London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham

Street histories in this section are largely taken from the Conservation Area guides of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. Some of this material is based on the research of Michael Dover and the Fulham & Hammersmith History Society.

ACFOLD ROAD

A builder, James Nichols, developed much of the area with elaborately decorated terraces.

He built the larger villas at the northern end of Wandsworth Bridge Road, which were completed in 1891. These were his most successful major development in the area, their quick sale encouraging him to turn more of the adjoining fields into houses. Development continued on both sides of Wandsworth Bridge Road, with Acfold Road and Cresford Road completed in 1890-91; Bovingdon Road in 1891-92; Stokenchurch Street in 1892-93, Perrymead Street in 1893-95; and Bowerdean Street in 1895-96.

ADDISON BRIDGE PLACE

Addison Bridge Place is a short cul-de-sac of buildings formerly known as Portland Place which originally faced Chelsea Creek, but now faces the West London Railway Line.

Street histories in this section are largely taken from the Conservation Area guides of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.

ALMA PLACE is tucked into the space between the lodge and gates of St Mary’s Cemetery to the south and the terrace fronting Harrow Road to the north.

ANGELSEA ARMS

The Angelsea Arms PH. on the corner of Wingate Road and Wellesley Avenue, was built about 1862 and is probably named after the first Marquise of Anglesey.

AVONMORE ROAD

Avonmore Road, Lisgar Terrace, Matheson Road, Stonor Road, Stanwick Road and Mornington Avenue are highly ornamented late Victorian residential terraces which have a certain cohesion in architectural style and were built as part of the Morning Park Estate by the West London builders Gibbs and Flew in the 1880s. The builders, who went bankrupt, sold the remaining land and Whiteley’s depository was built.

AYCLIFFE ROAD

Aycliffe Road dates from 1915. Before the roads was laid out, the area was made up of fields with no indication of any archaeological significance.

AURIOL ROAD

In 1882, the house called The Cedars was demolished and the developer/builders, Gibbs and Flew, commenced the building of Auriol Road, the first phase of what would become the Gunter Estate. By the late 1880s, the estate was nearly complete and North End House, and its grounds, were entirely surrounded by building.

BANSTEAD COURT

These are five modern, 4 storey blocks which are broadly semi-circular in plan. Southern facades are articulated with balconies. Northern facades with atria, form a glazed barrier to Westway. The former houses on the site were demolished in 1996 in connection with a road widening scheme which was later abandoned.

BARCLAY ROAD

The majority of the properties in Barclay Road are built in the Victorian Domestic style, dating from the 1860s.

The history of Barclay Road is inextricably linked with that of Fulham, and later Walham Green. Originally part of Fulham Fields, and from Norman times the Manor of Fulham. It remained sparsely populated and predominantly in agriculture. By 1706 this part of Fulham was being described as “a village in which lives a considerable number of people, mostly gardeners, whose kitchen greens, plants, herbs, roots and flowers dayly supply Westminster and Covent Gardens. Here are no houses of considerable note.” [John Bowack in The Antiquities of Middlesex Volume 2]

In 1813, the first general history of Fulham “An Historical and Topographical Account of Fulham including the Hamlet of Hammersmith” by Thomas Faulkner, was published. He describes Fulham, including the Walham Green area which would have included Barclay Road, as the great kitchen garden, north of the Thames for supplying London. There were orchards of apples, pears, cherries, plums and walnuts, with soft fruit such as raspberries and gooseberries grown in between the trees. However, with vegetable growing becoming more profitable, many orchards were replaced and land given over to vegetables. The market gardeners often cultivated a succession of crops throughout the year. Market gardeners, Faulkner tells us, were very prosperous.

Barclay Road, almost exactly, follows a long narrow field which ran north to south from Fulham Road. Both Rocque’s 1745 map of Middlesex, and Maclure’s map of 1853 show building plots or “tenements” along what is now Fulham Road. Behind the road are fields, market gardens and pasture. This pattern was still evident in the 1869-74 map, although the land that is to become Barclay Road is now shown as a large brickfield, confirming the gathering building boom which would see the buildings that now form the conservation area, completed.

BARONS COURT

The name of Barons Court is believed to have been devised by Sir William Palliser, who owned and developed the land, formerly part of a large agricultural holding. Use of the name to attract potential house buyers have been suggested by nearby Earl’s Court or possibly in allusion to the Court Baron held by the Lord of the Manor, the Bishop of London. The 1865 Ordnance Survey Plan shows that most of the Barons Court Conservation Area was in agricultural use, although the main arterial thoroughfares of North End Lane (upgraded and renamed Talgarth Road), North End Road and Old Greyhound Road (renamed Greyhound Road), existed at this time.

By the time of the publication of the 1894/5 Ordnance Survey PIan much of the residential road framework was in place with the majority of the residential development having already occurred.

Significant developments which had taken place since the earlier Survey are the construction of the overground District Railway and Barons Court and West Kensington Stations, and the laying out of Hammersmith Cemetery, then known as Margravine Cemetery

The 1916 Survey shows very little change to the road layout, although a second phase of residential development had taken place. For example, to the west  Margravine Gardens had been extended to give further residential development creating an enclosed residential street block.

Furthermore at this time, the remainder of the properties on Claxton Grove and Beaumont Crescent had been completed and the two mansion blocks on Palliser Road were built.

A number of significant developments subsequently took place within the area. In the 1920s & 30s the green space between Barton Road and Barons Court Road was replaced by residential accommodation including Barton Court. In the 1970s, the area between Barton Road and Comeragh Road fronting onto Palliser Road was developed for a residential women’s hostel called Ada Lewis House.

BARTON COURT

Barton Court, a seven storey apartment block, was built in the 1930s. It is an example of good ‘modern’ architecture, well designed on a difficult corner site at the apex between Barons Court Road and Barton Road. It is a conspicuous landmark in the sub-area. It is crescent shaped with plain, but well modulated, brown brick facades and the glazing to projecting bay windows wraps around structure-less corners.

In the 1920s & 30s the green space between Barton Road and Barons Court Road was replaced by residential accommodation, including Barton Court. In the 1970s the area between Barton Road and Comeragh Road, fronting onto Palliser Road, was developed for a residential women’s hostel (Ada Lewis House).

BEADON ROAD

In the 1880s Beadon Road had been constructed to ease traffic congestion.

BEAUFORT HOUSE

Beaufort House stood in extensive grounds that stretched from North End Road to Ongar Road. The freeholder was Colonel Robert Gunter and undoubtedly took its name because the Gunter’s held land in the area of ‘Beaufort House’, Chelsea.

Beaufort House, Narth End Road, had been used as a mental asylum since at least the 1740’s and in the 1850’s was run by Dr Charles Wing. Being Vacant at the time, the military connection is probably the reason why in 1859, on the establishment of the South Middlesex Rifle Volunteers, the property was taken on lease by their founder and Commandant, Viscount
Ranelagh, who had been born at Ranelagh House, Fulham. A surviving roll of the first volunteer members has a Captain Gunter listed who gave a donation towards their establishment.

The site of the house itself and the drill hall were built over with shops, either side of where Sedlescambe Road runs into North End Road. These were also designed by Walter Cave.

BEAUFORT HOUSE SCHOOL

Beaufort House School was built in 1904 on the edge of the Beaufort House Estate. Although designed and erected by the London County Council, it was built to serve the new ’Estate’, hence its name. A rear entrance to the school was incorporated into the middle of the north side of Sedlescombe Road. The school has been demolished as part of a recent planning approval for a housing scheme on the site.

BILLING ROAD (1846)

The Billings area is believed to have got its name from the creek known since 1437 as Billings Well Dyche, which formed the parish boundary. Between 1824 and August 1828 Lord Kensington’s Canal, which was a tidal navigation one hundred feet wide, was constructed from the present Olympia site to the Thames at Chelsea Creek, along the line of the ditch or stream then known as Counter’s Creek. The canal was not a financial success and appears to have suffered from engineering problems, as works of improvement carried out in 1839 were unsuccessful only a year later. It was sold to the West London Railway Company in 1846, which continued to run it on a more successful basis until it was partly filled in to enable the railway to extend across the Thames in 1860-62. By 1863 it had been filled in down as far as the King’s Road. The section from the King’s Road to the entrance to the Imperial Gas Works Dock remained open and tidal until the early 1980s when ownership changed to the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea and it was filled in, leaving only Chelsea Creek at its southern end open and tidal.

The adjoining development within the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea to the east was built in 1846 & 1847 as St. Mark’s Road, North Street and South Street on the north side of Bridge Street. However, by 1939 the street names had change to Billing Road, Billing Place, Billing Street, and Fulham Road respectively.

BISHOPS AVENUE

Bishops Avenue is a long tree lined cul-de sac running east/west, connecting Fulham Palace Road to Bishops Park. Bishops Avenue leads to the principal entrance to Fulham Palace.

BISHOPS MEADOW

In the 18th and 19th centuries Bishops Meadow with its chestnut and plane trees may have been a picturesque spot, but whatever beauty it once possessed had vanished a long time ago by 1900.

By 1900 the removal of some of the old bridges with their ponderous piers and their replacement by structures which less impeded the flow of water necessitated the raising of the bank and the felling of trees. For some years the site had lain in waste and had been converted into a dust shoot. The old ditch, which skirted the Bishops Walk, had been filled in and the land raised so as to bring the surface above the level of high tides.

In 1884 the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, as Lords of the Manor of Fulham, conveyed the freehold of the Bishops Meadow to the Fulham District Board of Works on the condition that the land should be laid out and maintained as a public recreation ground. In 1887 this land was conveyed to the Vestry of Fulham, and preliminary steps were undertaken towards the embanking and laying out of Bishops Meadow. In 1889 the Ecclesiastical Commissioners made thevestry an additional grant of the West Meadow, thus increasing the total area of the proposed recreation ground to approximately 12 acres.

BISHOPS PARK

Bishops Park was formerly opened by Sir John Hutton, Chairman of the London County Council, in 1893.

BLACK LION LANE

Black Lion Lane still contains many of the pmperties recorded on the 1853 Robert’s map and the 1871 Ordnance Survey map, and contains properties a large number of which are listed.

BLYTHE ROAD

The area remained undeveloped until the late 19th century. Before then there was the village of Hammersmith, the hamlets of Shepherds Bush and Brook Green, and a property named Shepherds Bush House and associated buildings along Brook Green Lane, just south of Shepherds Bush. Otherwise the land was totally rural, a landscape of open fields, pastures and market gardens.

Slater’s map of 1830 indicates relatively little development in the area. A small group of buildings known as the Poplars replaced Shepherds Bush House. Blythe Lane, formerly Blind Lane and now Blythe Road, wound its way south-eastwards through fields past the odd isolated building. The presence of flooded pits in the immediate area indicates brickfields, in association with the increasing amount of development being carried out to the south at that time.

