Living in Bedford Park, with its church, parish hall, club, stores, pub and school of art, was the height of fashion in the 1880s. W. B. Yeats, the actor William Terriss, the actress Florence Farr, the playwright Arthur Wing Pinero and the painter Camille Pissarro lived here. Bedford Park is Saffron Park in G. K. Chesterton’s "The Man Who Was Thursday" and Biggleswick in John Buchan’s "Mr Standfast". So fashionable did it become that Bedford Park came in for some gentle ribbing in the "St James's Gazette" in the "Ballad of Bedford Park".