1981

• Stables to be sold for office development but hostile public meeting, GPJC decides not to sell
• Friends set up, subscription £1
• Newsletter launched with ideas for the future of the Stables

1982

• Friends urge GPJC to devise plan for whole Park, generating income to support it
• Newsletter carries ideas from NE London Poly Architecture students
• First AGM in May
• Permission for small temporary riding scheme in Stables during summer
• Jumble sales and Friends’ first fete
• Friends purchase donations box for Museum

1983

• GPJC working party considers future use of Gunnersbury – full report includes idea of restaurant/hotel in Small Mansion but strongly rejected by councillors
• Architectural competition suggested, ideas sought for Orangery
• Friends become a charity (regd no 286310)
• Friends’ Kitchen restoration begins – work in progress shown at 4 open weekends
• 2nd AGM considers GPJC working party report in detail – felt it had wasted a year
• £450 from fete proceeds pays for 3 large notice-boards for the Park
• Friends seek specialist advice on feasibility of restaurant/hotel in Small Mansion to support restoration elsewhere
• More commercial riding school installed in Stables

1984

• Grant of £30,000 obtained towards work on Stables for museum use
• Vandalism in Park needs £13,000 extra but LB Ealing will not contribute
• More work on kitchens and Victorian “fridge” from another Rothschild house acquired – 2,800 visitors in summer
• Friends pay £400 to help turn board room into exhibition gallery for Museum
• Friends donate £300-worth of walkie-talkies donated to help Park staff combat vandalism
• 3rd fete, tours of nurseries organised
• £30,000 grant lost through GPJC bungling
• Friends seek ideas for empty Small Mansion
• Problems with night fishing in Potomac Lake
• GPJC appeals to GLC for funding and closes down riding school

1985

• Friends create new trading company and take over Park catering for 3 years
• Both cafés redecorated, function business begins in Temple, Small Mansion
• GPJC thinks horses on Park bridle path will scare visitors but agrees to advertise for new riding school operator
• Lease offered on Small Mansion ground floor – GPJC decides in secret on Art Centre, without public consultation
• Fete in very wet and windy weather
• First summer kids’ activities in Kitchens
• Friends’ subscription rises to £3
• Riding school tenancy fails so community riding school operates again

1986

• New tenants take over riding school
• Detailed cost (£471,400) of essential refurbish-ment work not funded by GPJC
• Victorian kitchens open in summer months, staffed by Friends
• Friends redecorate Temple interior, saving GPJC £1,000
• Fishing club takes over management of the Potomac Lake
• More walkie-talkies worth £950 donated for use of Park staff
• Ron Bartholomew proposal for rock concert in Park rejected

1987

• Ron Bartholomew proposes rock concert again, seeks 3 year monopoly, Friends oppose it, GPJC turns him down
• Successful Carter’s Steam Fair weekend in Park, alongside our fete
• GPJC agrees Stables should be craft centre
• Friends work with NACRO on Kitchens
• autumn hurricane causes loss of 50 trees

1988

• Friends raise £1,100 to sponsor new trees
• Crafts Centre proposal collapses
• Friends contract to run café ends but their excellent manager takes it over
• Friends donate £300 to support pooper-scooper dog bins scheme at Gunnersbury
• Orangery restoration by developer of Fiat site on Great West Road begins
• Carters Steam Fair returns again

1989

• GPJC considers new Stables proposals (auction rooms, restaurant and offices) each with space for museum carriages; favours offices because it brings most benefits with space for carriages, staff funding for museum, restoration of Japanese garden
• Developer botches Orangery restoration – has to replace windows
• Friends donate £900 from filming in the cafe for more notice-boards and signage
• Ealing and Hounslow councillors on GPJC split on office proposals – arbitrator appointed
• Serious dry rot – much of museum closed for major works
• Friends issue fund-raising postcard
• Christmas Cracker event held

1990

• Museum re-opens
• Stables dispute continues after elections – new councillors confused
• GPJC rejects proposal to make the Park a conservation area
• Cultural Co-operation’s Papua New Guinea music village in park a huge success
• Hounslow refuses to accept arbitration, Planning Brief for Stables drawn up, Hounslow behaves as if Ealing has nothing to do with Gunnersbury – will Ealing walk away?
• Friends fund museum postcards
• Museum obtains £20,000 grant to convert former board room into Costume Gallery
• Children die in Potomac, falling through ice
• Friends sponsor Small Mansion exhibition by Hounslow Borough College students

