Staveley Road, W4

Staveley Road was the site of the first V2 rocket landing on London.

Memorial on the site of the first V-2 rocket to land on London during the Second World War, located in Staveley Road, W4.
Credit: Patche99z

At 18.43 on Friday 8 September 1944, a V2 missile launched from Wassenaar, Netherlands in Holland landed in Staveley Road, near the junction with Burlington Lane.

The V2 on Chiswick resulted in three deaths. Three year old Rosemary Clarke who lived at number 1 Staveley Road, Ada Harrison aged 68 of 3 Staveley Road and Sapper Bernard Browning, who was on leave, and on his way to Chiswick Station. 19 were injured.

The missile had taken seven minutes to reach Chiswick from Holland, travelling at around 3000mph. This is regarded as the world’s first recognised ballistic rocket attack, although another V-2 had previously landed in the outskirts of Paris earlier in the morning.

Eleven houses were completely destroyed and another fifteen had to be extensively rebuilt. The general public was not notified about the existence of V2 rockets until November.

Sixteen seconds after the V2 attack occurred in Chiswick, another V2 landed in a rural location in Epping Forest landing harmlessly.

Staveley Road covered the original site of Chiswick Park Farm and was built between 1927 and 1931 as part of the Chiswick Park Estate.

Main source:	Launch And Landing Sites Of The First V-2 On London - A London I
	Further citations and sources

Click here to explore another London street
We now have 666 completed street histories and 46834 partial histories
Find streets or residential blocks within the M25 by clicking STREETS

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE LOCALITY

None so far :(

LATEST LONDON-WIDE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PROJECT

Tony Whipple Frank Whipple Place, E14 Added: 16 Apr 2024 21:35 GMT	Frank Whipple Place, E14 Frank was my great-uncle, I’d often be ’babysat’ by Peggy while Nan and Dad went to the pub. Peggy was a marvel, so full of life. My Dad and Frank didn’t agree on most politics but everyone in the family is proud of him. A genuinely nice, knowledgable bloke. One of a kind. Reply
Theresa Penney Whites Row, E1 Added: 16 Apr 2024 18:08 GMT	1 Whites Row My 2 x great grandparents and his family lived here according to the 1841 census. They were Dutch Ashkenazi Jews born in Amsterdam at the beginning of the 19th century but all their children were born in Spitalfields. Reply
Wendy The Polygon Added: 22 Mar 2024 15:33 GMT	Polygon Buildings Following the demolition of the Polygon, and prior to the construction of Oakshott Court in 1974, 4 tenement type blocks of flats were built on the site at Clarendon Sq/Phoenix Rd called Polygon Buildings. These were primarily for people working for the Midland Railway and subsequently British Rail. My family lived for 5 years in Block C in the 1950s. It seems that very few photos exist of these buildings. Reply
Steve Charleville Circus, SE26 Added: 19 Mar 2024 08:42 GMT	Road construction and houses completed New Charleville Circus road layout shown on Stanford’s Library Map Of London And Its Suburbs 1879 with access via West Hill only. Plans showing street numbering were recorded in 1888 so we can concluded the houses in Charleville Circus were built by this date. Source: Charleville Circus, Sydenham, London Reply
Steve Charleville Circus, SE26 Added: 19 Mar 2024 08:04 GMT	Charleville Circus, Sydenham: One Place Study (OPS) One Place Study’s (OPS) are a recent innovation to research and record historical facts/events/people focused on a single place �’ building, street, town etc. I have created an open access OPS of Charleville Circus on WikiTree that has over a million members across the globe working on a single family tree for everyone to enjoy, for free, forever. Source: Charleville Circus, Sydenham, London Reply
Charles Hornsey Rise, N19 Added: 8 Mar 2024 20:45 GMT	My House I want to know who lived in my house in the 1860’s. Reply
NH Woodgrange Road, E7 Added: 7 Mar 2024 11:41 GMT	Telephone House Donald Hunter House, formerly Telephone House, was the BT Offices closed in 2000 Reply
Paul Cox Aldine Street, W12 Added: 5 Mar 2024 22:18 GMT	War damage reinstatement plans of No’s 11 & 13 Aldine Street Whilst clearing my elderly Mothers house of general detritus, I’ve come across original plans (one on acetate) of No’s 11 & 13 Aldine Street. Might they be of interest or should I just dispose of them? There are 4 copies seemingly from the one single acetate example. Seems a shame to just junk them as the level of detail is exquisite. No worries if of no interest, but thought I’d put it out there. Reply

