Thames Tributary Hogsmill - Kingston
Thames Tributary Hogsmill
The Hogsmill flows into the Thames
This post relates to sites south of the Thames only. North of the Thames is HamptonWick
Post to the north Canbury Gardens and Teddington Normansfield and Trowlock
Post to the south Kingston Portsmouth Road and Hampton Court Park Rick Pond
Apple Market
Funnel shaped. There is geological evidence that the Thames once flowed to the east of it and this suggests that the Old Town was once an island with a small prehistoric settlement
6 Cafe Italia. Building of 1888 Dutch Renaissance style for Ellis & Co. Wine merchants
9 Harrow Passage. Site of the Harrow Inn. Has a timber-framed upper parts of c. 1530
Bishop's Hall
2 Bishop Out of Residence. Pub Young’s.
Distillery here until 19th owned by Nicholas family
Bishop's Hall, This was established by 995 and was still here in 1350. It belonged to the Bishop of Winchester and was west of Thames Street on the riverside. Hugh Herland, royal master carpenter, lived here in 1392. He designed the hammer beam roof in Westminster Hall. Much of the timber came from Kingston. By 1631 it was a tannery
Kingston Tannery. On site by 1631 it grew and continued to operate on the same site until 1963 when it was burnt down. At one time a third of the leather processed nationally was done in Surrey
Charter Quay
This is a development area covering the mouth of the Hogsmill and Thameside Wharves either side of it. This area was owned by the London Charterhouse in the Middle Ages
Church Street
1 Listed Early 17th with 18th alterations and after a fire in 1973 and a concrete frame inserted. Timber framed Shop on the ground floor. This building is also 23 Market Place.
2 Listed Grade II. Early 19th
3-5 early 19th door and upper parts a modern shop has combined both ground floors.
6, 6a and 8 shops. Late 16th originally a public house, divided into three shops in the 19th. Timber framed with Modern shop fronts. This had been a Tudor brewery, which in the 19th was Flint and Shaw, bought up in 1856 by Joseph East and then became East's Albion and Star Brewery which was run as a brewery and a tap until 1867
24-24a Listed Grade II. 19th. 3 and 4 storeys and also curved into Market Place. Modern shop on the ground floor.
Clarence Street
The main thoroughfare from the bridge is almost entirely a 20th shopping street. It was originally built along with the bridge as an approach road to it
House - by the bridge approach, plain early 19th three storeys.
Kingston Literary and Scientific Institute. Two day rooms. 1982 much altered. By Scott & Moffat, opened in 1841 and short lived.
30-32 which was Atkins Restaurant and Bakery, a half-timbered fake of 1922, with recessed balcony and corner cupola.
Down Hall Road
Built in the 1890s along with Canbury Gardens
Down Hall. This was a riverside house with grounds stretching back into the area now covered by shops and industry. In the 15th it belonged to the Skerne family and later in the 19th to the Nuthalls, local businessmen. Parts of the estate gradually went to industry and in 1934 the remains of the estate was bought by Bentalls.
Canbury Gardens. The area had been marshy reeds, osiers and gravel extraction. Following public meetings in the 1880s and then brought forward to the Council by Samuel Gray and it was opened in 1890. They were designed by Henry Macaulay the Borough Surveyor.
Tar paving works on the site of Canbury Gardens
Kingston A. power station. The first Kingston power station, with initially a power of 2 kW and equipment supplied by Siemens Brothers, opened in November 1893.It closed in August 1959.
Native Guano Works set up in 1888. Local sewage was dried and the residue sold for fertilizer, the clean Water was put into the river and solids pelleted. They Used machinery by Willans and Robinson of Thames Ditton., Hampton wick joined the scheme sending its sewage by pipe via the railway bridge. The fertiliser produced was British exported to Singapore and Barbados. The smell however led to complaints and the Corporation ended the lease in 1909 moving the works to Southall. Kingston B electric power station was later built on this site.