1991

• Friends run music in the Orangery
• Friends donate £400 from concert to bring Anne Frank exhibition to Gunnersbury

1992

• GPJC offers Gunnersbury to National Trust – which rejects it
• Survey shows £2.5m needs to be spent on the two Mansions
• Nursery to be let on commercial lease as no longer needed after competitive tendering of Parks service
• Both councils cut £31,000 from annual budget
• Friends employ fund-raising consultant
• Catering contractor leaving, says Hounslow bureaucracy a nightmare, risks his business
• Friends pay £252 for hand basin in ladies loo
• Poores of Acton fund work on Large Mansion conservatory
• Friends give £400 towards new Park guide
• More vandalism especially Bath-House, Potomac Tower
• Park worker backs vehicle into what remained of East Lodge
• North lodge becomes Rangers’ HQ
• Another Christmas Cracker

1993

• GPJC applies to Lands Tribunal to vary covenants to lease nursery to Greenscene
• Objections from local residents over-ruled
• Friends given £100 for conservatory, plus large plant pots and plants
• Monthly bric a brac sales raise funds
• Victorian Gala – run by museum, Friends support
• Friends help with specialist cleaning of stone stairs in Large Mansion
• Rothschilds at Gunnersbury published, funded by Friends and local history societies
• Volunteers caring for conservatory plants
• Jazz in the Park – we sponsor two shows
• Stables and Bath-house cocooned with scaffolding – English Heritage threaten formal repairs notice, will not provide any funds without coherent plan for whole park

1994

• Gunnersbury Gala – Friends sponsor jazz again
• Temple Trust set up, based in Temple, with small exhibitions
• Another Christmas Cracker held
• Working party planning future (reps from EH, LBH, LBE, Friends), commissions surveys and historical research – consultation at AGM

1995

• Working Party report, Gunnersbury Park in the 21st Century, completed
• Friends help run Gunnersbury Gala, VE Day theme
• Commemorative seats installed
• Friends volunteers help plant 10,000 daffodils/7,000 bluebells on Lionel Rd side
• Development Plan completed – HLF bid in preparation
• Capel Manor College opens branch at Gunnersbury
• Small Mansion Arts centre financial crisis, nearly closes

1996

• Friends run successful Fete
• Park Lottery bid submitted
• Events for 70th anniversary of Park opening
• Friends begin to fund a Capel Manor student prize

1997

• Capel Manor develops glasshouse training unit and floristry room
• Consultants advise on HLF museum bid
• Gunnersbury Gala & Friends Fete held
• Gunnersbury Park in the 1920s published
• New Potomac fishing lease – upgrading of banks, planting of waterlilies, reeds etc
• Museum HLF consultation reveals support for new local history gallery, transport gallery, opening more of servants’ wing
• Joint trip to Waddesdon & Tring with B&CLHS
• First phase of Park HLF funding granted

1998

• Friends donate £250 to buy replica foods to dress the Kitchens
• HLF work begins: playground replaced, lamp standards restored/replicas made, Bath-House archaeology, drive resurfaced
• 2 councillors resign from GPJC in protest at proposed charged-for kitchens attraction
• Friends give £470 for bench seats, etc, for school lunches in conservatory
• Friends give £75 for Kitchen clock and coals
• HLF advises Museum to produce smaller and less grandiose application
• More Friends bulb planting
• New park and golf course contracts agreed
• CIP takes on management of Park and Museum

1999

• Friends commission landscape architect to advise on a Gunnersbury arboretum
• Park information panels installed with Friends assistance on research and writing
• Award from Poetry Society for Poetry Board in Park
• Classical concerts

2000

• Friends support group planning Japanese Gardens restoration scheme
• First classical concerts
• Italian Garden restoration (HLF) begins
• Museum exhibition tours and Roman handling session for Friends