Among local farm which were given over to brick fields was that of William Wells, at Brook Green. The Wells’ were a well-known Hammersmith family. William arrived in 1828 to assist his aunts run their farm and, market garden, and he is recorded as sitting on the jury of the manor court from 1843 to 1886, and was vicar’s churchwarden at St Paul’s church. There is only one record of hops having been grown here — by Stephen Randall in 1807 in the vicinity of Blythe Lane, with a hop garden called Laymore. Randall, who lived in Queen (Caroline) Street, was also a butcher and had a piggery and slaughterhouse nearby.

Blythe House, formerly the Post Office Savings Bank Headquarters, together with its porter’s lodge, lamp standards, boundary walls, gates & railings, is a Grade II listed building. It was designed by Sir Henry Tanner in 1899 to 1903, and contributes significantly to the character and townscape of the sub-area. An east wing was added in 1920. The building is now used by three national museums as a depository. Its imposing red brick and stone facade on Blythe Road, rich in architectural ornament and with a front elevation of symmetrical design, has forward projecting central and end bays supporting a clock tower and twin towers in Renaissance style.

BOWFELL ROAD (1911)

Built as part of the Crabtree Farm Estate in 1911 by the building company Allen & Norris.

BRIDGE ROAD

In the 1860s, a new direct route to the river crossing, called Bridge Road, was formed and Great Church Lane appeared leading east from the church across open fields to North End Road. The area was essentially still rural although a network of small residential roads was spreading out from the Broadway. This development was accelerated by the arrival of the
underground railway, the Metropolitan Line, in 1864, and the terminating no& of the Broadway and the District Line, in 1874, to the south.

BROOK GREEN

The hamlet of Brook Green was established by the 16th Century, originating as an outlying farm or grange to a manor, or as a small freehold estate. The area was originally marshland with a brook running through, and where an annual fair was held until 1823. The name is first mentioned in 1493 in association with a, probably man made, tributary of the Stamford Brook called Black Bull Ditch or Parr’s Ditch which flowed through the Green, issuing into the Thames south of Chancellor’s Wharf where it formed the boundary between Hammersmith and Fulham. The brook became polluted with waste from nearby brick fields, was eventually covered, and finally converted to a sewer in 1876.

From the 18th to the Mid 19th Century the area north and south of Brook Green was extensively used for market gardening. The land on the north side of Hammersmith Road, later occupied by Olympia, had previously been Lee and Kennedy’s nursery gardens, which had covered 18 acres of a former vineyard. In response to the fashionable demand for new and exotic plants the nursery introduced hundreds of plant varieties now regarded as common place, most notably the fuchsia from Chile, standard roses from France, pelargonium geraniums, buddleia globosa, the yellow azalea, and the blue alpine primrose.

Brook Green did not begin to be desirable for suburban expansion until the 1850s, the maps of the Early 19th Century clearly showing the rural nature of the area, with only the southern side of Brook Green being extensively developed. The largest proportion of properties in the conservation area were built during the Late 19th Century as a response to improved transport links in the area and to increased pressure for housing.

A Catholic presence was not re-established in the area until 1669, when Frances Bedingfield and a community of English nuns returned from exile in Munich to set up a convent at the Great House in Hammersmith on the site of what is now the Sacred Heart Convent and Girls’ School at the south west corner of the conservation area. The education of Catholic girls was intermittent on the site from this time until the present school was built in 1875 and established on a permanent basis under the Society of the Sacred Heart in 1893. A large influx of Irish immigrants to the east of the conservation area in the Mid 19th Century brought a new Catholic expansion. Eagle House, a large mansion on the south west side of the Green, was occupied by St. Vincent’s in 1859, and later became a girls’ orphanage. A boys’ orphanage, St. Joseph’s Home, was opened in Bute Gardens in the 1850’s, and another girls’ home was opened in 1892 on the site of Montague House. Just outside the eastern boundary of the conservation area, near the junction with Hammersmith Road, was Brook Green House, opened in 1760 as a school for girls called ‘The Ark’. This was expanded as an orphanage for boys and girls by 1784, became the Catholic Poor Schools Committee College in 1847 and was eventually demolished in 1974. The R.C. Holy Trinity Church and St. Joseph’s Almshouses, built in 1851, remain as evidence of this earlier Catholic involvement.

BROXHOLME HOUSE

Broxholme House, an inter-war block of flats, was developed by the London County Council and occupies a prominent corner site. Built in the 1930s in a plain Classical revival Queen Anne style, it has four storeys with an attic storey in the mansard roof, and shops at ground level on the street frontage. This is a particularly dominant feature on the corner of Harwood Road and New Kings Road.

BUER ROAD

The next phase of development was a series of terraced town houses which were built right up to the boundary of a prison formerly occupying a site of which Buer Road is now the centre. This phase included most of Rigault Road, the south side of Landridge Road and the centre section of Fulham Park Gardens.

BURLINGTON ROAD

Burlington Road had been known as Sowgelders Lane in Elizabethan times, and then Back Lane. From 1728 a three acre site on its east side, occupying the core of what is now the conservation area, was occupied by a famous boys’ school known originally as the Fulham Academy It was taken over in 1807 by Robert Roy who changed the name to the Burlington House
Academy in recognition of his earlier school in Old Burlington Street, Piccadilly, and this led to the eventual change in the road name. The school closed down in 1853.

In 1855, the Government bought the school house and grounds and built a womens’ prison on the site of the cricket pitch. This opened in 1856 as the Fulham Refuge (Reformatory) for Women, and occupied the site for the next 32 years, It originally held about 200 women convicts in the third stage of a new enlightened rehabilitation programme introduced by Sir Joshua Jebb, the Director General of Prisons. The women were trained in laundry work and sowing as a source of employment on release, and there was a school for the younger prisoners. This was of limited success, and on his death in 1863 there was a change in policy. Between 1870 & 1871 Sir Edmund Du Cane, the new Director General of Prisons, had the prison enlarged to take about 400 women of all criminal types, and renamed it Fulham Female Convict Prison. Numbers of convicted criminals fell throughout the 1880s so the prison was closed in 1888 and the inmates transferred to H.M.P. Woking. Burlington House was demolished in 1895, the other buildings standing empty until 1899 when they were sold to Mr Jimmy Nichol, who redeveloped the site as a small housing estate.

CARRARA WHARF

Carrara Wharf was built in 1987-89 by Higgs & Hill. It is a private residential development comprising four blocks (Chantry Court, Dorney Court, Milton Court and Windsor Court) with a staggered layout. Each residential block varies in height, ranging from two to six storeys. Built of brick with window arch details the development has pitched roofs.

CHALLONER STREET

The Institute of Indian Culture (BoM) in Challoner Street occupies what remains of the former West Kensington Congregational Church built in 1882-5 by James Cubitt. Described by Pevsner as a “notable fragment” the two west bays are all that survived the Second World War of the original cruciform church with central tower. The remaining building has a gabled buff brick front with three grouped lancet windows beneath a Gothic relieving arch. There are two flying buttresses to the clerestory that rise off flank walls to both naves.

CHANCELLOR’S ROAD

Bradenburg House was situated on the riverfront where Chancellor’s Road now ends. It was inherited by Sir Nicholas Crispe in the early 17th century and was reconstructed by him. It was know as his Great House at Crabtree, very little of which is known. In 1642 he greatly extended his estate at Fulham, which by then consisted of approximately 87 acres. His lands must have extended from the present day Queen Caroline Street on the north to Crabtree Lane on the south and from the River Thames on the west across the Fulham Fields to North End on the east.

In 1792 Bradenburg House came into the possession of the Margravine of Bradenburg-Anspach. She built a theatre on the riverfront in which she acted in a number of plays written by herself.

The house was later occupied by Queen Caroline of Brunswick, wife of George IV. She died there in 1821 and is commemorated by Queen Caroline Street near Hammersmith Bridge, out of which extends Crisp Road. It is said that George IV had Bradenburg House demolished owing to the tremendous popularity of his deceased, neglected wife, but there is no evidence of this. It was probably dismantled because of dry rot.

CHIPSTEAD STREET

Chipstead Street dates from 1902-4.

The road and building lines were laid out following the sale of the Peterborough Estate in 1888 and 1890 when the area was built over as a speculative residential development. The bulk of the houses were built as two storey red brick half-gabled terraces with paired arched recessed entrance porches. The character of the conservation area is also dependent upon a consistent level of decoration and architectural embellishments appropriate to the late Victorian / Edwardian period, which in this area include the use of red brick, slate, terracotta friezes at eaves level and below first floor window sills, string courses, panels and cambered window heads, and decorative timber balustraded balconies. Most houses retain their original timber sliding sash windows, many of which are subdivided into small panes by glazing bars, still in their original design. Most also have the distinctive (builder) Jimmy Nichols terracotta lion finials.

CHURCH GATE

Church Gate (formerly Church Row or Lane) extends from the south west corner of the High Street to the north-east entrance of All Saints’ Churchyard, and it “ranks amongst the very oldest of the bye-ways of the parish” (Feret, I, 1900: 133). During the Medieval period, a passageway existed there.

Church Gate seems always to have been a semi-private way, which on Sundays, since 1656, was barred at the Church bridge to prevent vehicular traffic from disturbing
the congregation at the church.

CLEVERLY ESTATE

The Cleverly Estate, a Peabody estate, is located in two blocks between Wormholt Road and Sedgeford Road to the east and west, and Steventon Road and Aycliffe Road to the north and south.

The site for the Estate was purchased in 1926 with money donated by an anonymous benefactor. Started in 1928 and completed in two years to the designs of the peabody Fund’s architect Victor Wilkins (1878-19721, Cleverly Estate represents the climax in the neo-Georgian design of working class housing by the Peabody Fund. The Estate was further developed internally in 1963, 1970 and 1986.

COBBOLD ROAD

The providers of churches and schools were on the lookout for plots of appropriate size and in suitable locations.

Often this meant, as at St Saviour’s, Cobbold Road, that churches were constructed in open fields before the houses arrived.

COLWITH ROAD

Built as part of the Crabtree Farm Estate in 1911 by the building company Allen & Norris.

CONIGER ROAD

The builder James Nichols developed much of the area with elaborately decorated terraces of “better than average style” in wide streets with larger than average front gardens. These houses, built over a single period, contributed to the area’s unified appearance and enduring popularity. His work is often distinguished by the incorporation of decorative terracotta lion finials, which he used as a trademark. Nichols was born near Torrington, Devon in about 1857. He wa the son of a carpenter and died sometime after 1911 having emigrated with his family to Australia.

His first houses in the area, built in 1888-89, were modest two storey terraces in Peterborough Road and Coniger Road on what had been the orchards of Peterborough House.