LOCAL PHOTOS

Click here to see map view of nearby Creative Commons images
Click here to see Creative Commons images near to this postcode
Click here to see Creative Commons images tagged with this road (if applicable)

The front building of 22 St Peter’s Square Credit: Wiki commons TUM image id: 1511370000 Licence:	Ashleigh Road Credit: Barnes and Mortlake History Society TUM image id: 1600619780 Licence: CC BY 2.0	Barnes High Street (1907) Old London postcard TUM image id: 1600620088 Licence: CC BY 2.0	Chiswick High Road (1900s) TUM image id: 1519219785 Licence: CC BY 2.0	Coval Road, East Sheen (1927) Old London postcard TUM image id: 1636121964 Licence:
East Sheen Avenue (1951) Credit: Barnes and Mortlake History Society TUM image id: 1600809863 Licence: CC BY 2.0	Keene’s Automobile Works in Flanders Road, c. 1903. Mr L.P. Keene had earlier set up his works in a yard behind the Stores in Bath Road. He claimed it was the best repairing works in London with accommodation for 250 cars. He developed a fourteen-horsepower steam car called the ’Keenelet’, but it did not catch on and the company failed in 1904. In 1906 the firm of H.J. Mulliner, coachbuilders, took over the premises, which by then included workshops and offices in the three-storey Stores building. Mulliners made high-quality coachwork for firms such as Rolls-Royce and Bentley. It merged with Park Ward and moved to Willesden in 1961. A large red-brick office block, appropriately named Mulliner House, now occupies the site of the automobile works. TUM image id: 1681217745 Licence:	Lancing Terrace, Lower Richmond Road, Mortlake (1906) Looking west from brewery entrance; the cottages on the right were Bellevue Terrace; Houses with the bays were Lancing Terrace. The expansion of the Stag Brewery caused the demolished of both. Old London postcard TUM image id: 1636046581 Licence:	Mortlake High Street, SW14 TUM image id: 1466548024 Licence: CC BY 2.0	Mullins Path, Mortlake (early 1900s) National Schools and Vineyard path; Elizabeth Cottage on the right. Credit: Barnes History Society TUM image id: 1675179927 Licence:
South Parade, W4 TUM image id: 1466532570 Licence: CC BY 2.0	St Leonard’s Road, East Sheen, SW14 (undated) Old London postcard TUM image id: 1636118299 Licence:	Station Road, Barnes (c.1920) Barnes station was opened quite some distance from Barnes itself. The station was opened on 27 July 1846, when the line to Richmond was built. Grade II listed, it was designed by the architect John Thomas Emmett and is the only survivor of four brick-built Tudor Gothic-style stations on the Richmond branch. It is not the station we are looking at here but the Methodist Church at the other end of the road. Old London postcard TUM image id: 1635873088 Licence:	The Terrace, Barnes (1960s) Large houses started to be built on Barnes Terrace in 1720. It is a notable landmark during the annual Boat Race. Old London postcard TUM image id: 1635941822 Licence:	Silver Crescent, Gunnersbury (1920s) The road was for a while an isolated crescent of houses was backed onto notable market gardens with few houses. This arrangement didn’t survive the First World War with the remaining plots being filled in along with new surrounding roads. TUM image id: 1466547824 Licence:

MAP YEAR:	1750	1800	1810	1820	1830	1860	1900	1950	2024	Show map without markers
	Use the control in the top right of the map above to view this area on another historic map