Kingston B Power Station. Plans for the new power station were made before World War II but it eventually opened in October 1948 - by King George VI with Queen Elizabeth. It was built by Preece, Cardew & Rider, engineers. Because of its proximity to the Thames there were no cooling towers, coal was delivered by barge, and ash removed by barge. At one time it was third in the power station league table but gradually became uneconomic. It was closed in 1980. There were proposals to preserve it but in 1994 the two 250 feet high 32-sided chimneys of blown up by Brown & Mason.
Emms Passage
Named after James Emms, a "last maker", in the late 18th. It was the site of a boat building yard and yacht agency. Recent development has moved the site of this passageway.
Henry Macaulay Avenue
New road on the power station site. Major Macaulay was the Victorian Borough Surveyor who laid out Canbury Gardens and much else.
High Street
This was not originally a very grand road. It was in the past part of the area called Westby Thames, an industrial area with passages to the river wharves and many maltings. It became a main route after the station had been built at Surbiton. .
Guildhall. The previous town hall, now the market house on 1838 was replaced in 1935 when a new Guildhall Was built by Maurice E. Webb, son of Aston Webb, who, had been appointed in 1933. It was in neo-Georgian brick plus a square tower and sculptures relevant to the Thames. Inside is a council chamber and committee rooms divided by partitions and designed also to be used as a public hall. There were also law courts and a room with 16th linen fold panelling from the previous town hall. Guildhall One and Two were built 1975-8 by Ronald Ward & Partners and Roy Roe Associates and the Borough Architect, James Lidster
1 16th timber-framed building with 18th lath and plaster facade. Weatherboard and jetting. Behind it is a late 18th building.
3 Druid's Head public house. Listed Grade II*. Built of red brick with blue headers and an 18th front. Inside is an original staircase and plaster ceilings. It is the only surviving inn in Kingston from the coaching era. Said to be the first pub to make syllabub
5 18th building
5-7 Police station. Site of Creek House, Georgian distiller's house, connected to the Creekside distillery
6-9 site of department Store. This was the site of the Castle Hotel which Shrubsole bought and turned into a department store in 1866. They had the front designed by Decimus Burton. In 1873 it became Hide’s store and in 1977 the House of Fraser, also Army and Navy stores and Chiesemans. In the basement is some flint walling and 17th brickwork. Inside is a mid 17th timber staircase from the old Hotel although a Bit was cut off a cherub following complaints by a 19th lady customer. In the cellars was a port wine bottling plant for Kingston Distillery in 19th.
17 18th house restored in 1982. In yellow brick with a painted parapet front. A Modern shop front cuts up the bays,
22-28 Slug and Lettuce pub
30 Georgian House behind Victorian facade
34 Ram Pub. This was a tied house to the adjacent Fricker brewery. It is now Greene King
39-41 this was originally a single timber-framed and jettied house of a late medieval type. Probably with a shop and an enclosed chamber above, with an open hall at the rear. There is a Victorian facade
40 Early 19th building with an early 20th shop front
Eagle Wharf public open space which is the site of Fricker’s Eagle Brewery opened here in the early 19th by Thomas Fricker. In 1903 it was for sale and despite a Chancery case by the Fricker family it was bought out by Hodgson's who were after the tied houses and closed the brewery .The frontage to the Eagle Tap remained. Eventually the wharf was used by coal barges. On the Kingston Zodiac the eagle is the Libra bird
Distillery. Alongside the creek owned by Stevens family in the 18th and from 18590 owned by Robert Horne, a local maltster and various others until sold to Gordon in 1919. It closed in 1925. Adjoining it was a big a house, Creek House, home of the distiller.
Hodgson Bros Malt houses with a kiln top. It was on a site currently occupied by offices. Bought by Smelt in 1895, who put a pseudo ancient frontage up and sold antique furniture. A plaque was put up on the building saying it was a malt house of 1617. It became a protected building in 1956 but six weeks later it was demolished on a Sunday morning.