COUNTER’S CREEK

Chelsea Creek originally came up to Olympia, forming the eastern boundary of the Borough. Its upper reaches once formed a water feature in Little Wormwood Scrubs, and further down stream it was altered to form the Kensington Canal which extended to the Thames at Chelsea.

CRABTREE ALLEY

Through the Redcross Field, an ancient right of way existed extending from the Fulham Fields to Cockbush (Coppesbush) on the river (near Belle Vue House and Mears Wharf). This was Crabtree Lane which appears on Rocque’s map. In 1656 Sir Nicholas closed this way but provided another one in lieu.

This right of way was most probably the lane known as Crabtree Alley, which appears on Rocque’s map

CRABTREE LANE

The crab tree (pyrus malus), a wild apple tree, used to be quite prolific in Fulham. Not only does this area owe its place name to this tree, but other places in Fulham do as well. For example, at Sands End was Crabtree Close and the ancient messuage of Crabstocks at North End was also reminiscent of the pyrus malus. The name is of far greater antiquity than has generally been imagined. In the minutes of a Court General held in 1492, it was recorded: “John Shonks surrenders Southcrofte at the Crabtree in the Lordship of Fulham to the use of Thomas Hoberd and heirs”.

From the 11th century up to the Late 19th century, the whole area underwent “a high state of cultivation”. In the mid 18th century, the area extending from the northern boundary of the orchards (in the vicinity of Craven Cottage) up to Crabtree Lane, was in open fields. The area north of Crabtree Lane up to the present day Winslow Road was under systematic market gardening.

By the mid 19th century, Crabtree had developed into a well established settlement with productive fields. By the end of the 19th Century, the conservation area was still predominantly in open country with orchards of apples and pears as well as market gardens.

Brick-making was a subsidiary industry practised in the locality of Crabtree, dating back to the 17th Century. This industry was promoted by Sir Nicholas Crispe and was extensively practised in Fulham.

Near the bottom of Crabtree Lane, facing Belle Vue House, there was a group of five small cottages with front gardens. This area was known as Crabtree Square.

The little cluster of cottages near the river at Crabtree probably owed its origin to the existence nearby of Sir Nicholas Crispe’s Great House, which was located in the extreme north
western corner of the parish. The Assessment books, in which the population was classified according to localities, do not show any subdivision for Crabtree as a separate locality of
population until 1666. By this time “Crabtree fielde” recorded nine inhabitants. In 1674, “ Crab tree Field” recorded 23 inhabitants. There appeared to be no increase in population until 1739 when only 14 inhabitants were recorded at “Crabb Tree”. The field which was specifically designated Crabtree” lay between Crabtree Lane on the south and Crabtree Alley on the north. By the Mid 18th Century, there were approximately half a dozen cottages in this field ’.

Crabtree Lane was a picturesque spot with some noteworthy old cottages on its north side.

At the top adjacent to Fulham Palace Road were two houses, Crabtree Cottages, built in 1838.

Next to St Clement’s Church on the south side of Crabtree Lane was St Clement% Vicarage, built in 1886 (now demolished). Facing the river there was the Crabtree Inn which was the las of Fulham’s riverside inns. It used to be known as the “Pot House” and later on as “The Three Jolly Gardeners”. In 1763 it was known as the “Pot House at Crab Tree”.

42 Crabtree Lane is an 18th century farm cottage refronted in the 1890s.

BelleVue House was built in 1816 and it used to stand on Crabtree Wharf.

Rosebank lay at the bottom of Crabtree Lane on the south side. It was “once perhaps the most delightful of the old riverside homes of Fulham”. The original villa was built in 1809-10 for the Earl of Cholmondeley. From 1829 to 1854 it was used mainly as a nursery by the Marquis of Londonderry.

CRAVEN COTTAGE

Craven Cottage was “a charming villa” and built c.1780, and in 1804 the Craven estate consisted of: “All that cottage called Craven Cottage with the oziers and reeds which shall come and grow upon the side of the Thames from the landing place next above Cockbush in Fulham Field aforesaid and shooting down by the side of the river unto the further end of Percers Mead, containing by estimation 8” acres ….” (Feret, 111, 1900: 91).

Craven Cottage was considered the most attractive example of cottage architecture then existing. It was built for Lord Craven and in 1805 enlarged with Egyptian interiors by Thomas Hopper for the picture dealer, Walsh Porter. In 1888 it was destroyed by fire. Its name became attached to the later football ground on the site.

To prevent the inundation of the tide, an elevated terrace was built along the river front. At the south end of this embankment, a flight of steps (the Craven Steps) led down into the water and part of these remain today. The grounds were well laid out.

DEVONPORT ROAD

By 1894 to 1896 the whole of the area to the west of Devonport Road had been developed. Only a small tract of open land remained at the top of Devonport Road. The vicarage was built at the top of Coverdale Road, and the ‘Trunk and Portmanteau Works’ had been built on the site of Trania Cottage. Wardle Street replaced Caves Terrace and Brooklyn Road developed northwards from Goldhawk Road eventually to join and become part of Lime Grove. Also, the Church of St Thomas had been built on Thornfield Road by this time.

DU CANE ROAD

Du Cane Road was built in the 1870s, along with Wormwood Scrubs Prison.

EDITH ROAD

In 1863 Edith Road, albeit undeveloped, had been cut across market gardens gardens linking Edith Villas on the east side of North End Road, with Hammersmith Road via the western edge of The Cedars.

EEL BROOK COMMON

Eel Brook Common is fourteen acres, taking its name from the old Eel Brook, which has now been filled, but previously formed the western boundary of the common.

The 1865 ordnance survey map shows both Parsons Green and Eel Brook Common and the main road thoroughfares of Parson’s Green Lane and King’s Road and a number of notable buildings fronting the Green.

ELLALINE ROAD

Built as part of the Crabtree Farm Estate in 1911 by the building company Allen & Norris.

FIELD ROAD

The flat blocks in Field Road, Holman Hunt House and Mary Macarthur House, were built in 1939 by Fulham Borough Council on the cleared sites of small Victorian terraces in Melton Street, Hatfield Street and Suffolk Street demolished in 1937-8.

FITZGEORGE AVENUE

In 1897 the western half of North End House grounds were sold off to Henry Lovatt for development. Fitzgeorge Avenue was laid out, as a cul-de-sac off Auriol Road, and a series of large mansion blocks built, each different in plan and design. In 1898 the road was extended as Fitzjames Avenue to connect with North End Road.

FULHAM

The settlement appears to be centred on a road or trackway, probably in use since pre-Roman times, connecting with a ford across the Thames, linking it with Putney. There is evidence of similar occupation there. The crossing continues as the ‘modern’ Putney Bridge. Other excavations, that have been carried out by the Fulham Archaeological Rescue Group at Fulham Palace between 1972-1986, have produced building rubble and finds from now demolished Medieval and Tudor Palace buildings.

The earliest mention of Fulham in documents is in the year 704-05 AD when, what was to become the Manor of Fulham, virtually identical to the present London Borough of Hammersmith
and Fulham, was acquired by the Bishop of London from the Bishop of Hereford. Clearly, Fulham was already a ‘going concern’, the name ‘Fulham’ is of some antiquity.

A few probable Saxon shreds of pottery have been found as would be expected. The site of the ‘first’ Saxon palace appears to have been identified west of the present palace buildlngs, now partly covered by the Handicapped Adventure Playground. Excavations in 1975/6 uncovered much medieval building debris and pottery mainly dating from the 13th century ‘.

Fulham had always been an agricultural district up to the 19th century.

FULHAM BRIDGE / PUTNEY BRIDGE

Before the construction of the old Fulham Bridge over the River Thames, the only communication between Fulham and Putney was by ferry. This ferry has been known to exist here and it is believed that a regular ferry existed here at the time of the Norman Conquest. The first direct allusion to a ferry occurred in 1210 when the harness of King John’s horses was transported
across the river at Fulham for one penny. By 1639 Before the construction of the old Fulham there were ferry services operating at several places along the River Thames, for example, at Fulham, Richmond, Hampton Court and Shepperton, for ferrying Charles I and his household across the River. The approach to the ferry at Fulham was over the site of the Swan Drawdock to the west of the old Fulham Bridge.

There were no bridges across the river hames between London Bridge and Kingston until the construction of the old Fulham Bridge in 1729.

The old Fulham Bridge was closed down and demolished in 1886. The new Putney Bridge (Grade 11) which connects Fulham with Putney, was erected 1882-86 to the west of the old bridge.

It was constructed on the same alignment across the river as formerly occupied by the aqueduct of the Chelsea Waterworks Company, It was designed by Sir Joseph W Bazalgette, the engineer, and Edward Bazalgette, assistant engineer, and Joseph Bazalgette superintended its erection. The contractor for the works was Waddell and Sons, who also undertook the demolition of the old Fulham Bridge.

As a result of the erection of the new bridge, a new rising approach, Putney Bridge Approach, was formed from the High Street at its junction with Church Street (Church Gate) and it extended through the Vicarage garden close to the parish church (All Saints) 3. Today the Putney Bridge Approach is the main traffic route and the High Street has become a drab back lane with the slab and podium offices of the 1960’s and 1970’s (that is, Bridge House North and Bridge House South) to the west.

In the 18th century the area by the river extending over to the railway bridge was under cultivation, with some settlement on the east side of Bridge Street (the High Street) at the old
Fulham Bridge

By the mid 19th century there was an isolated grand house, Willow Bank situated east of the river inlet and on the river front surrounded by open land. By 1865 Willow Bank was surrounded by ornamental gardens

By the early 1890’s, Willow Bank had been demolished and its former grounds (the area between the river inlet and the railway bridge) had become vacant land. By 1913 Swan Wharf was just about vacant and Willow Bank had been planted with shrubs.

In 1836 the second University Boat Race was rowed from Westminster to Putney, and races took place in five of the next nine years. In 1845 the race was moved to the stretch of the river between Putney and Mortlake where it continues as an annual event today.

FULHAM FIELDS

Fulham concentrated on the cultivation of vegetables, fruit and flowers. Nearly the entire land of the parish was in use by market gardeners who supplied the London market. The Fulham
Fields originated in the early Medieval period, and they were bounded from Crabtree to Fulham Palace by the Thames on the west and North End Road on the east.

FULHAM HIGH STREET

Bear Street was the original name for Fulham High Street, and it was used up to the end of the 18th century. Prior to the construction of the old Fulham bridge across the river Thames in the early 18th century, Bear Street extended from the river frot, where the ferry docked, for a short distance north-easterly and then almost due north to the high ground by Colehill. Here the way divided, with one way extending north-west to Hammersmith (the existing Fulham Palace Road), and the other way extending eastwards to Walham Green (the existing Fulham Road).

FULHAM PALACE

Excavations at Fulham Palace have uncovered Neolithic pottery, flint implements and features dating to circa 3,000-4,000 BC. Some of the flints may date to the even earlier Mesolithic period.

