Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney
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Geraldine Edith Mitton >> Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney
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The fisheries of Hammersmith were formerly much celebrated. They were
leased in the seventeenth century to Sir Nicholas Crispe, Sir Abraham
Dawes, and others for the value of three salmon annually. Flounders,
smelt, salmon, barbel, eels, roach, dace, lamprey, were caught in the
river, but even in 1839 fish were growing very scarce. Faulkner, writing
at that period, says it was ten years since a salmon had been caught.
In Black Lion Lane is St. Peter's Church, built in 1829. It is of brick,
and has a high lantern tower and massive portico, supported by pillars.
Close by are the girls' and infant schools, built 1849-52. From this
point to the western boundary of the parish there is nothing further of
interest.
In King Street West, after No. 229, there is a Methodist Chapel, with an
ornamental porch. A few doors westward are the new or Upper Latymer
Schools, with the arms of the founder over the doorway. The buildings
are in red brick, with stone facings.
Returning to the north side of the Hammersmith Road, which has for some
time been overlooked, we find the King's Theatre, stone-fronted and new,
bearing date 1902. Near it is the West London Hospital, instituted May,
1856, and opened in July of the same year. Since that time it has been
greatly enlarged, and an immense new wing overlooking Wolverton Gardens
has been added. The hospital was incorporated by royal charter, November
1, 1894. It is entirely supported by voluntary contributions.
Near the Broadway is the Convent of the Sacred Heart, standing on ground
which has long been consecrated to religious uses, for a nunnery is said
to have existed here before the Reformation. In 1669 a Roman Catholic
school for girls was founded here, and in 1797 the Benedictine nuns,
driven out of France, took refuge in it. The present buildings were
erected in 1876 for a seminary, and it was not until 1893 that the nuns
of the Sacred Heart re-established a convent within the walls. The
present community employ themselves in teaching, and superintend schools
of three grades.
There stood in the Broadway until within recent years a charming old
building called The Cottage--one of those picturesque but obstructive
details in which our ancestors delighted. Behind the Congregational
Chapel there is an old hall, used as a lecture-hall, which was
originally a chapel, and which is said by Faulkner to be the oldest
place of worship in Hammersmith. It was built by the Presbyterians. The
first authentic mention of its minister is in 1700, when the Rev. Samuel
Evans "collected on the brief for Torrington at a meeting of Protestant
Dissenters held at the White Hart, Hammersmith, 13s. 6d."
In the Brook Green Road Nos. 41 to 45 contain an orphanage called St.
Mary's Catholic Orphanage for Girls. On Brook Green itself one or two
old cottages with tiled roofs are still to be seen--reminiscences of old
Hammersmith. The long strip of grass, in shape like a curving tongue,
justifies the name of "Green." Dr. Iles' almshouses, known as the Brook
Green Almshouses, have long been established here, though the present
buildings date only from 1839. They stand at the corner of Rowan Road,
and are rather ornately built in brick with diamond-paned windows. The
charity was founded in 1635 by Dr. Iles, who left "houses, almshouses,
and land on Brook Green, and moiety of a house in London." The old
almshouses were pulled down in 1839. At the north end of Brook Green,
next door to the Jolly Gardeners public-house, stood Eagle House, a
very fine old mansion, only demolished within the last twenty years.
Bute House stands on the site. Eagle House was built in the style of
Queen Anne's reign, and had a fine gateway with two stone piers
surmounted by eagles. The back of the house was of wood, and the front
of brick, and there was a massy old oak staircase. Like many other old
houses, it became for a time a school.
Sion House is a square stuccoed building, plain and without decoration
either interior or exterior. This was used as a nunnery until about
three years ago, and the wall decorations in the room used by the nuns
as a chapel are still quite fresh. This room is ugly and meagre, and
without attractiveness. It has a fine garden at the back, stretching out
parallel to that of its neighbour, and the two together embrace an area
of close upon four acres, which will make a fine playground for the
projected school. These gardens are at present neglected tangles of
evergreen creepers and trees, but with a little care might be admirably
laid out. On Brook Green is now established St. Paul's School for girls,
a companion to the large school for boys already described. This is
likely to be a very popular institution.
Near the corner of Caithness Road is the Hammersmith and West Kensington
Synagogue, opened on September 7, 1890, which forms one of the thirteen
synagogues in London that constitute together the United Synagogue, of
which Lord Rothschild is the President. The building was designed by Mr.
