United Kingdom – Page 3

London, United Kingdom. 2019 XI

Continuing the Hammersmith walk.

(Remember – all photos will open in a separate window and all photos are geotagged)

Girls Entrance Gate, Old School Building, St Dunstan’s Road, Hammersmith

Boys Entrance Gate, Old School Building, St Dunstan’s Road, Hammersmith

Residential Block, Gliddon Road, Hammersmith

Beryl Road, Hammersmith

Residential, Margravine Gardens, Hammersmith

59 & 61 Margravine Gardens, Hammersmith

Barons Court Railway Station, Margravine Gardens, Hammersmith

St Paul’s Studios, Talgarth Road, Hammersmith

**Look inside one of the studios**

**Street View from Google**

Rik Mayall Memorial Bench, Hammersmith Bridge Road, Hammersmith

** News Article **

St Paul’s Hammersmith, Queen Caroline Street, Hammersmith

The original church dated to 1629 but in 1880 a decision was made to rebuild it to allow it to a growing congregation and update its appearance. A significant portion of its land and graveyard were reclaimed in 1957 to build Great West Road and the Hammersmith Flyover.

Old Drinking Fountain, Hammersmith Bridge Road, Hammersmith

Digby Mansions, Hammersmith Bridge Road, Hammersmith

Jetty, River Thames, Lower Mall, Hammersmith

Entrance, Kent House, 10 Lower Mall, Hammersmith

Built in 1762, was first known as the Mansion House and was the home of the Hammersmith Working Men’s Club for the next 150 years. It became a boys’ school in the early C19th because it was felt its airy spaciousness was well adapted for the accommodation of young gentlemen. The house was owned by the Hammersmith Club Society for many years, whose members enjoyed its elegant interior, including ballroom, theatre and snooker hall.

It is now the premises of the Hammersmith Club, with half of the building available as a private hire venue, and the rest available to the traditional members.

Furnivall Sculling Club, Lower Mall, Hammersmith

Furnivall Sculling Club was founded as Hammersmith Sculling Club in 1896 by Dr Frederick James Furnivall, and it was originally a club for women only. It opened its doors to men in 1901.

River Moorings, River Thames, Lower Mall, Hammersmith

Waterman’s Cottage, No. 20 Lower Mall, Hammersmith

Floating Debris, River Thames, Hammersmith, London, England UK

Westcott Lodge, Lower Mall, Hammersmith

A Georgian building c.1746 and originally built as Turret House in the late-C17th and was once the official vicarage for the incumbent of St Paul’s Church.

Furnival Gardens, Lower Mall, Hammersmith

Furnivall Gardens was created in 1936 after clearance of the old Hammersmith Creek and its cluster of industry and commerce.

Hammersmith Creek was a spur from the Stamford Brook and once linked the Thames to King Street. The only evidence of this once thriving waterway is an outlet in the river wall, towards the upstream end of Furnivall Gardens – named after Dr Frederick Furnivall who founded the sculling club for women on Lower Mall.

In about 1780, Joseph Cromwell founded the Hammersmith Brewery alongside The Creek near King Street. The western side became monopolised with malt houses, built to serve the brewery, and the area became increasingly populated. The Creek was a magnet for traders and watermen of all professions. The waterway, navigable by barge, was crossed by the High Bridge, rebuilt in the early C18th, and also known as Bishop’s Bridge. This feature is still marked by a raised hump in the gardens and a flowerbed.

The only other remaining connection with the Creek is the Friends’ Memorial Garden, on the site of an old Friends’ Meeting House. The Quaker movement had gained popularity in Hammersmith and established its Meeting House close to the Creek in the late C17th. Both the Meeting House and the Caretaker’s Cottage were late C18th. They were bombed during the last war and in 1955 were rebuilt on the north side of the Great West Road. The little garden surrounded by a low wall remains historically important to the movement and marks its old burial ground which, in line with Friends’ traditions, never featured memorial stones.

Entrance, Beach House, 7 Lower Mall, Hammersmith

An old property dating to 1734 was demolished to make way for this property in 1811. This property (No.7) and No. 6 were recorded in 1865 as beonging to Rev. Peter King-Salter.

Garden Gate, Lower Mall, Hammersmith

Statue, Lancelot Capability Brown, Thames Path, Hammersmith

Inscription:

The Hammersmith Society
Lancelot Capability Brown
1716-1783
Father of the English Landscape Garden
Lived by the river in Hammersmith 1751-1764
Sculptor: Laury Dizengremel

“Figurehead”, Thames Path, Hammersmith, London, England UK

Harrods Furniture Depository, Barnes

Built on the site of an old soap factory in 1894 to store items too large for their Knightsbridge store is now a residential estate consisting of 250 townhouses and penthouse suites known as “Harrods Village”.

Properties in the “Village” don’t come cheap with many in excess of £1 million. The pentouse sold for £6,500,000 in 2010.

Entrance, Brandenburgh House, 116 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith

Brandenburgh House was built in the Arts and Crafts style in 1905 by Henry Saxon Snell as a nurses’ home for Fulham Infirmary.