There is also evidence of Iron Age occupation but the most extensive settlement evidence to date is of the Roman-British period, 3rd-4th centuries and possibly 5th century AD. Ditches, pits, gravel surfaces, coins, pottery, animal bones and items of women’s jewellery; as well as building materials, stone brick and tiles, infer a substantial settlement. Its exact nature though is not yet known.

FULHAM PALACE ROAD

Around 1900, the long stretch of the Fulham Palace Road was developed with low, genteel residential terraces consisting of a mixture of houses and two-storey flats.

In the late 19th century this land was under orchards of apples and pears etc.

FULHAM PARK GARDENS

It is the most recent of the four sub-areas to be developed; being mainly carried out in the latter part of the 19th Century. This accounts for its more spacious feel compared to some of the earlier surrounding streets. The roads and building lines were laid out in two phases and developed as a speculative residential area.

The earliest part of this area to be developed was the northern section comprising mostly of Victorian detached or semi-detached villas in red brick around the eastern part of Fulham Park Gardens, Fulham Park Road and the north side of Landridge Road. Rose Villa and its associated coach house are included in the Council’s local list of Buildings of Merit. Eridge House, Fulham Park Road is a large Victorian detached building, originally a house. It is highly decorated in stucco and stock brick and is set in its own grounds behind a substantial pedimented gateway It is visible from the entrance of the conservation area from Fulham Road, and reinforces the character of this part of the conservation area.

FULHAM PREPARATORY SCHOOL

Fulham Preparatory School (BoM), formerly Star Lane Board School and more recently the West London College and the Holborn College, was built in 1879/80, enlarged in 1889 and remodelled in 1916.

FULHAM REACH

The riverside between Hammersmith Bridge and Putney Bridge remained essentially rural in character until the mid 19th century ‘. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Fulham Reach consisted
mainly of fringe market gardens and nurseries. Here, particularly in the 19th century, they were interspersed with several grand houses and estates, for example, Brandenburg House 2, Dorset Villa 3, Belle Vue House ‘, Rosebank ‘, and Craven Cottage ‘.

By the mid 19th century, many country houses set in spacious grounds were still in use as retreats by the affluent, although elsewhere in Fulham some had been converted into private schools and asylums. These estates no longer exist, although the legacy of some of them survive in the names of the riverside sites.

Fulham Reach remained rural until the late 19th century, when the market gardens and the few country houses along the river were replaced by industry ‘. During the second half of the 19th century, the northern part of the rivehnt began to be developed.

By 1914 the whole of the riverside between the Hammersmith Distillery and Fulham Football Ground was developed for industrial uses.

After 1870 the rural tranquillity of Fulham was disrupted until c. 1910, as housing developments sprang up to accommodate the workers in the industries which were being established along the river and elsewhere.

GODOLPHIN ROAD

By 1871 there were private properties at the southern end of Godolphin Road, Coningham Road and Devonport Road. These were mainly substantial semi-detached houses set in fairly extensive grounds. Goldhawk Road, or New Road as it was known at this time, was being developed, the plots getting smaller as they got further away from the town centre. The remainder of the area consisted of open arable land and allotments.

GRANVILLE MANSIONS

Granville Mansions is located on the corner of Shepherds Bush Green and Shepherds Bush Road. It dates from 1895 and is a five storey plus mansard, rather austere, red brick
mansion block with shops to the ground floor.

GREYHOUND ROAD

Greyhound Road is a historic route between North End and the river at Crab Tree, the line of which is shown on ‘Rocque’s map of 1741, as is that of Normand Road. A map of 1830 shows a short terrace on the north side of Greyhound Road in the position of Home Cottages, but it is missing from a map of 1853. The current buildings are thought to date from about 1855. It is shown as undeveloped farmland on maps up to 1868.

St Andrew’s Church was built in 1874, on the north side of the junction between Greyhound Road and Normand Road, and known at that time as ‘St Andrew’s in the Fields’.

HAMLET GARDENS

In 1897 the land occupied by Hamlet House was sold for the construction of superior residential flats”. The residential scheme in Hamlet Gardens was completed before the First
World War.

Hamlet Court is an inter-war block with “art-deco” derived elements around the entrances dating from 1936 by the architect A Joseph Caney.

HAMMERSMITH

The village of Hammersmith, as described by Defoe in the mid 1720s was “a long scattering place full of gardener’s grounds with here and there a house of some bulk; in this village we see not only a wood of Great Houses and Palaces, but a noble square (Broadway) built as it were in the middle of several handsome streets as if the village seemed inclined to grow up into a city. Here we are told they design to obtain the grant of a market tho’ it be so near to London, and some talk also of building a fine stone bridge over the Thames, but these things are yet in embryo, though it is not unlikely but they may be both accomplished in time”

The medieval hamlet of Hammersmith lay within the great Manor and Parish of Fulham. One part of it was the Manor of Pallingswick, though it had no separate court, and no other characteristics of a manor. Pallingswick was a large moated house in extensive grounds which lay to the north of the highway (the king’s road) from London to Brentford. According to some historians it had not yet been given a name, although Thomas Faulkner in “An Historical and Topographical account of Fulham, including the Hamlet of Hammersmith” (1813) says that it had been named in the Domesday Book “Hermoderwode” and in ancient deeds of the Exchequer “Hermoderworth”.

The field of Hammersmith was part of a much larger Fulham Field and supported subsistence farming by tenants who then held their lands in open fields, and paid dues to the lord of the Manor.

John Roque’s Map of Middlesex, c 1745, shows the village of Hammersmith where Hammersmith Broadway is now, with ribbons running west along King Street, south along Queen Caroline Street towards the River Thames. At that time, the hamlet of Hammersmith was a rural appendage of the parish and manor of Fulham and only gained its own chapel-of-ease in 1631, after the residents applied to the Bishop of London (then residing at Fulham Palace) to avoid having to trek every Sunday to All Saints Fulham. Behind the string of buildings on King Street, the land is predominantly turned over to orchards and fruit growing, together with some pasture for animals. The map also shows the line of Counter’s Creek which was navigable by barges as far as King Street where Cromwell’s Brewery stood. The creek was filled in by 1936, and its water channelled through a culvert, partly beneath the present location of Hammersmith Town Hall.

By the time Salter mapped the area in 1830, Hammersmith had 1290 acres in arable land and meadowland, 470 acres of gardens, and 215 acres of brick land. Thus more buildings were appearing, but the area was still predominantly rural, providing orchard and soft fruit for the city.

The area continued to change significantly over time; the Tithe apportionment Schedules of 1845 showed more orchards, sites of houses, and shrubberies. Arable land had declined while market gardening and orchard land had increased. Faulkner, describing Hammersmith after Salter had mapped it, tells us that by now the town consists of several streets, the principal one being King’s Street which extends from the turnpike, on the east (near Blythe Road as it is now) to Stamford Brook Lane on the west, nearly a mile and a half in length.

Many public houses were already established, and the numbers grew as the population increased. The Hampshire Hog is thought to be the oldest having been established in the 18th Century when it stood in half an acre of ground; the Hop Poles in 1800; the Angel (now The Hammersmith Ram) in 1790, was a booking place for stage coaches. The Salutation was rebuilt in its present form in 1910. In November 1805, when news of the victory at the Battle of Trafalgar, and the death of Nelson was being brought to London, the Trafalgar despatch, Lieutenant Lapenotiere drove in a poste chaise through King Street. Although he stopped in Hounslow at an earlier coaching inn on the journey, a plaque has been erected on the Salutation, commemorating the 200-year anniversary of the Trafalgar Dispatch.

HAMMERSMITH CEMETERY

Hammersmith Cemetery, formerly known as Margrave Cemetery, is a substantial open space of 6.53 hectares surrounded by residential development. The cemetery has an air of tranquillity provides a short cut to the station and is a pleasant place used by local people. It is well landscaped with specimen trees and is designated a Nature Conservation Area of Local Importance (L9) in the Borough’s Unitary Development Plan. The cemetery was opened in 1868 and laid out by local architect George Saunders who designed the modest Gothic style lodges and two chapels in the Gothic style.

HAMMERSMITH DISTELLERY

The first and largest of the industrial development schemes was Hammersmith’s Distillery (1857) on the site of Brandenburg House. In 1872 Alexander Manbre moved his sugar refinery to an adjacent site. Other indusrial developments followed later.

By the 1890s, the grounds of Dorset Villa had been converted to a wharf and warehouse of the corn merchants, Hood and Moore. The Anglo-American Oil Company established Dorset Wharf.

Tea Rose Wharf Merchants was part of this development scheme. Blakes Wharf was established just after the turn of the century, and Eternit Wharfwas built in 1910.

HAMMERSMITH GROVE

The earliest map (Rocque 1741-45) shows open fields and a tree lined lane.

The road was laid out and the earliest development took place in the 1830s or 184Os, when the properties Nos.39 to Sl(odd), Nos.181 to 215(odd) and Nos.234 to 244(even) were built
as substantial semi-rural residencies.

The straightness of the road reflects the formal nature of the early (1840s) development and the intention to develop a new residential quarter in this area.

The former Kensington and Richmond Rail Line was constructed on the eastern boundary of the present conservation area in the 1850s. It has been a major restraint to the development of an east west street pattern.

HAMMERSMITH ROAD

Hammersmith Road has been an important route to London since early times.

Throughout the 18th century the Great West Road (Hammersmith Road) formed the main route from London, via Kensington and Hammersmith, to Bath and Bristol.

Counter Bridge, now Addison Bridge, was one of only three crossing points over Chelsea Creek in Fulham until the West Cromwell Road Bridge was built in 1938. When the first toll road west out of London was designated in 1717 the Hammersmith Turnpike was built here at the junction of Hammersmith Road and North End Road.

In 1824 a group of early 18th century buildings was redeveloped as Dorcas Terrace (Nos. 89-97 odd and Nos. 99-119 odd Hammersmith Road) by W.Payne, a local builder. The name of the terrace derives from his wife’s forename. Shop fronts were inserted in the latter part of the century.

Until its removal in 1864 the Hammersmith Turnpike was located in front of 95 Hammersmith Road and opposite the former Bell & Anchor Tavern, which was sited between Olympia and the junction with Blythe Road.

Much of the land in this area was cultivated for fruit and vegetables, but a significant area on the south side of Hammersmith Road including Earsby Street, Gorleston Street and Portland Place (now Addison Bridge Place) was developed in the Georgian period. Unfortunately, only part of this still survives. The remainder of the south side of Hammersmith Road was redeveloped to a much higher density during 1880-1900 following the improvement in transport links, particularly the West London Railway and the tram system.

HARWOOD ARMS

The Harwood Arms is first recorded in the Rate Book in 1866. The Pub may take its name from either Colonel Harwood who lived nearby or William Harwood, the market gardener. It is a three storey Italianate building predominantly faced with gault bricks.