Delissa Joseph, F.R.I.B.A. The leading features of the design are a
gabled facade with sham minarets, and a recessed porch with overhanging
balcony. The facade is flanked by square towers containing the
staircases.
At the south end of the Green there is quite a Roman Catholic colony.
The Almshouses stand on the west side, facing the road, behind a
quadrangle of green grass. They were founded in 1824, and contain
accommodation for thirty inmates of either sex. Five of the houses are
endowed, and the pensioners pass on in rotation from the unendowed to
the endowed rooms. They must be Roman Catholics and exceed the age of
sixty years before they are received. On the north side of the
quadrangle is the Roman Catholic parish church, a fine building in the
Gothic style, with a high spire and moulded entrance doorway, built in
1851.
Immediately opposite, across the road, is St. Mary's Training College
for elementary school masters. These young men must have passed the
King's Scholarship examination and be over the age of eighteen before
they enter on the two years' course of study. The large building near on
the north side is the practising-school, where the students learn the
art of teaching practically. There is a pretty little chapel in the
college, and the walls enclose three acres of land, including site.
St. Joseph's School for pauper children is adjacent to the
practising-school, on the north side. This building is certified for 180
children, who are received from the workhouse, etc. They enter at the
age of three years, and leave at sixteen for situations. It was founded
and is managed by the Daughters of the Cross, and was established in its
present quarters September 19, 1892. Faulkner says of Brook Green, "Here
is a Roman Catholic Chapel and School called the Arke," so that this
part of Hammersmith has long been connected with the Catholics.
In the Blythe Road, No. 79, is a fine old house with an imposing
portico, which now overlooks a dingy yard. This is Blythe House,
"reported to have been haunted, and many strange stories were reported
of ghosts and apparitions having been seen here; but it turned out at
last that a gang of smugglers had taken up their residence in it." It
was once used as a school, and later on as a reformatory. It is now in
the possession of the Swan Laundry Company.
In Blythe Road there is a small mission church called Christ Church. In
Shepherd's Bush Road, at the corner of Netherwood Road, is West
Kensington Park Chapel of the Wesleyan Methodists. Shepherd's Bush and
many of the adjoining roads are thickly lined with bushy young
plane-trees. St. Simon's Church, in Minford Gardens, is an ugly
red-brick building with ornamental facings of red brick, and a high
steeple of the same materials. It was built in 1879. St. Matthew's, in
Sinclair Road, is very similar, but has a bell-gable instead of a
steeple. The foundation-stone was laid 1870. In Ceylon Road there is a
Board school. Facing Addison Road Station is the well-known place of
entertainment called Olympia, with walls of red brick and stone and a
semicircular glass roof. It contains the largest covered arena in
London.
Returning once more to the Broadway, we traverse King Street, which is
the High Street of Hammersmith. It is very narrow, and, further, blocked
by costers' barrows, so that on Saturday nights it is hard work to get
through it at all. The pressure is increased by the electric trams,
which run on a single set of rails to the Broadway. In King Street is
the Hammersmith Theatre of Varieties, the West End Lecture-Hall, and the
West End Chapel, held by the Baptists. It stands on the site of an older
chapel, which was first used for services of the Church of England, and
was acquired by the Baptists in 1793. The old tombstones standing round
the present building are memorials of the former burial-ground. At the
west end of King Street is an entrance to Ravenscourt Park, acquired by
the L.C.C. in 1888-90. The grounds cover between thirty and forty acres,
and are well laid out in flower-beds, etc., at the southern end. The
Ravenscourt Park Railway-station is on the east side, and the arched
railway-bridge crosses the southern end of the park. A beautiful avenue
of fine old elms leads to the Public Library, which is at the north end
in what was once the old manor-house.
All this part of Hammersmith was formerly included in the Manor of
Pallenswick or Paddingswick. Faulkner says this manor is situated "at
Pallengswick or Turnham Green, and extends to the western road." The
first record of it is at the end of Edward III.'s reign, when it was
granted to Alice Perrers or Pierce, who was one of the King's
favourites. She afterwards married Lord Windsor, a Baron, and Lieutenant
of Ireland. Report has also declared that King Edward used the
manor-house as a hunting-seat, and his arms, richly carved in wood,
stood in a large upper room until a few years before 1813. But the house
itself cannot have been very ancient then, for Lysons says it had only
recently been rebuilt at the date he wrote--namely, 1795. The influence
of Alice Perrers over the King was resented by his courtiers, who
procured her banishment when he died in 1378. After her marriage,
however, King Richard II. granted the manor to her husband.