2001

• Special briefing for GPJC and CIP trustees, lunch from Friends
• Friends give £360 to help purchase of Dennis Morris photos of Southall
• Celebration of completed HLF-funded work
• Fund-raising concert for Japanese Gardens
• Japan Day or Matsuri, major international event, Buddhist ground-breaking ceremony for restoration of Japanese Gardens
• Open House, Large Mansion tours Friends staff Bath-House

2002

• New Friends’ events programme of talks
• Museum takes over vacant flats in Large Mansion for storage and work space
• Park listed Grade 2*
• First part of CIP feasibility study on Japanese Gardens completed, Japanese garden designer visits and advises
• Queen visits Gunnersbury for Jubilee party
• Gifts to Friends: £300 in memory of Vince Culling, cyclist, £150 from Brentham Society and £1,500 when Southfield Community Association wound up
• Playstation event proposed, GPJC rejects it for both 2002 and 2003
• Serious proposals sought for Stables – again
• New staff structure, Curator to run Park as well
• Open House Day – Friends staff Bath-House and Temple
• Impact of cabinet government in two boroughs – GPJC now has no power

2003

• Golf course hut and farm changing rooms severely damaged by fire
• Secrecy over Stables proposals until October – Royal College of Art was preferred bidder but withdraws
• New Capel Manor Rothschild Centre opened
• Classical concert and first London Mela – great successes
• London Open House – Friends staff Bath-House again
• Museum/Park Manager refuses to submit Japanese Garden HLF bid – Friends return all the donations
• Friends talks programme continues, and Christ-mas fund-raiser in Bath-House
• North Lodge closed

2004

• Proposal for Butterfly House to come to Gunnersbury approved
• Bulb planting again
• Both councils cut contribution to budget – £155,000 less
• Friends obtain grant of £16,000 to install public toilets in the museum
• Friends fund purchase of 1914 Brentford FC souvenir for collection
• Classical Concert and second Mela successful
• Common Ground Anglo-Sikh festival in park to launch new heritage trail
• Open House – we staff Bath-House again
• Inappropriate steps installed to Bath house
• Boating comes to an end – no operator found
• 9 of 21 buildings at risk on EH list in LB Hounslow are at Gunnersbury
• Preparing conservation plan will cost £70k
• Slow progress on farm dressing rooms – 2 years after fire nothing done

2005

• Museum opening hours simplified
• Dance music festival proposal rejected
• Third Mela successful
• Arts Centre bid for more space rejected and served notice to quit by March 2006
• CIP Review suggests strengthening LB Hounslow monitoring
• EH/HLF Mansions in Parks report considers 10 London parks – G Park has 2 of the problem mansions
• Planning permission for Butterfly House agreed then called in – project fails
• Bath House vandalised twice
• Consultants reports advise creation of new body to take over Gunnersbury Estate
• Friends donate £320 to buy beam alarm system to protect carriages
• Work experience gardening project for autistic students, Friends fund plants etc

2006

• Museum/Park manager leaves, post not filled
• Another staff restructuring planned by new Head of Culture and Heritage
• Small Mansion Arts Centre lease ends but proposed short-term scheme with TVU fails
• Special discussion day for GPJC to consider future – agrees new organisation essential but then GPJC decides not to wind itself up
• Both boroughs go Conservative at election
• CIP licensing application a shambles, causes opposition
• Fourth Mela successful
• Friends AGM marks 25 years with special cake
• Mrs Meyers donates £135 for new plants
• Head of Culture and Heritage leaves, post cut
• CIP begins bidding for renewal of contract

2007

• Preparation of Conservation Management Plan begins, Friends’ Chairman on steering group
• Old fruit trees lost in storm
• Donations of over £100 made in memory of Friend Mrs Olga Hodson
• Friends volunteers paint children’s play equip-ment near cafe
• Lead stolen from Large Mansion and bath-house roofs
• GPJC wound up, new Regeneration Board of 6 councillors instead but meetings/minutes no longer public, no Friends’ observers
• Director of Development post advertised – will manage long-term planning and fund-raising for Gunnersbury with Regeneration Board

2008

• Richard Gill takes up post of Director of Development in late February
• Consultation on Conservation Management Plan completed, Plan adopted
• John Laing and Fusion take on new Leisure contract in place of CIP
• Jura Consultants preparing Options Appraisal

2009

• Friends launch website with news updates and an archive of Newsletters back to 1981