24 Rose Theatre. A 900-seat venue opened in 208 with a circular auditorium is modelled on the original Elizabethan Rose Theatre, on Bankside. It is on the site of the Odeon Cinema. Architect James E. Adamson, C.T. Marshall. Originally planned by an independent operator, the building was taken over by Oscar Deutsch and was opened as an Odeon in July 1933 with film star Jack Buchanan attending in person. There was a cafe and a dancehall and in 1934 a Compton 3Manual/7Ranks organ with an illuminated console on a lift, now in Malvern. It was closed in 1967 and became a Top Rank Bingo Club which closed in 1987 and the building was demolished in 1989.
Horsefair
A renaming of the road across the bridge and its route to Wood Street. It actually goes through the John Lewis building. The name does however reflect an ancient horse fair held locally.
Jerome Street
A new private road accessing flats south of the Hogsmill
3 Ha Ha Pub
King's Passage,
Medieval passage to the river from Thames Street. Named after John King who had a drapers shop on the corner.
Gazebo pub
Kingston
Site of an ancient ford over the Thames. There are Roman remains but little evidence to back to the story that Caesar crossed the Thames here. From 7th it was the capital of Surrey. It was called ‘King's Town’ – it was the king’s estate by the ford on the river with outlying farms called ‘bartons’. In 838 a meeting of the Great Council was held here by Egbert, King of Wessex, presided over by Archbishop Ceolnothus. Saxon kings were crowned here –Edward the Elder - Athelstan 925, Edward 939, Eadred 941, Eadwig 955, Edward the Martyr 975, Ethelred the Unready 970 and maybe others. In the Dark Ages it was a minster – a church founded by a king as an administrative centre with priests responsible for the area. In the Domesday Book it had five mills and three fisheries. Under King John it gained a charter of right and the fee farm for the bridge. There are signs of rectangular planning around the medieval bridge. It became a Royal Borough in 1927 and the Assizes moved here from Guildford in 1930. On the Kingston Zodiac it is the bird’s beak on Libra –In the beak is the coronation stone and its eye is the parish church
Market Place
Said that the Thames once flowed to the east of it – so this may have been on an island. Conservation area. There has been a market here since the 13th.
All Saints. A small pre-Conquest chapel of St Mary stood here until it fell down in the 18th. This was the Kingston Minster with four chapelries outside the area. The current church looks late medieval, and some of it does go back to the 12th, when it was rebuilt by Gilbert, Sheriff of Surrey, and given to Merton Priory. There are also Norman remains and some medieval parts built in connection with a chantry in 1459. Tower with a pretty brick top added by John Yeomans in 1708, rebuilt in 1973 and the church was reordered in 1978-9 by Hugh Cawdron. There is a fragment of an Anglo-Saxon cross shaft with interlace and a figure of St Blaise. There is also a lot of Victorian glass. Memorial Chapel of the East Surrey Regiment)
Churchyard. The foundations of the pre-conquest chapel of St.Mary are in the churchyard. There are listed late 17th century stone gate piers With Carved acanthus capitals.
Coronation stone. Is it really? This has been moved about in the area over the centuries. It is a shapeless block of grey sandstone on which the West Saxon kings are supposed to have been crowned. It was preserved in the chapel of St. Mary which fell down in 1739 so it was moved to the front of the Town Hall where it was used as a mounting stone. In 1839 it was brought into the area of the old green, and then restored to the platform over the Hogsmill. The names of Saxon Kings are in lead in the granite base. It is enshrined with Victorian railings and balustrade, Market House. Listed II* Built 1838-40 by Charles Henman Senior. Until 1935 this was the Guildhall. It is stone and brick with four corner towers. A lead statue of Queen Anne placed above the entrance was part of a previous Guildhall which is by Francis Bird 1706. The market charter is from 1257, with a Crown Concession for hogs and cattle, until 1662.