There is a gap in the records of the manor subsequently until John Payne
died, leaving it to his son William in 1572. This was the "William Payne
of Pallenswick, Esq.," who placed a monument in Fulham Church to the
memory of himself and his wife before his own death, and who left an
island called Makenshawe "to the use of the poor of this parish on the
Hammersmith side." This bequest is otherwise described as being part of
an island or twig-ait called Mattingshawe, situated in the parish of
Richmond in the county of Surrey. At the time the bequest was left the
rent-charge on the island amounted to L3 yearly, which was to be
distributed among twelve poor men and women the first year, and to be
used for apprenticing a poor boy the second year, alternately. Sir
Richard Gurney, Lord Mayor of London, bought the manor in 1631. It was
several times sold and resold, and in Faulkner's time belonged to one
George Scott. It had only then recently begun to be known as
Ravenscourt. The house was granted to the commissioners of the public
library by the London County Council at a nominal rent, and the library
was opened by Sir John Lubbock, March 19, 1890. In a case at the head of
the stairs are a series of the Kelmscott Press books, presented by Sir
William Morris. Round the walls of the rooms hang many interesting old
prints, illustrative of ancient houses in Hammersmith and Fulham. There
is also a valuable collection of cuttings, prints, and bills relating to
the local history of the parish. In the entrance hall are hung prints of
Rocque's and other maps of Hammersmith, and the original document signed
by the enrolled band of volunteers in 1803. Among the treasures of the
library may be mentioned the minute-book of the volunteers, a copy of
Bowack's "Middlesex," and an original edition of Rocque's maps of London
and environs.
Just outside the park, on the east side, is the Church of Holy
Innocents, opposite St. Peter's Schools. It is a high brick building,
opened September 25, 1890. There is a Primitive Methodist chapel with
school attached in Dalling Road near by. In Glenthorne Road is the
Church of St. John the Evangelist, founded in 1858, and designed by Mr.
Butterfield. A magnificent organ was built in it by one of the
parishioners in memory of her late husband.
Behind the church are the Godolphin Schools, founded in the sixteenth
century by the will of W. Godolphin, and rebuilt in 1861. In Southerton
Road there is a small Welsh chapel. The Goldhawk Road is an old Roman
road, a fact which was conclusively proved by the discovery of the old
Roman causeway accidentally dug up by workmen in 1834.
Shepherd's Bush Green is a triangular piece of grass an acre or two in
extent. There seems to be no recognised derivation of the curious name.
At Shepherd's Bush, in 1657, one Miles Syndercomb hired a house for the
purpose of assassinating Oliver Cromwell as he passed along the highroad
to the town. The plot failed, and Syndercomb was hanged, drawn, and
quartered in consequence. The precise spot on which the attempt took
place is impossible to identify. It was somewhere near "the corner of
Golders Lane," says Faulkner, but the lane has long since been
obliterated.
St. Stephen's Church, in the Uxbridge Road, was the earliest church in
this part of Hammersmith. It was built and endowed by Bishop Blomfield
in 1850. Its tower and spire, rising to the height of 150 feet, can be
seen for some distance.
St. Thomas's, in the Godolphin Road, is rather a pretty church of brick
with red-tiled roof, and some ornamental stonework on the south face. It
was built in 1882, designed by Sir A. Blomfield, and the
foundation-stone was laid by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts. The chancel
was added in 1887.
In Leysfield Road stands St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, of which the
foundation-stone was laid by the present Duke of Argyll, March 30,
1870.
In the extreme west of the Goldhawk Road is St. Mary's Church, in bright
red brick, erected 1886. The Duchess of Teck laid the foundation-stone.
This has brought us to the end of the houses. Behind St. Mary's lie
waste land and market-gardens. Just outside the parish boundary are two
old houses of brick in the style of the seventeenth century; they used
to be known as Stamford Brook Manor House, but they have no authentic
history. Starch Green Road branches off from the Goldhawk Road opposite
Ravenscourt Park; this road, running up into the Askew Road, was
formerly known by the still more extraordinary name of Gaggle Goose
Green.
In Cobbold Road, to the north of the waste land is St. Saviour's. An
iron church was first erected here in 1884, and the present red-brick
building was consecrated March 4, 1889. The chancel was only added in
1894.