HURLINGHAM HOUSE

From before 1066 the land within this conservation area belonged to the Bishops of London and formed nursery gardens and meadows along the Riverside.

Hurlingham House, which was built from 1760, as a villa fronting the River Thames, now forms the main part of the Hurlingham Club House.

JOSLINGS CLOSE

Built on the site of the former allotments and post WW2 redevelopment, Nos. 1-14 (consec.) is a modern development by Ealing Family Housing Association comprised of 2 and 3 storey houses and flats built in a pared down style similar to the original estate, flat fronted with arched porches and one gabled block. The rest of the development, Nos.15-48 (consec.), is a modern red brick development with 2 storey houses and 4 storey flats.

KENSAL GREEN CEMETERY

Kensal Green Cemetery is owned and managed by the original General Cemetery Company. Established in 1832 and consecrated on 24th January 1833, it is the oldest surviving purpose-built commercial London Cemetery.

KENSINGTON CANAL

The canal was begun in 1824 along the line of Counter’s Creek by Lord Kensington with the excavation of a dock on a site adjacent to the present Olympia tube station, and opened in 1828 with the completion of improved navigation to a plan by John Rennie. Although well designed, and able to take boats of up to 100 tons, the canal was never very profitable. It was sold to the West London Railway Company in 1846 and continued as a canal until the early 1860s, when a track was laid over it.

KENSINGTON VILLAGE

In the 1880s William Whiteley ‘the universal provider’ built a large furniture depository, extensive stables and later a laundry along the west side of the railway line at the Whiteley’s Depository site (now renamed ‘Kensington Village’) much of which still survives.

KING STREET

King Street (as named in 1794) was one of the first roads in the Hammersmith area providing an important link between central London and the “West”. Various residential and commercial premises were sited along King Street from the 17th Century onwards.

LARNACH ROAD

Larnach Road was built as part of the Crabtree Farm Estate in 1911 by the building company Allen & Norris.

LAURIE ARMS

The Laurie Arms EH. (238 Shepherds Bush Road, BOM) is documented back to 1842 with a later facade in the 1880s style and was named after Sir Peter Laurie Lord Mayor of London.

LIME GROVE (1850)

In the early 19th Century the area consisted of a number of farms and allotments prior to parts of it being used as gravel pits, and as brick fields. By 1853 the Church of St Stephen, a Parsonage, School and Infant School had been built, Lime Grove was partially defined and there was a small development between the church and the end of Lime Grove.

Ordnance survey maps of 1869 show the site of Shepherds Bush (surface) railway, and a higher level of development at the northern end of Lime Grove, including a Public House. Warwick House, on the eastern side of Lime Grove, and Trania Cottage further south, were two substantial properties at this time, with two short roads, Southbrook Street and Caves Terrace, extending as far as the allotments opposite Trania Cottage.

MELROSE TERRACE

The 1853 Roberts map shows that Martin’s Market Garden occupied the site between Melrose Terrace and Shepherds Bush Road, at that time, and some of the later property boundaries in the conservation area still follow its boundary.

MICKLETHWAITE ROAD

There was an ’estate ofice’ where rents were paid, was on the corner of Micklethwaite Road and Farm Lane. All the street names are taken from English place-names, except Anselm Road, that had already been commenced by an earlier developer. The reasons for this choice of names is yet unknown but probably lay with the Gunter Family.

MILLER’S COURT

Millers Court was Miller’s Bakery prior to 1966. Before that it had been Chibnall’s Bakery and Cedar House was used as the bakery’s offices. Sacks of flour were unloaded from a wharf
opposite, which is now a garden, and carried across The Mall to be hoisted to the upper floor of the bakery. Chibnall’s large horse-drawn vans used to be a familiar sight on Chiswick Mall and in the surrounding vicinity for many years.

MOORE PARK

The conservation area boundary can be seen on Plan 1. It includes the properties along the King’s Road from Stanley Bridge to Bagleys Lane including those bounded by Maynard Close, Edith Row, Michael Road and Avalon Road. To the west the area is bounded by Harwood Road and Cedarne Road and to the north by the London Underground District Line railway north of Fulham Road but excluding the Stamford Bridge Stadium and Chelsea Village complex. To the north east the area is bounded by Wandon Road and Stamford Bridge.

The area comprising the Moore Park Conservation Area was the earliest estate development to be built in Fulham, being laid out in the 1850s and completed in the following decade. The name Moore Park is first mentioned in 1857, and is derived from the home of the estate owner J. Percival Maxwell, who lived at Moore Park in County Waterford, Ireland. The residential area within the conservation area is largely contained within two major arterial routes, both of which have a long history. The northern route, Fulham Road, was established in 1442 and contemporary records describe it as ‘the King’s highway’ between the High Street and Walham Green. Later, the road became a major thoroughfare, being a coaching route to Guildford, Southampton, Portsmouth and Chichester. It was not officially known as the Fulham Road until 1870.

MUSARD ROAD

The houses in Musard Road were built around 1885.

NELLA ROAD (1911)

Built as part of the Crabtree Farm Estate in 1911 by the building company Allen & Norris.

NETHERWOOD ROAD

By 1871 the immediate area was still rural, though terrace development had begun on a pathway known as Netherwood Road leading to Richmond Road (later Way) at the east end of Shepherds Bush. The London & South Western railway, opened in 1869, followed a sweeping arc to the north-west of the site and the Hammersmith and City Railway ran due north, on its western flank.

NEW KINGS ROAD

The New King’s Road, originally a royal route between Whitehall and Hampton Court, was realigned to the new approach road for the 1829 Putney Bridge. Further adjustment to some of the
building plots fronting New King’s Road was caused by the building of the nearby District Line in 1880.

NITON STREET (1899)

Niton Street was built alongside part of the extention of the Fulham Palace Road Estate.

A large amount of the local houses were built by the building company Allen & Norris using pattern books, as was common practice at this time, rather than employing an architect. This
included properties in Crabtree Lane and Niton Street by 1899.

NORMAND PARK

Normand Park adjoining the south boundary of the conservation area, was created after WWII on the site of Normand House, bought in 1885 by the St Katherine Community of Anglican nuns for a ‘rescue home’ and refectory for first offender girls, and its immediate neighbourhood. The Convent and many of the surrounding terraced streets were severely damaged by a land mine in 1940 and by a VI rocket in 1944.

NORTH END ROAD

North End Road, from its junction with the Great West Road, was the main route South to Fulham. Apart from some imposing houses located along these highways this area known as ‘North End’ was, according to the local historian Faulkner: “the great fruit and kitchen garden, north of the Thames, which has supplied the London market since the 17th Century”.

NORTH END VILLA

The area of North End was, from the 17th Century up to the last quarter of the 19th Century, predominantly one of orchards and market gardens. A number of imposing houses, largely built in the 18th Century, lined the two main thoroughfares, the Great West Road and North End Road. One of these was North End Villa built in the 1790s. It stood, set back from the main road, in nearly 7 acres of grounds, including an ornamental lake. The western edge bordered that of The Cedars, a similar type and size of property. The house was substantially remodelled to the contemporary taste in 1890 and its grounds landscaped as an informal park. Ten years later the immediate area to the north of the property was being developed by the Vernon Investment Association as small scale terrace housing. It was demolished in 1928.

NOVELLO STREET

Novello Street bordering the District Railway Line, but predating its construction, is perhaps the oldest development in the sub-area and its layout and much of the built form is
evident from the 1865 Ordnance Survey plan.

The 1916 survey shows very little change to the built form of the Parsons Green conservation area, although infilling had occurred and Crown Street had been renamed as Novello Street.

OIL MILL LANE

Oil Mill Lane was named after the Albert Oil Mills which stood on the riverfront on the site of Lord Napier Place. It is now effectively an estate road serving Lord Napier Place and Mylne Close, providing access to these residential developments from the Great West Road. The new flats by the river at Albert and Atlanta Wharf were undertaken by Chapman Taylor Partners c.1971.

OLD OAK ESTATE

The OS historic map from 1910 shows that land to the north of east of East Acton slowly began to develop as the site of His Majesty’s Prison, Hammersmith Workhouse and the first phase of the Old Oak Estate.

The land for the Old Oak Estate was bought by the London County Council in 1905 and built under Part III of the 1890 Housing of the Working Classes Act as part of the council wider house building program. The land was purchased from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners at a cost of £29,858, 8 acres of which were re-sold to the Great Western Railway for its proposed Ealing-Shepherds Bush branch.

The estate was constructed in two phases, west of the railway in 1912-13 and the eastern half in 1920-3 with fourteen houses added in 1927 (LBHF 1996). Initial plans proposed a density of 27 cottages an acre and some 1527 cottages in all which would house – they estimated precisely – 11,438 people (LMA 1907). By January 1914, 304 cottages and 5 shops had been completed. Each of the cottages and flats had “a scullery and the usual office” but only the cottages of five and four rooms and 14 of the three roomed cottages were fitted with baths (LCC 1913). Roads and sewers for the second, eastern, section were completed before the war but construction was halted until 1920 when the Estate (and the neighbouring Wormholt Estate built by Hammersmith Borough Council) became significant components of the ‘Homes fit for Heroes’ campaign of the day, promoted by the 1919 Housing Act. East Acton Underground Station opened in 1920 on the Central London Railway extension to Ealing Broadway, now London Underground’s Central Line. Two more shops, 722 houses and the present day Old Oak Primary School were built by 1922 and an additional 14 houses in 1927. In all the finished estate comprised 1056 homes, 228 five-room, 443 four room, 341 three-room, 27 two room and 16 one-room houses or flats plus a “superintendent’s quarters (LCC 1913).

The area west of the railway line was built before 1914 and has been described as “a snug L.C.C. development of small two-storeyed red brick houses, especially skilfully grouped in the streets around East Acton station” (Pevsner and Cherry 2002).

The distinguishing characteristic of this sub-area is the large number of houses which are laid out around lawns and gardens in U shaped terraces which run perpendicular to the main course of the street. These are dispersed widely throughout the sub-area. Sometimes terraces are also laid out with lawns to enclose a bend in the street such as Nos. 97-103 (odd) and 120-140 (even) Fitzneal Street and Nos.1-35 (odd) and Nos. 2-6 (even) Henchman Street.

This sub-area is comprised of Braybrook Street, Du Cane Road (North Side), Erconwald Street, Fitzneal Street, Foliot Street, Henchman Street, Melitus Street, Old Oak Common Lane, Osmund Street, Stokesley Street and Wulfstan Street.