6-9 The Market Bakery was originally the Harrow pub of 1530, converted to shops in 1913.
14 late 16th timber-framed house. In the 1880s it was Nutall's Olde Segar Shoppe and they made it look more 16th than it did and it ended up even more so.
15-16 This was part of Boots Chemist Shop. Dates from 1909 and extended in 1929. In the 19th it was a library and bookshop owned from 1850 by George Philipson. He also bought the shop next door and decided to rebuild them as one. There was a big row with the builders and actual fights with hired thugs. At the back on the Churchyard wall is a plaque about Philipson. However it remains as four storeys encrusted with half- timbering, plasterwork, heraldry, and kings in niches.
23 represents antiquarian taste of the 1970s; a gabled and jettied 17th timber-framed building with 18th alterations, largely rebuilt and restored after a fire in 1973.
36 1888 by F.J. Brewer, with much terracotta. Good Victorian building
Griffin Centre with shops, bar and first-floor Assembly Room Listed Grade II. The former Griffin Hotel from the early 19th. The front continuous round from the High Street to the Market Place. It is a former coaching inn which a four horse coach left three days a week in 1869. In 1851 was taken over by John Williams, who established the assembly room to the rear. On the Kingston Zodiac it may be the hawk headed griffin in Osiris legends on the Libra bird. . .
J& B Marsh corn chandlers Shop next to the Griffin. Became Berni Inn, previously corn chandlers which altered its Jacobean frontage to Olde Englishe
Royal Shrubsole memorial 1882, Statue of King Alfred. By F. J. Williamson. High pedestal with a maiden with an urn on her shoulder and a child by her side.
Ranyard's Kingston Tallow Works. This works operated from 1762 and used Cotton wick dipped into molten fat. Produced as patent candle which didn't need snuffing and Rush lights from local rushes. The firm expanded and eventually moved to the oil mill having acquired other related business.
Riverside walk
The following covers a number of riverside sites along the Thames– there are various, and changing, names for the riverside walk between Kings Walk and slightly south of Clattern Bridge. Thus they have all been put together.
Clattern Bridge. Over the Hogsmill River. Late 12th with alterations. . 3 arches with ashlar dressings and rubble and flint filling. 18th brick top with stone capping. Mid 19th cast iron railings to match the coronation stone.
Kingston Bridge. Before 1729 there were no other bridges between it and London Bridge. Was there a Saxon or a Roman bridge? There were stone and wooden bridges going back at least to the Conquest. The medieval bridge had a Bridge master and the Freemen of Kingston controlled it. There were Pontage grants, holy bequests and a Ducking Stool underneath. At The reformation the bridge priory was abolished and tolls abolished in 1565. In 1631 Crown grants ceased so the Bridge was locked at night. It was really too narrow despite late 18th improvements and barges hit it. Middlesex and Surrey complained and both sued Kingston Corporation. In 1814 it fell down and Parliament required it to he passed to the counties. In 1825 the trustees got an Act to rebuild and funds from the Exchequer Loan Commissioners. The new bridge was designed by Edward Lapidge, County Surveyor for Surrey and the Earl of Liverpool laid the first stone in 1825. The Duchess of Clarence opened it in 1828 but there was still a big row because it was still too narrow. It was again widened. There were Toll houses, etc. but the tolls were removed in 1870. It was widened in 1914. The iron posts on the Middlesex side came from Harris’s iron foundry in the High Street and Harris' crest is on each post. The bridge was widened again in 2000 to include two bicycle lanes, larger pavements and a bus lane.
Kingston Railway Bridge. Built as part of the 1863 construction of Kingston Station following an Act of 1860 for London South West Railway. It carried the railway from and to Hampton Wick. It was designed by Errington and built by Brassey and had five cast iron arches each with 75ft span. The sewage main from Hampton Wick is attached to it.