In Becklow Road are a neat row of almshouses with gabled roofs. These
are the Waste Land Almshouses. In the words of the charity report,
ordered to be printed by the Vestry of Hammersmith in 1890, "This
foundation owes its origin to a resolution which was entered into by the
copyholders of the Manor on Fulham on the 23rd April, 1810, that no
grants of waste land belonging to the manor should in future be applied
to the purpose of raising a fund and endowing almshouses."
Part of the money received from the Waste Lands Fund thus created has
been appropriated to the Fulham side, and part to the Hammersmith side.
The Hammersmith almshouses were at first built at Starch Green. In 1868
these houses were pulled down and new ones erected. The present
almshouses were erected in 1886 for twelve inmates.
In the Uxbridge Road, opposite Becklow Road, is St. Luke's Church, a
red-brick building with no spire or tower, erected in 1872. The iron
church which it succeeded, stands still behind it, and is used for a
choir-room and vestry.
A short way westward, in the Uxbridge Road, is Oaklands Congregational
Church, a somewhat heavy building covered with stucco, with a large
portico supported by Corinthian columns.
Behind the houses bordering the north of the Uxbridge Road is a wide
expanse of waste land with one or two farms. This part of the Manor of
Fulham was leased in 1549 by Bishop Bonner to Edward, Duke of Somerset,
under the name of the Manor of Wormholt Barns. Through the attainder of
the Duke the Crown eventually obtained possession of it. It passed
through various hands, and was split up at last into two parts,
Wormholt and Eynham lands; these two names are still preserved in
Wormholt and Eynham Farms. In 1812 the Government took a lease of the
northern part of the land for twenty-one years at an annual rent of
L100, which was subsequently renewed. On part of this land was built the
prison of Wormwood Scrubs in 1874. Part is used as a rifle-range, and to
the north is a large public and military ground for exercising troops,
etc. To the east of the prison are the Chandos and the North Kensington
cricket and football ground.
The Prison walls enclose an area of sixteen acres. The building was all
done by convict labour. To the south, without the walls, lie the houses
of the officials, warders, etc. On the great towers by the gateway are
medallions of John Howard and Elizabeth Fry. Within the courtyard are
workshops, etc., and immediately opposite the gateway is a fine chapel
with circular windows built of Portland stone. Four great "halls"
stretch out northward, at right angles to the gates. These measure 387
feet in length, are four stories in height, and each provides
accommodation for 360 prisoners. The three western ones are for men,
that on the east for women. On the male side one "hall" is reserved for
convicts doing their months of solitary confinement before passing on
elsewhere. The men are employed as masons, carpenters, etc., the women
in laundry and needle-work. The exercise-grounds are large and airy;
the situation is very healthy.
The next district, traversed by the Latymer Road, is a squalid,
miserable quarter of the borough, with poor houses on either side. In
Clifton Street is St. Gabriel's, the mission church of St. James's, a
little brick building erected in 1883 by the parishioners and others.
Further northward, beyond the railway-bridge, is Holy Trinity Church.
The foundation-stone was laid on Ascension Day, 1887, by the Duchess of
Albany. It is a red-brick building with a fine east window decorated
with stone tracery. Beyond this there is nothing further of interest
except St. Mary's Roman Catholic cemetery at Kensal Green. It comprises
thirty acres, and was opened in May, 1858. There are many notable names
among those buried here, namely: Cardinals Wiseman and Manning; Clarkson
Stanfield, R.A.; Dr. Rock, who was Curator of Ecclesiastical Antiquities
in the South Kensington Museum; Adelaide A. Proctor, Panizzi, Prince
Lucien Bonaparte, and others. To the west of the cemetery lies a network
of interlacing railways, to the north a few streets, in one of which
there is an iron church.
We have now made practical acquaintance with this vast borough,
stretching from the river to Kensal Green, and including within its
limits an exceptional number of churches and chapels of all
denominations. There are numerous convents, almshouses, and schools.
Hammersmith has always been noted for its charities, and no bequest to
its poor has ever been made without being doubled and trebled by
subsequent gratuities. On a general survey, the three most interesting
places within the boundaries seem to be: St. Paul's School, flourishing
in Hammersmith, but not indigenous; Ravenscourt Park, with its aroma of
old history, and the sternly practical institution of Wormwood Scrubs
Prison. Hammersmith can boast not a few great names among its residents,
by no means least that of the loyal Sir Nicholas Crispe; but with
Kneller, Radcliffe, Worlidge, Morland, Thompson, Turner, and Morris, it
has a goodly list.
[Illustration: HAMMERSMITH DISTRICT.
Published by A. & C. Black, London.]
