Trafalgar Street, W6

The ’Creek’ area was said to be the worst slum in west London. The 1891 census recorded very cramped conditions with 213 people living in the 22 houses of Trafalgar Street.

The Creek was once a picturesque inlet of the Thames and was spanned by a wooden bridge called the High Bridge. At the High Bridge, four old footpaths converged – two on the east: the Lower Mall and Aspen Place and two on the west: the Upper Mall and Bridge Street. Aspen Place, which Trafalgar Street lay off of, seems to have been known by a variety of names at different periods as Ship Lane, Pingsworth Lane and Cutthroat Lane.

How long a bridge existed at this spot is difficult to say. There was certainly one as early as 1541. The bridge was repaired by Bishop Howley in 1820, and again by Bishop Blomfield in 1837.

The eastern bank of the creek became occupied by wharves.

The 1800 map shows the site of Trafalgar Street as an open field. The name suggests it was built at some point after 1805.

The creek was filled in 1936 with Furnivall Gardens being built on the location in 1951. Today, only a small drainage tunnel visible over the wall at Furnivall Gardens remains as evidence of Hammersmith Creek.

After the First World War, the Riverside Gardens project covered much of the street, with the Great West Road completing the job of removing it from the map.