Gazebos. Listed Grade II. 1900. Part of the riverside gardens built with the Sun Hotel. Timber-framed pavilions either side of a flight of steps down to a landing stage. The pub site became the Gazebo pub.
Westby Thames was the riverside area south of Kingston Bridge an area of maltings and wharves
Kingston's first swimming pool. This was a Pontoon in the river opened in 1882 and designed by engineer John Dixon. The bath was a grating hung in the river, which could be raised and lowered as required. It was moored Beside the Clattern ridge
Creekside distillery owned by Horne of Hampton Wick, sold to Searle and Gordon in 1929. Auctioned in 1925 and closed
Barge Dock which is the old power station jetty and home to various river related projects
Training Ship Steadfast for the Sea Cadets. This is on the site of Down Hall
Skerne Road
This was until recently Lower Ham Road. The Skerne family owned the area in the 15th.
Thames Street
1 Bradford and Bingley a late 16th timber- framed house behind a plastered front. Weather- boarded back, nicely restored.
3- 5 Grade II listed. 1901. Modern shop on the ground floor. This was Nuthalls restaurant with a banqueting hall inside. It closed as a Tea Shop in 1933
11 partly medieval in origin. This was J.J.Holland fashion shop in 1890s and in 1889 he bought shop next door. W.H.Smiths rebuilt it in the same style. Listed Grade II. Modern shop on the ground floor.
10 shop which was once the Blue Anchor pub
14 15th building with 18th
16 older house concealed behind later front
18 older house concealed behind later front. Listed Grade II 18th building but the front is 20th
26 – 28 Grade II listed. Late 17th once two buildings but now one. Modern shop on ground floor. 34 this was a boot and shoe business the building done up by Henry Tyler in 1889
Leopold Coffee Tavern was on the Clarence Street corner. One of its directors was Bryant of Bryant and May Prince Leopold gave money – thus giving its name. It didn't pay and closed in 1882
Fountain Court was a cobbled area off Thames Street owned by a family of painters and plumbers called Selfe. The Fountain was a spring in the yard and they sold water from here by the bucket. It was demolished and replaced by shops in the 1930s.
Solartron Electronics, now at Farnborough, electronics for Government after Second World War
Union Street
48 this was built in 1825 as the watch house. It later became a mortuary and was converted into a shop in 1939 with an upper storey added in the 1950s.
Garden of Remembrance. This was an extension to the churchyard 1826-1855. It was cleared in 1923 and landscaped as memorial for servicemen of the First World War
Maltings. East of here and Eden Street
Old Crown 17th timber framed building behind an early 18th red brick front.
Baptist Church of 1864 replaces a building of 1790.
Vicarage Road
Was called Pheasant Lane
Kingston Brewery. Nightingales Brewery fronting onto this and also onto Water Lane. Established in the 1830s but extended across the road in the 1860s using steam plant. They made Sovereign Ale. Sold in 1891 and used for council housing. Part of the brewery was used from the 1860s by the Marsh Brothers for their mill.
Down Hall Mill. Opened by the Marsh brothers in the 1860s on the older part of the Nightingale Brewery site. They ground flour but were also corn and forage merchants.
Can I acknowledge with this page and its predecessor on Kingston use of June Sampson's excellent 'All Change'.
Sources
Osborne. Defending London
Sampson. All Change
The Hogsmill flows into the Thames
This post relates to sites south of the Thames only. North of the Thames is HamptonWick
Post to the north Canbury Gardens and Teddington Normansfield and Trowlock
Post to the south Kingston Portsmouth Road and Hampton Court Park Rick Pond
Apple Market
Funnel shaped. There is geological evidence that the Thames once flowed to the east of it and this suggests that the Old Town was once an island with a small prehistoric settlement
