected with the theatre. The two schools were amalgamated in 1939 to form the
Cone-Ripman School, the predecessor of today's ArtsEd. The school was first based at
Stratford Place, off
Oxford Street in London. Teaching was disrupted by the outbreak of the
Second World War, but in 1941, the school reopened at Stratford Place, while a second school operated at
Tring Park.
Two Arts Educational Schools In 1947, both schools were renamed the Arts Educational Schools. The school then moved repeatedly to other buildings in Kensington. In 1986 the school purchased the former buildings of Chiswick Polytechnic. For many years, the president of the school was
prima ballerina assoluta Dame Alicia Markova;
Dame Beryl Grey became Director in the 1960s. Dame Alicia was succeeded in 2007 by
Andrew Lloyd Webber. In 2013, ArtsEd was awarded a grant by the
Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation to fund a refurbishment project. The money was spent on the main theatre, costume storage, the School of Film and Television and the school's access facilities. == Academics ==