What was and what remains most striking about the estate is its design and aesthetic and the ideals these reflect. Ebenezer Howard’s Garden Cities of To-morrow was published in 1898. The Fabian Society published Cottage Plans and Common Sense – Raymond Unwin’s manifesto addressing how municipalities might best provide for the Housing of the People in 1902. Unwin would be appointed Architect and Surveyor of the Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust in 1906. These currents all directly influenced the Old Oak Estate, in fact, one of the LCC architects responsible for the design of the estate was Archibald Stuart Soutar, the brother of and sometime collaborator with J.C.S. Soutar who replaced Unwin in Hampstead in 1914 (Municipal Dreams 2014). The estate introduced two design features which contributed to its unique aesthetic and which were new to social housing at the time. These were its mock Tudor architecture and the design and setting of roofs, which often extended below the eaves line of the upper storey and excluded dividing party walls that would usually rise above the roof level. Dormer windows were also positioned in the front roof plane (Stilwell 2015).

The 1909 Housing and Town Planning Act (partly modelled on the private 1906 Hampstead Garden Suburb Act) was also critical to the accomplished design. Previously, planning had been hamstrung by well-meaning but unimaginative and restrictive bye laws. These were intended to enforce safe and sanitary housing construction but they also forced rigid building lines and tightly regulated streetscapes (Municipal Dreams 2014).

The 1909 Act’s promoter, John Burns, President of the Local Government Board, spoke eloquently of that line of beauty which Hogarth said was in a curve and passionately of the moral as well as physical purpose of high quality housing and planning. The object of the bill, he proclaimed was; “to provide a domestic condition for the people in which their physical health, their morals, their character and their whole social condition can be improved…The Bill aims in broad outline at, and hopes to secure, the home healthy, the house beautiful, the town pleasant, the city dignified, and the suburb salubrious. It seeks, and hopes to secure, more houses, better houses, prettier streets, so that the character of a great people, in towns and cities and villages, can be still further improved and strengthened by the conditions under which they live” (John Burns Quoted in Beattie 1980).
4.9 Pevsner notes that the architect A.S. Soutar was responsible for some of the most picturesque parts of the estate, for example the groups of cottages at the corner of Fitzneal Street and Du Cane Road. Other architects involved were F.J. Lucas and J.M. Corment. The layout was clearly influenced by Hampstead Garden Suburb, the supervising architect of which was J.C.S Soutar, brother of A.S. Soutar (Pevsner and Cherry 2002).

OLD OAK PRIMARY SCHOOL

Old Oak Primary School, formerly Melitus School, is a two storey, shallow pitched roof, stock brick building set out in the LCC’s ‘double butterfly’ plan. There are a variety of multi-paned window types in the symmetrical façade. The wings seen from Braybrook Street have tall wide windows with fanlights, with those on the first floor finishing under the eaves. Some window heads on the main body are arched. There is a ‘hit and miss’ brick dentil string course running just below the first floor windows and parallel bands of darker bricks above it.

OLYMPIA

The Olympia site remained a market garden until it was developed as the exhibition centre in 1886.

The Olympia 1 complex consists of two main buildings, the Grand Hall and the National Hall. The Grand Hall (formerly known as East End Hall) was partly designed by Henry E Coe, as a National Agricultural Hall and was the first part to be built (1885), opening on Boxing Day 1886 with a performance by the Paris Hippodrome Circus. It was the venue of many circuses; Barnum and Baileys in 1889, 1900 and 1901, Buffalo Bill and the Wild West Show attended by King Edward VII in 1903, and more recently Bertram Mills Circus. It also housed Imre Kiralfy’s Extravaganzas such as Venice in London (1891), Constantinople (1893) and The Orient (1894-5). In 1911 the Grand Hall was transformed into a cathedral for C. B. Cochrane’s staging of The Miracle, and the Motor Show and Ideal Home Exhibition were held there annually from 1905 and 1920 respectively.

One of the main features of the Grand Hall is its glazed barrel vaulted roof 145 metres long with a span of 52 metres. Coe’s fine main façade of the building in Olympia Way faces east onto the West London Railway line and is of red brick with various elements of stone dressing and decoration. A number of insensitive alterations over the years diminished the character and appearance of the façade. These included the ticket hall and reception area on the ground floor in Olympia Way, the fire escape placed in front of the main entrance, and the footbridge to the railway station. However, in 2001, the covered ways and the footbridge to the railway were demolished, leaving the façade more visible than it has been for much of the last 100 years.

The National Hall, located at the corner of Hammersmith Road and Olympia Way, and adjoining the Grand Hall, was the second part to be built, opening in 1925. It was designed with brick and stone facings to blend in with the earlier building and also features a glazed barrel vaulted roof.

Olympia 2 complex consists of one building, originally known as West End Hall and later as the Empire Hall, which is of a considerably different scale, bulk and architectural style from the adjoining Olympia 1 complex. It was completed in 1929 and is built in the contemporary Art Deco style designed by Joseph Emberton with details borrowed from progressive continental buildings such as the Einstein tower.

The rear of the Olympia Exhibition Centre backs onto Blythe Road. In 1936, Joseph Emberton was also responsible for the Olympic Garage in Maclise Road, a multi-storey car park, initially built for 1,200 cars, which was claimed to be the largest in Europe when built, and one of the first in this country. It has ten half-storey height floors, exposed concrete inside and is faced in yellow brick outside with long window bands. Emberton is noted for the design of Simpsons of Piccadilly, the Burnham–on-Crouch Yacht Club and the Peter Jones department store building in Sloane Square.

ONGAR ROAD

St Oswald’s Church, now demolished, had been built in 1898. It replaced a temporary church, built 1888, that stood at the north-west corner of Ongar Road, then known as St Oswald’s
Road.

PADDENWICK ROAD

Paddenswick Road is a relatively wide street lined with terraces or paired villas in stock brick with stucco detailing, dating from 1830-1860. The front gardens to these properties are particularly important to their mature and relaxed character.

Holy Innocents, Paddenwick Road was built by James Brooks in 1890-98 and occupies the site of Paddenswick Green.

PARSONS GREEN

Parsons Green takes its name from the parsonage-house or rectory of the parish of Fulham, in which the rectors of the Parish of Fulham used to reside. The area was formerly part of the Manor of Fulham.

Parsons Green and Eel Brook Common, two significant open spaces, were formerly wastes of the Manor and later thought to have been two village greens for separate communities. Both open spaces have formed centres for development in the area.

On the side of the green stood a plain white house, built at the end of the seventeenth century by Sir Francis Child, Lord Mayor of London in 1699. On the north side of the green stood the Holt Yates Memorial Home and Laundry, and records show that the adjoining property was a training home for young girls.

By the time of the publication of the 1894-96 ordnance survey map, much of the road framework was in place with the majority of the residential development having already occurred.

Furthermore, during this time the pond on the green was filled-in and the open area extended.

PENNARD ROAD

Pennard Rpad was built in 1899 on the site of one of the last remaining open areas to the west of the Common and typifies the fully developed Victorian terrace. The curve in the street and the strong regular building line provide a townscape of interest with the rhythm created by the bay windows.

PETERBOROUGH HOUSE

Bounding Parsons Green were dwellings, now demolished or substantially altered. Records state that Peterborough House once stood on the south-east of the green, having been built on the site of a famous mansion, formerly known as Brightwells.

Near to Peterborough House stood an ancient mansion which was formerly owned by Sir Edward Saunders, Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench in 1682, and later became the residence of the famous novelist, Samuel Richardson.

PETERBOROUGH ROAD

Peterborough Road was known as Parson’s Green Lane in the 1600s and was renamed with the construction of the first Peterborough House.

POPLAR GROVE

Easy transportation into London. by railway or horse drawn tram, encouraged urban development and by 1890 the whole area between Shepherd’s Bush and Hammersmith was developed by row upon row of terrace housing speculatively built and largely for occupation by lower middle class white collar workers who worked in the city.

The Poplars, caught in the midst of this development, was probably demolished in the early 1870s and the street pattern, as it basically exists today, was laid out soon afterwards. Poplar Grove now lies on what was its northern boundary.

QUARRENDON STREET

The street was built between 1902-4.

In the centre of the south side of Studdridge Street are Christ Church and its former Sunday School Hall. These are the most important landmarks within the area, and terminate the view south down Quarrendon Street. The church, built in 1902-03 by J.E.K. & J.P. Cutts, is of red brick with stone dressings and slate roof. Its ‘west’ gabled end, with a large stone Perpendicular window and twin entrance porches, forms the road frontage. There is no tower, the side elevations having long clerestories above the nave.

QUEEN OF ENGLAND

The Queen of England EH., on the corner with Stamford Brook Road (now the Brook) dates from 1926 and was designed by G G MacFarlane.

It is on the site of an earlier building which was owned by George Scott’s daughter in the 19th century. It is documented back to 1844.

QUEEN’S CLUB

The Queen’s Club sports complex was established in 1886 on a site that had been a market garden known as the Queen’s Field, and later maintained as a cricket ground ‘The Queen’s Cricket Club and Ground’ by Gibbs and Flew the developers of the surrounding estate. The site is to the north of Greyhound Road and Home Cottages, and first opened for lawn tennis on 19 May 1887 with its buildings completed in January 1888.

QUEEN’S CLUB GARDENS

Construction of Queen’s Club Gardens followed, beginning in 1892 when Mr. W. H. Gibb, formerly of the Gibbs and Flew Partnership who developed much of the housing in the Barons Court area, developed the central area of mansion flats around a communal garden and tennis courts, and named it after the adjacent Queen’s Club Sports Ground.

Each mansion block was named alphabetically after a famous literary or historical figure, from Mathew Arnold to Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, excepting ‘X’.

RANNOCH ROAD (1911)

The Crabtree Farm Estate was constructed in 1911 by the building company Allen & Norris and included Rannoch Road and a number of other local streets including Larnach Road, Colwith Road, Bowfell Road, Nella Road, Ellaline Road, Silverton Road and Rosedew Road.

RAVENSCOURT PARK

The area south of Ravenscourt Park station was the site of Paddenswick and its surroundings, later Ravenscourt.

Ravenscourt, one of the most significant houses after Fulham Palace situated in the huge ecclesiastical manor owned by the Bishop of London. This house, as it stood in 1939, was an
early Georgian brick building retaining some detailing from earlier periods.

Its grounds became a public park in 1888 but the manor was too badly damaged by incendiary bombs in 1941 to be refurbished and was demolished. George Scott employed Repton to improve the Park and the serpentine paths which survive bear witness to this.

In 1887 Ravenscourt Park estate, including the house, was bought for municipal use. The house became the first free public library in Hammersmith. The road layout and buildings to
the east of Shaftesbury Road were complete and a significant amount of development had occurred to the north of Goldhawk Road, with the majority of the streets laid down, as far as Fortesque Road (later renamed Rylett Crescent).

ROSEDEW ROAD

Built as part of the Crabtree Farm Estate in 1911 by the building company Allen & Norris.