6 Cafe Italia. Building of 1888 Dutch Renaissance style for Ellis & Co. Wine merchants
9 Harrow Passage. Site of the Harrow Inn. Has a timber-framed upper parts of c. 1530
Bishop's Hall
2 Bishop Out of Residence. Pub Young’s.
Distillery here until 19th owned by Nicholas family
Bishop's Hall, This was established by 995 and was still here in 1350. It belonged to the Bishop of Winchester and was west of Thames Street on the riverside. Hugh Herland, royal master carpenter, lived here in 1392. He designed the hammer beam roof in Westminster Hall. Much of the timber came from Kingston. By 1631 it was a tannery
Kingston Tannery. On site by 1631 it grew and continued to operate on the same site until 1963 when it was burnt down. At one time a third of the leather processed nationally was done in Surrey
Charter Quay
This is a development area covering the mouth of the Hogsmill and Thameside Wharves either side of it. This area was owned by the London Charterhouse in the Middle Ages
Church Street
1 Listed Early 17th with 18th alterations and after a fire in 1973 and a concrete frame inserted. Timber framed Shop on the ground floor. This building is also 23 Market Place.
2 Listed Grade II. Early 19th
3-5 early 19th door and upper parts a modern shop has combined both ground floors.
6, 6a and 8 shops. Late 16th originally a public house, divided into three shops in the 19th. Timber framed with Modern shop fronts. This had been a Tudor brewery, which in the 19th was Flint and Shaw, bought up in 1856 by Joseph East and then became East's Albion and Star Brewery which was run as a brewery and a tap until 1867
24-24a Listed Grade II. 19th. 3 and 4 storeys and also curved into Market Place. Modern shop on the ground floor.
Clarence Street
The main thoroughfare from the bridge is almost entirely a 20th shopping street. It was originally built along with the bridge as an approach road to it
House - by the bridge approach, plain early 19th three storeys.
Kingston Literary and Scientific Institute. Two day rooms. 1982 much altered. By Scott & Moffat, opened in 1841 and short lived.
30-32 which was Atkins Restaurant and Bakery, a half-timbered fake of 1922, with recessed balcony and corner cupola.
Down Hall Road
Built in the 1890s along with Canbury Gardens
Down Hall. This was a riverside house with grounds stretching back into the area now covered by shops and industry. In the 15th it belonged to the Skerne family and later in the 19th to the Nuthalls, local businessmen. Parts of the estate gradually went to industry and in 1934 the remains of the estate was bought by Bentalls.
Canbury Gardens. The area had been marshy reeds, osiers and gravel extraction. Following public meetings in the 1880s and then brought forward to the Council by Samuel Gray and it was opened in 1890. They were designed by Henry Macaulay the Borough Surveyor.
Tar paving works on the site of Canbury Gardens
Kingston A. power station. The first Kingston power station, with initially a power of 2 kW and equipment supplied by Siemens Brothers, opened in November 1893.It closed in August 1959.
Native Guano Works set up in 1888. Local sewage was dried and the residue sold for fertilizer, the clean Water was put into the river and solids pelleted. They Used machinery by Willans and Robinson of Thames Ditton., Hampton wick joined the scheme sending its sewage by pipe via the railway bridge. The fertiliser produced was British exported to Singapore and Barbados. The smell however led to complaints and the Corporation ended the lease in 1909 moving the works to Southall. Kingston B electric power station was later built on this site.
Kingston B Power Station. Plans for the new power station were made before World War II but it eventually opened in October 1948 - by King George VI with Queen Elizabeth. It was built by Preece, Cardew & Rider, engineers. Because of its proximity to the Thames there were no cooling towers, coal was delivered by barge, and ash removed by barge. At one time it was third in the power station league table but gradually became uneconomic. It was closed in 1980. There were proposals to preserve it but in 1994 the two 250 feet high 32-sided chimneys of blown up by Brown & Mason.
Emms Passage
Named after James Emms, a "last maker", in the late 18th. It was the site of a boat building yard and yacht agency. Recent development has moved the site of this passageway.