Road Name Sign, Manbre Road, Hammersmith

King George V Postbox, Margravine Road, Hammersmith

King George V – reigned 1910-1936

Entrance, 51 Winslow Road, Hammersmith

62 & 64 St Dunstan’s Road, Hammersmith

London, United Kingdom. 2019 X

After returning from Italy, I spent the last couple of days wandering about Hammersmith in London.

Entrance Gates & West Lodge, Margravine Cemetery, Margravine Road, Hammersmith, London, England UK

Opened in 1868 on a site previously occupied by market gardens and orchards, known as Fulham Fields. The first burial took place on 3 November 1869 and closed for new burials in 1951.

The cemetery grounds are also the location of a War Memorial.

Lyons and Company First World War Memorial, Margravine Cemetery, Margravine Road, Hammersmith

See the story of Lyons and Company

Memorial, George Thomas Brown & Amelia Brown, Margravine Cemetery

Memorial, John Francis Taylor Ware, “Little John” – Margravine Cemetery

Died 11 December 1904 – Aged 6.

Memorial, George Robert Broad & Caroline Broad, Margravine Cemetery

In Memory, Abraham George Smith, Margravine Cemetery

In Memory, James Frederick Fletcher, Margravine Cemetery

Memorial Wall, Margravine Cemetery

Inscribed: Those Honoured Here Dies in the Service of Their Country and Lie Buried Elsewhere in this Cemetery

A Child’s Grave, Margravine Cemetery

In Loving Memory of George J Dyett Jan 5, 1882 Aged 5 months also his Father William Dyett 7 Jan 1904

The Parker Family, Margravine Cemetery

Squirrels, Margravine Cemetery

Cemetery Grounds, Margravine Cemetery

Chapel, Margravine Cemetery

Hammersmith Bridge, River Thames, Hammersmith

This is the second Hammersmith Bridge, built on the pillars of the first which had opened in 1828.

At the turn of the 19th century Hammersmith was still a hamlet of Fulham. To cross the river you had to use the ferry service at either Chiswick Mall or at Ferry Lane in Barnes. A bridge to cross the river at Hammersmith had been mooted for many years and, once an approach road on the Surrey side had been established, the Hammersmith Bridge Company was formed and a brief for an iron bridge was drawn up.

The brief was fulfilled by William Tierney Clark in 1824 when he designed a “bridge of suspension with a view to the strictest economy”. Clark was a respected engineer, apprenticed at one time to Thomas Telford. He designed part of the West Middlesex Waterworks nearby, where he lived and worked as chief engineer.

He was appointed to work as consulting engineer on the bridge, and there is a fine memorial to him on the North Wall of St Paul’s Church, Hammersmith, depicting the original bridge. The foundation stone was laid on 7th May, 1825, by the Duke of Sussex (Not Harry!) and it was opened in October 1827 to a fanfare of fireworks and music. The Bridge was a wonder of its time, an impressive feat of engineering and described as ‘as handsome as it was useful’. It had two large York stone arches and graceful white chains and ironwork. At each end were a pair of toll houses, painted white and manned by liveried toll men managing the passage of people and livestock.

It was a huge success and justly received much admiration, but it was not terribly practical. The walkways ended at the arches so that pedestrians had to join the busy carriageway, and it was also rather narrow. The Toll was scrapped in 1880 and the huge increase in traffic put a strain on the already inadequate structure. It was decided to re-build the bridge rather than repair it and so the bridge was replaced.

Sir Joseph Bazalgette was Chief Engineer to the Metropolitan Board of Works from 1858-1889, during which time he designed new bridges at Hammersmith, Putney and Battersea, oversaw the construction of the Thames Embankment and built 83 miles of intercepting sewers throughout London. In 1877 he began to question the safety of the original Hammersmith Bridge and recommended that urgent repairs take place. After 1880, when the toll was scrapped and traffic increased, the repairs became even more urgent. In fact in November 1881, Police Constable Bullock was leaving the footway to pass through the tower arch on the Barnes side and he fell through a hole in the footway into the river!

After a full assessment it was decided to re-build the bridge and a design by Bazalgette was approved. Traffic was diverted onto a temporary wooden bridge in 1885 and works began. The new bridge was opened by Prince Albert Victor of Wales in June, 1887. However, it was built on the same piers as the previous bridge and is therefore of the same narrow dimensions and unsuitable for heavy loads. Inevitably, and again, this bridge too has proved insufficient to cope with modern traffic; a weight and width restriction has been imposed. Nevertheless, the bridge is an attractive feature in the river landscape, traditionally painted green and gold with colourful coats of arms.

There was an attempt to destroy it by the IRA in March 1939, mainly averted by the quick thinking of a pedestrian who threw the bomb, in a case, into the river where it exploded, damaging one of the pillars, and more recently in 2000. The bridge has had to be closed to traffic for structural repairs, which creates a backwater from what are generally very busy approach roads. It is currently closed to all traffic both motorised and pedestrian and it is expected to take another six years to effect repairs. (Announced Mar 2021)

The Blue Anchor, Lower Mall, Hammersmith

Originally titled the Blew Anchor, this is one of the area’s oldest pubs, licensed in 1722 but probably on the site for many years before. It was a popular watering hole of watermen.