ROWBERRY MEAD

Further south lay Rowberry Mead on the east side of the narrow lane extending from Fulham Palace. This was an old homestead, which used to be attached to a cherry orchard, “reputed to be the finest in England”. Its history dated from 1638. In 1661 the Bishop of London granted a lease “of all that meade called Rowberry Meade with appurtenances, containing by estimacon six acres”. In the late 19th century osiers and reeds were grown and dried at Rowberry Meade for the basketmaking industry. Rowberry Mead extended from the river on the west to the Fulham Fields on the east and north and to Pale Mead on the south.

The meadow next to the river extending from Rowberry Mead to Fulham Palace was known as Palemead. It consisted of 15 acres, and in 1900 still contained a few fine trees probably between
two and three centuries old.

RYECROFT STREET

Ryecroft Street was built between 1894-5.

The buildings on Peterborough Road, Coniger Road, Stokenchurch Street and Ryecroft Street form the earliest development on the local estate, and were more modest in scale and appearance. The characteristic shared gable over part of the front elevation of a pair of two storey houses, together with paired front entrance doors in recessed arched side sections, can be seen to have developed as a popular architectural feature. In the earliest houses, on Peterborough Road, these alternate with pairs of house with eaves and recessed first floor elevations. Full width timber balconies across the front of their first floor elevations continue across the entrance porches of the adjoining gabled houses. This gives the terrace the feel of a row of cottages by introducing articulation and visual interest into the front elevation. Subsequent roads had terraces that consisted entirely of pairs of houses with shared gables, partly because they looked grander, and partly because this gave the first floor more space, and eventually the recessed first floor over the entrance porch with its balcony was also brought forward. So, although the earlier terraces did not follow precisely the same design as the later parallel streets, they are generally variations on the same theme.

SANDILANDS ROAD

Sandilands Road, built in the 1880s was one of the next developments, but because it was made up of simply designed terraced artisan cottages with no front gardens and tiny back yards, it soon became thought of as part of a “region of poverty and squalor”.

SANDS END

The land comprising Sands End was part of the Town Meadows in the Fulham area. It was liable to flooding and generally open, dissected by creeks. The land was gradually developed through the 1890’s taking advantage of the river frontage and was a fully developed industrial area by the time of publication of the 1916 ordnance survey. These industrial areas were accessed by
Townmead and Carnwath Roads which run parallel with the river frontage, with numerous points of access to the river.

By 1916 extensive residential areas to the north of the designated area were complete. The land remained predominantly in industrial use until the 1980’s when the decline of traditional industries and uses led to the dereliction and clearance of many sites. From this time a variety of redevelopment schemes have diversified activities within the Sands End Conservation Area.

SAWLEY ROAD (1928)

Sawley Road bisects the Cleverly Estate running area east to west.

The Cleverly Estate started in 1928.

SEDLESCOMBE ROAD

Sedlescombe Road was formerly part of a large farm holding in the Walham Green area of Fulham.

The first houses were built on fields adjoining Beaufort House, North End Road, the headquarters of the 2nd (south) Middlesex Volunteer Rifles Corps, forerunners of todays’
Territorial Army.

These fields had been used as brickfields and orchards. The subsoil here is brickearth that had been extracted for making orange-red bricks.

This area of Fulham had been generally known, since medieval times, as ‘Marchcroft’. It extended east to Chelsea Creek and was very prone to flooding due to its low-lying position.

The 1894-6 Sedlescombe Road Conservation Area was Ordnance Survey map shows much of the road network in place, including Halford Road, Ongar Road, Hildyard Road and part of Anselm Road.

The ‘Beaufort House Estate’, to give the area its correct title, consisted of about 370 houses and was commenced around 1900.

The freehold of the land of the ‘Estate’ was built on was held by the Gunter family. Of Welsh extraction, they had from the late 18th Century, acquired land in Fulham, Chelsea, Earl’s Court and Kensington, mainly for market hardening Scdlcscombc and Racton Roads and the north end of Tamworth Street occupy the site of Beaufort House which was demolished following the expiry of the last lease in 1902. The Estate architect was Walter Cave who designed and planned the houses. However, there was not one single developer but several small speculative builders. As a result, although Cave oversaw the development, the builders did not stick entirely to his designs. This development, that was a cut above the surrounding streets, is an estate of distinctively designed houses in a plain Arts and Crafts style.

SEDGEFIELD ROAD

Sedgefield Road dates from 1915.

SHAFTESBURY ROAD

The London and South Western Railway opened its line from Waterloo to Richmond in 1869 with stations at Shaflesbury Road (now Ravenscourt Park) and Turnham Green.

The fields and nurseries began to be filled with houses in the prevailing styles of the time.

SHEPHERD’S BUSH

By the Mid 15th Century there was little development in the area beyond a few houses, and an inn, on the north side of the Common and Syndercombe Cottage, on the corner of Gold Lock
Lane.

From the 17th Century the North High Way (Uxbridge Road), the main route from London to Oxford, ran along the north side of the triangular green known as Shepherds Bush, an area of waste land owned by Fulham Manor, The other two sides of the triangle led to Brook Green Lane (Shepherds Bush Road) and Gold Lock Lane (Goldhawk Road).

By the Early 19th Century the roads were much improved and the north side of the Common and the beginning of Wood Lane, up to Wood House, were lined with terraces. A development of semi detached houses, known as Lawn Place, lined the west side of the Green but the southern side remained open.

By the Mid 19th Century the Common had been acquired by the Metropolitan Board of Works from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, (the Lords of Fulham Manor), and drained and the ground level raised.

By the Late 19th Century the area had changed dramatically. The Common and the surrounding areas had been built up, although less so on the west side, and the character of the area was now distinctly suburban. This development was greatly facilitated by the opening of two new railways in the area. Market gardens were replaced by row upon row of terraced houses built speculatively for occupation by the lower middle class white collar workers who commuted to the City.

Shepherds Bush Common was at this time the centre of a growing and prosperous Late Victorian suburb. Whilst the south and west sides remained residential the houses on the north side
gave way to shops, providing the everyday services required by the local populace. The Common itself had been laid out with pathways, a drinking fountain was installed at its west end and trees planted around its perimeter.

SHEPHERD’S BUSH PLACE

By the mid 19th century, areas to the north and west of Shepherds Bush Common were almost totally built up, with a particular density of building around the eastern end of the Common which included Providence Place (Shepherds Bush Place).

It is an Early 1840’s attractive terrace of two storey cottages in stock bricks with shallow pitched slate roofs.

SILVERTON ROAD

Built as part of the Crabtree Farm Estate in 1911 by the building company Allen & Norris.

SKELWITH ROAD (1911)

All the properties in Skelwith Road were destroyed by bombing during the Second World War. The street was rebuilt in a similar style during the 1950s but the properties have slightly simpler details including tiled gables and straight porch hoods.

SOUTH PARK

South Park, a 20 acre site formerly occupied by Southfields Nursery (or Broom Farm) in which use it had been put since 1711. The land was purchased by Fulham Borough Council and the London County Council in 1903 and opened as a public park in 1904. The layout of the park is clearly evident from the 1914 Ordnance Survey which demonstrates that the landscape framework today retains much of its Edwardian character.

SOUTHCOMBE STREET

By 1853 the existing road pattern was established and terraces of modest houses built. Although originally called Sun Street, by 1869 the various sections of the road had been renamed
Devonshire Street (later Southcombe Street), Vernon Street and Munden Street.

ST PETER’S GROVE

St Peter’s Grove dates from the mid 19th centmy and is shown very much in its current form on the 1871 OS map.

ST PETER’S SQUARE

St Peter’s Square was begun in c. 1825 and was completed c.1840. The architect may have been J. C. Loudon who designed the communal gardens or his colleague Edward Lapidge who designed the church.

STEVENAGE ROAD

Millshot Farm existed on the east side of the present day Stevenage Road opposite Rowberry Mead on the river. St James’ Home “Female Penitentiary” and its grounds used to exist on the site of the later Robert Owen House and its grounds.

Dorset Villa (later known as Dorset Cottage) originally formed part of the estate of Sir Nicholas Crispe in the 17th century. The house appears on Rocque’s map as the substantial building in the little cluster of cottages near the river at “Crab tree”. It was an attractive and secluded house surrounded by pleasure grounds which contained some “very fine old timber, choice rhododendrons and shrubs of luxuriant growth”. They extended from Crabtree Alley on the north to Crabtree Lane on the south. On the west the estate was bounded by the river Thames and on the east by the narrow lane extending from Fulham Palace, which today is the alignment of Stevenage Road and Rainville Road. Connected to Dorset Villa via a covered access was a separate villa, covered in i.y, which contained dining and billiard rooms.

The river lawn which was a distinctive feature of Dorset Villa, possessed a long terrace walk with landing steps to the Thames at the northern end and a rustic summer house and smoking room at the southern end. In the grounds were a grotto, a rockery and a lofty water tower. In 1876 the estate was sold. The house was demolished in 1890, and the site converted to a development scheme.

STEVENTON ROAD

Steventon Road dates from 1915.

STUDDRIDGE STREET

The core of the present conservation area west of Wandsworth Bridge Road, between Coniger Road and Chipstead Street, was once part of the grounds of Peterborough House, the home of the Mordaunt family and later the Earl of Peterborough. The land of the estate was eventually sold in 1888 and 1890 and Peterborough House demolished. Studdridge Street was begun in 1896 and by 1902 linked the southern ends of all the new estate roads built north – south between it and New Kings Road; Bradbourne Street built in 1901-02; Chiddingstone Street in 1901-03.

SWAN INN

The Swan Inn, facing the river, was built or rebuilt in 1698. This alehouse derived much of its trade from people using the adjacent ferry and later the old Fulham Bridge, just as did the Bell nearby. By the mid 18th century, the alehouse had an adjoining brewhouse for making beer and close by was a fire bargehouse which was probably used as a warehouse. By the early 19th century a malthouse was erected at the rear of the alehouse and in 1812 it was producing 5,000 quarts of malt per annum. In 1900 it was known as the “Swan Maltings” and belonged to the Royal Brewery, Chelsea. The old “Swan” was a picturesque looking inn with pleasant tea gardens extending down to the river. A paved area in front of the building used to be often used as the parade ground of the Fulham light infantry volunteers.

In 1871 it was destroyed by fire. Swan Wharf Chambers subsequently occupied the site of the old “Swan” Inn.

SWANBANK COURT

Swanbank Court is a three and four storey block of sheltered accommodation on the site of Swan Wharf adjacent to Putney Bridge. It was built in 1981 by Green, Lloyd & Adams in brown brick and has a plain vernacular style.

TALGARTH ROAD

The 1865 Ordnance Survey Plan shows that the main arterial thoroughfares of North End Lane (upgraded and renamed Talgarth Road), North End Road and Old Greyhound Road (renamed Greyhound Road), existed at this time.