Henry Macaulay Avenue
New road on the power station site. Major Macaulay was the Victorian Borough Surveyor who laid out Canbury Gardens and much else.
High Street
This was not originally a very grand road. It was in the past part of the area called Westby Thames, an industrial area with passages to the river wharves and many maltings. It became a main route after the station had been built at Surbiton. .
Guildhall. The previous town hall, now the market house on 1838 was replaced in 1935 when a new Guildhall Was built by Maurice E. Webb, son of Aston Webb, who, had been appointed in 1933. It was in neo-Georgian brick plus a square tower and sculptures relevant to the Thames. Inside is a council chamber and committee rooms divided by partitions and designed also to be used as a public hall. There were also law courts and a room with 16th linen fold panelling from the previous town hall. Guildhall One and Two were built 1975-8 by Ronald Ward & Partners and Roy Roe Associates and the Borough Architect, James Lidster
1 16th timber-framed building with 18th lath and plaster facade. Weatherboard and jetting. Behind it is a late 18th building.
3 Druid's Head public house. Listed Grade II*. Built of red brick with blue headers and an 18th front. Inside is an original staircase and plaster ceilings. It is the only surviving inn in Kingston from the coaching era. Said to be the first pub to make syllabub
5 18th building
5-7 Police station. Site of Creek House, Georgian distiller's house, connected to the Creekside distillery
6-9 site of department Store. This was the site of the Castle Hotel which Shrubsole bought and turned into a department store in 1866. They had the front designed by Decimus Burton. In 1873 it became Hide’s store and in 1977 the House of Fraser, also Army and Navy stores and Chiesemans. In the basement is some flint walling and 17th brickwork. Inside is a mid 17th timber staircase from the old Hotel although a Bit was cut off a cherub following complaints by a 19th lady customer. In the cellars was a port wine bottling plant for Kingston Distillery in 19th.
17 18th house restored in 1982. In yellow brick with a painted parapet front. A Modern shop front cuts up the bays,
22-28 Slug and Lettuce pub
30 Georgian House behind Victorian facade
34 Ram Pub. This was a tied house to the adjacent Fricker brewery. It is now Greene King
39-41 this was originally a single timber-framed and jettied house of a late medieval type. Probably with a shop and an enclosed chamber above, with an open hall at the rear. There is a Victorian facade
40 Early 19th building with an early 20th shop front
Eagle Wharf public open space which is the site of Fricker’s Eagle Brewery opened here in the early 19th by Thomas Fricker. In 1903 it was for sale and despite a Chancery case by the Fricker family it was bought out by Hodgson's who were after the tied houses and closed the brewery .The frontage to the Eagle Tap remained. Eventually the wharf was used by coal barges. On the Kingston Zodiac the eagle is the Libra bird
Distillery. Alongside the creek owned by Stevens family in the 18th and from 18590 owned by Robert Horne, a local maltster and various others until sold to Gordon in 1919. It closed in 1925. Adjoining it was a big a house, Creek House, home of the distiller.
Hodgson Bros Malt houses with a kiln top. It was on a site currently occupied by offices. Bought by Smelt in 1895, who put a pseudo ancient frontage up and sold antique furniture. A plaque was put up on the building saying it was a malt house of 1617. It became a protected building in 1956 but six weeks later it was demolished on a Sunday morning.
24 Rose Theatre. A 900-seat venue opened in 208 with a circular auditorium is modelled on the original Elizabethan Rose Theatre, on Bankside. It is on the site of the Odeon Cinema. Architect James E. Adamson, C.T. Marshall. Originally planned by an independent operator, the building was taken over by Oscar Deutsch and was opened as an Odeon in July 1933 with film star Jack Buchanan attending in person. There was a cafe and a dancehall and in 1934 a Compton 3Manual/7Ranks organ with an illuminated console on a lift, now in Malvern. It was closed in 1967 and became a Top Rank Bingo Club which closed in 1987 and the building was demolished in 1989.