FULHAM
The earliest authority for the derivation of the name of Fulham is
Camden, in his "Britannia," who is quoted by all succeeding writers.
Norden says: "Fulham, of the Saxons called Fullon-ham, which (as Master
Camden taketh it) signifieth Volucrum Domus, the Habitacle of Birds or
the Place of Fowls. Fullon and Furglas in the Saxon toong signifieth
Fowles, and Ham or Hame as much as Home in our Toong. So that Fullonham
or Fuglahame is as much as to say the Home House or Habitacle of Fowle.
Ham also in many places signifieth Amnis a River. But it is most
probable it should be of Land Fowle which usually haunt Groves and
Clusters of Trees whereof in this Place it seemeth to have been plenty."
Bowack also quotes Camden, adding: "In all Probability a Place where all
sorts of Water Fowls were bred and preserved for the Diversion of our
Saxon Monarchs."
Lysons, commenting on this derivation, adds in a note: "The Saxon word
_ful_ is translated foul: _fuhl_, a fowl: _full_ and _fullan_ are full,
as _full mona_, the full moon." This latter meaning has been chosen by
the authors of the Anglo-Saxon dictionaries, notably Somner, Lye, and
Bosworth.
Fulham is bounded by Chelsea and Kensington on the east, by the river on
the west and south, and by Hammersmith on the north. The eastern
boundary follows generally the railway-line between Addison Road Station
and the river, and the northern one is identical with the southern one
of Hammersmith already given. The earliest record we have of Fulham is
in 691, when a grant of the manor was made by Tyrtilus, Bishop of
Hereford, to Erkenwald, Bishop of London, and his successors. In 879 a
body of Danes made Fulham their winter quarters, and amused themselves
by constructing the moat around the palace. Norden tells us that Henry
III. often "lay" at the palace, and on two occasions Bishop Bancroft
received visits here from Queen Elizabeth. James I. also came here
before his coronation. In 1627 Charles I. dined with Bishop Montaigne.
In 1642 the Parliamentary army encamped at Fulham, 24,000 strong, under
Essex.
If we enter the borough of Fulham at the Hammersmith end, we come upon
one of the most interesting associations of the whole district, just
before the North End Road makes a decided bend. Here are two houses,
formerly one, called the Grange, in which the novelist Samuel Richardson
passed the greater part of his life. This pompous, vain little man, who
never to the end of his life abated one whit of his savage envy of his
successful contemporaries, was endowed with the genius of originality
which prompted him to write as no one had ever thought of writing
before. He remained here until 1755, when he moved to Parsons Green. He
had begun life as one of the nine children of a man of small means, and
was apprenticed to a printer. This work he carried on long after the
necessity for it had ceased, for he was above all things punctual,
methodical, neat, and entirely the opposite in character to that usually
ascribed to genius. To a man of his type it seems almost sinful to give
up routine work in order to depend on the work of imagination. He had a
house at Salisbury Court near his business premises, and the Grange at
North End was his country residence. Here he composed "Sir Charles
Grandison" and "Clarissa," writing for the most part in a grotto in the
garden, where the admiring circle of women who adored him, and whose
effusive flattery he ever received with pleasure, paid court to him. He
was twice married, and while at North End was living with his second
wife and their four daughters. Thus he was surrounded by womenkind, who
forgave him all faults on account of his appreciation of
sentimentality.
The house is distinctly picturesque. The southern half is of red brick,
and is surrounded by a high wall, in which is a gateway with tall
red-brick piers surmounted by stone balls. Over the wall hangs an
acacia-tree, and on the front of the house is an old sundial--altogether
a house one could well associate with an imaginative novelist. It was
the residence of the late Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Bart. The other part
of the house has been painted a light stone colour. Even as early as
1813 the Grange had been divided into two houses.
St. Mary's Church, facing the Hammersmith Road, is in Fulham. It was
built by a Mr. Richard Hunt, to whose memory there is a tablet on the
wall, and was opened as a chapel of ease in 1814. Some fine carving on
the north side of the chancel and the oak panelling of the gallery were
brought from Lady Mary Coke's old mansion at Chiswick.
In 1860 the site of Edith Road was, according to Crofton Croker, to be
let on building lease. In it, Croker says, "once stood the house of
Cipriani." But there is some doubt as to the exact site of Cipriani's
house, which is also claimed for Great Church Lane, Hammersmith (see p.
7). Cipriani lived in England from 1755 to 1785, and his works were
largely engraved by Bartolozzi, who also had a house at North End.
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