TAMWORTH STREET

Tamworth Street was erected about 1900 The the west side between Halford Road and Anselm Road was known as 1-5 Beaufort Terrace. The remainder of the west side was called
Tamworth Street and numbered even. The east side was developed form 1902 entirely by George Nixey of 24 New Kngs Road, Fulham. His family owned the property until the 1970s. Om 10 December 1906, Beaufort Terrace was incorporated into Tamworth Street.

THE CEDARS

The Cedars, built in 1779, was an imposing house set back from Hammersmith Road to stand in some 3 acres of landscaped grounds.

VEREKER ROAD

Nos. 2 to 42 (even) Vereker Road is a development of terraced residential houses, which are distinct from their neighbours. They were built between April and December 1884. Each red brick terrace of three or six houses is characterised by the dominant first floor balcony with iron railings set on stone brackets above the entrance porch and ground floor picture window.

VERNON STREET

By the late 1850s the terrace on the South side of Vernon Street had been extended eastwards, to North End Road, and a public house, The Rising Sun, built at the western end (now demolished).

WALHAM GROVE

The site of Walham Grove, in the 19th Century, was allotments and market gardens owned by the Harwood family.Colonel Harwood lived at Waterslade Court that stood between Harwood Terrace and the New Kings Road. Harwood Road was subsequently driven through part of the estate. The adjoining streets, Kempson Road, Blake Gardens and Tyrawley Road are all named after members of the Harwood family.

The Walham Grove development was commenced about 1862. The landowners were Edward and Anne Hanvood and a Harwood family trust was established.

An examination of the deeds of No. 40, dated 1868, show that the developer was Frederick Augustus Penney and the builder was Charles Henry Wootten.

WANDSWORTH BRIDGE

Wandsworth Bridge is a key feature in the area providing views along the Thames in both directions. The bridge standing today was completed in 1939 and was designed by the London County Council Chief Engineer, Mr T. Pierson Frank in collaboration with the London County Council architect Mr E P Wheeler. This replaced a metal lattice work bridge designed by Mr J H Tolme which opened in 1873. The earlier bridge could not cope with the traffic and encountered structural problems.

WANDSWORTH BRIDGE ROAD

Wandsworth Bridge was built in 1873, and a new link, Wandsworth Bridge Road, was formed between New King’s Road and Wandsworth and settlements south of the Thames.

WEST MEADOW

The portion of Bishop’s Park extending along the north-west side of Bishop’s Avenue and down to the river, occupied exactly seven acres and was known as the West Meadow.

The Thames used to flood this meadow at high tide and render it into a swamp. This was remedied by the construction of an embankment.

Two acres of this meadow were separated from the rest, and a lawn was raised sloping down to the river and surrounded with a plantation of various forest trees.

Between the Moat and the river was the Bishop’s Meadow. This piece of riverside land used to frequently be flooded by the Thames and, hence, became known also as Tide Meadow. The path
which led round by the Moat, extending from the south end of Bishops Avenue to Pryor’s Bank, was known as Bishops Walk, which was an elevated and a dangerous way with water on both sides of it.

WESTCROFT SQUARE

The Conservation Area was known as Westcroft Field, which belonged to the Manor of Palingswick, which dates back to the Late 13th Century.

In the Mid 18th Century the Conservation Area was still one open field, (Westcroft Field) delineated by field boundaries in the shape of a truncated L. This land was under some sort of cultivation attached to three houses fronting King Street.

Westcroft Square was constructed c.1878. Its open area was originally intended for development, but was acquired by Hammersmith Council in 1929/30 as public open space.

WHITE CITY ESTATE

Following the demise of exhibitions in the late 1930s the White City site, excluding the stadium, was razed and a large part of it developed as estate, completed in 1940, to rehouse the slum dwellers of North Kensington.

A significant area of the original landscaping was retained and made into Hammersmith Park.

WHITE CITY CLOSE

To the north of the Television Centre is a residential area which fronts onto Wood Lane and South Africa Road. White City Close (1975-78) was designed by the architects Darbourne & Dark
and is one of three local authority housing developments by these architects.

WOOD LANE

From the 17th century the North High Way (Uxbridge Road), the main route fiom London to Oxford, ran along the north side of Shepherd’s Bush Green. Wood Lane struck north, from the western corner of the Green, through rough open space and common land, largely under the ownership of the Manor of Fulham, to “Wormholt Scrubbs”. To the south of the area lay rich farmland, orchards and nurseries.

By the early 19th century the east side of Wood Lane, at its southern end, was beginning to be developed by a series of large semi-detached villas and in the midst of these a large property,
Wood House, stood in extensive grounds. Wood Lane, and its environs, was still largely a landscape of rough open land with a few nurseries.

By the mid 19th century railways were bisecting the open fields. The lower west side of Wood Lane was still covered with nurseries, but two new properties, Eynham Farm and Wood Lane
Farm, had been built on the east side.

Du Cane Road to the north was built in the 1870’s, along with Wormwood Scrubs Prison, whilst to the east the area of Notting Hill was fast developing.

By the end of the century the area had changed dramatically. The west side of Wood Lane, at its southern end, had been developed with speculative terraced housing, the fields flanking Wood Lane to the north being used as brickfields. The area at ths time formed the northern edge of a growing and prosperous late Victorian suburb.

WOODLAWN ROAD

Woodlawn Road, the surrounding four streets of late 19th century housing developmentand the 1903 extension to Bishops Park, used to be under cultivation.

This area is characterised by a rectilinear street pattern of four residential streets running east/west across the conservation area between Fulham Palace Road and Stevenage Road.

Woodlawn Road is the central spine running through the centre of the area, bisecting the four residential streets at right angles and extending to Bishops Park Road to the south.

The residential properties, Victorian semidetached, were constructed between 1897 and 1901 in lots by several contractors. Their consistent style and detail implies the use of
pattern books, rather than the work of a single architect.

WORMHOLT ESTATE

This sub area is comprised of Bloemfontein Road, Bramble Gardens, Bryony Road, Clematis Street, Daffodil Street, Erica Street, Foxglove Street, Gravesend Road, Hemlock Road, Hilary Road, Joslings Close, Lilac Street, Milfoil Street, Old Oak Road, Orchid Street, Pansy Gardens, Peony Gardens, Sawley Road, Sundew Avenue, Sundew Close, Steventon Road, Tamarisk Square, The Curve, Viola Square, Wallflower Street, Wormholt Road, Yew Tree Road and Wormholt Park.

The land for the Wormholt Estate was acquired from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in 1919. The LCC initially built 783 dwellings while Hammersmith Council proposed to develop 500 hundred houses on the adjoining 76 acres forming the core of the estate. Proposals for 37 shops fronting the Western Avenue were abandoned due to excessive costs, but Wormholt Park was opened in 1911 and Hammersmith Open Air Swimming Pool opened in 1923. Community facilities also included the Wormholt Library and Infant Welfare Centre (1930) and the present day Ark Bentworth (1929), Cambridge (1931) and Wormholt Park Schools (1922). Plans to extend the estate into the White City Exhibition site were also abandoned.

The Wormholt Estate planned from 1919, follows similar garden city principles with more generously designed houses. Built for Hammersmith by H.T. Hare with J.E. Franck, M.J. Dawson and P. Streatfield (each architect responsible for one section), and intended to relieve the crowded slums of the Hammersmith Riverside. By 1926 600 houses existed on the 50 acres between Old Oak Common Lane, Steventon Road and Bloemfontein Road. This portion still gives a good idea of the “homes fit for heroes” campaign (Pevsner and Cherry 2002).

In 1930 a Cinema with shops fronting onto Old Oak Road was erected at the corner with Westway. It operated as the Savoy Cinema from 1931 to 1962 before being converted to a bingo hall. The present day Phoenix High School, Erica Street was built on playing fields in 1954-8 as two separate secondary schools; Hammersmith County School (Girls’) and Christopher Wren School (Boys’). St Katherine’s Church, Westway opened in 1958-9, replacing the previous church of St Katherine Colman (1922) destroyed by bombing during World War Two.

56 houses on the south side of the Westway between Hemlock Road and Old Oak Road were demolished in 1996 in a plan to widen the A40 and introduce an underpass at Savoy Circus. The road scheme was later abandoned and the Banstead Court apartment blocks were built on the cleared land. These plans also resulted in the simultaneous demolition of The Savoy Cinema and the site remained vacant until 2017 when construction of student accommodation began.

Postwar housing development in the conservation area has included Clematis Cottages on the site of a green at Primula Street and Rosewood Square, a sheltered housing complex built in 1984 on the site of the former St Katherine’s Hall off Primula Street. Westway Park, an old peoples’ home was built in the 1960s on vacant land on the south side of the Westway. Much of the complex was demolished and replaced with new housing at Joslings Close in 2003. Three terraces of interwar flat blocks at Nos. 9-127 (odd) Heathstan Road were replaced with new apartment blocks in 2006.

WORMHOLT PARK

The area where Wormholt Park is situated was once woodland but was cleared probably sometime after the Norman Conquest; the land in this area became part of the Manor of Fulham owned by the Bishops of London, with Wormholt Woods commonland used for grazing.

In the 19th Century the area was largely farmed and in the 1850s what was to become the site of Wormholt Park appears to have been called Barn Field within the lands of either Wormholt Farm or Old Oak Farm. In 1903 the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who owned the land, offered Hammersmith Borough Council an area to be used for recreational purposes, provided all works were carried out by the Council. The land conveyance eventually took place in 1909 and the park was laid out, the work undertaken by local unemployed people. The LCC contributed £1,000 to the cost of layout providing it was completed to their satisfaction. Wormholt Park was opened on 27 June 1911 as part of the borough’s celebrations to commemorate the coronation of George V (LGO 2017).

On 4 August 1923, on adjoining land to the park, White City Lido was opened, designed by the Borough Engineer R Hampton Clucas. Costing £13,149, it took 60 unemployed men 6 months to build the 150 x 75ft pool, which had small lawns at both ends. However, it closed after the 1979 season and was converted into the indoor Janet Adegoke Leisure Centre in 1980 (LGO 2017). In November 2011 planning permission was granted for the redevelopment of the site for the Bloom Building to a design by Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners containing a health care centre, retail units, 170 apartments and underground car parking. The design was subsequently refined by Penoyre & Prasad and the development has since been completed.

WORMHOLT ROAD (1915)

Nos. 82-104 (even) are attractive Edwardian houses, predating the construction of the Wormholt Estate. The houses are terraced or semi-detached with slate roofs and full height, canted window bays with gables above. Window surrounds and architraves around the entrances are stucco (patterned around the entrances). A continuous, full width cornice runs across each façade above ground floor level. Entrances are wide and recessed within porches and many original timber patterned doors remain intact. Windows are timber sash. Front gardens are generous and some contain original pattern tessellated tiles.

1 ping

  1. […] Hammersmith and Fulham […]

Leave a Reply