Horsefair
A renaming of the road across the bridge and its route to Wood Street. It actually goes through the John Lewis building. The name does however reflect an ancient horse fair held locally.
Jerome Street
A new private road accessing flats south of the Hogsmill
3 Ha Ha Pub
King's Passage,
Medieval passage to the river from Thames Street. Named after John King who had a drapers shop on the corner.
Gazebo pub
Kingston
Site of an ancient ford over the Thames. There are Roman remains but little evidence to back to the story that Caesar crossed the Thames here. From 7th it was the capital of Surrey. It was called ‘King's Town’ – it was the king’s estate by the ford on the river with outlying farms called ‘bartons’. In 838 a meeting of the Great Council was held here by Egbert, King of Wessex, presided over by Archbishop Ceolnothus. Saxon kings were crowned here –Edward the Elder - Athelstan 925, Edward 939, Eadred 941, Eadwig 955, Edward the Martyr 975, Ethelred the Unready 970 and maybe others. In the Dark Ages it was a minster – a church founded by a king as an administrative centre with priests responsible for the area. In the Domesday Book it had five mills and three fisheries. Under King John it gained a charter of right and the fee farm for the bridge. There are signs of rectangular planning around the medieval bridge. It became a Royal Borough in 1927 and the Assizes moved here from Guildford in 1930. On the Kingston Zodiac it is the bird’s beak on Libra –In the beak is the coronation stone and its eye is the parish church
Market Place
Said that the Thames once flowed to the east of it – so this may have been on an island. Conservation area. There has been a market here since the 13th.
All Saints. A small pre-Conquest chapel of St Mary stood here until it fell down in the 18th. This was the Kingston Minster with four chapelries outside the area. The current church looks late medieval, and some of it does go back to the 12th, when it was rebuilt by Gilbert, Sheriff of Surrey, and given to Merton Priory. There are also Norman remains and some medieval parts built in connection with a chantry in 1459. Tower with a pretty brick top added by John Yeomans in 1708, rebuilt in 1973 and the church was reordered in 1978-9 by Hugh Cawdron. There is a fragment of an Anglo-Saxon cross shaft with interlace and a figure of St Blaise. There is also a lot of Victorian glass. Memorial Chapel of the East Surrey Regiment)
Churchyard. The foundations of the pre-conquest chapel of St.Mary are in the churchyard. There are listed late 17th century stone gate piers With Carved acanthus capitals.
Coronation stone. Is it really? This has been moved about in the area over the centuries. It is a shapeless block of grey sandstone on which the West Saxon kings are supposed to have been crowned. It was preserved in the chapel of St. Mary which fell down in 1739 so it was moved to the front of the Town Hall where it was used as a mounting stone. In 1839 it was brought into the area of the old green, and then restored to the platform over the Hogsmill. The names of Saxon Kings are in lead in the granite base. It is enshrined with Victorian railings and balustrade, Market House. Listed II* Built 1838-40 by Charles Henman Senior. Until 1935 this was the Guildhall. It is stone and brick with four corner towers. A lead statue of Queen Anne placed above the entrance was part of a previous Guildhall which is by Francis Bird 1706. The market charter is from 1257, with a Crown Concession for hogs and cattle, until 1662.
6-9 The Market Bakery was originally the Harrow pub of 1530, converted to shops in 1913.
14 late 16th timber-framed house. In the 1880s it was Nutall's Olde Segar Shoppe and they made it look more 16th than it did and it ended up even more so.
15-16 This was part of Boots Chemist Shop. Dates from 1909 and extended in 1929. In the 19th it was a library and bookshop owned from 1850 by George Philipson. He also bought the shop next door and decided to rebuild them as one. There was a big row with the builders and actual fights with hired thugs. At the back on the Churchyard wall is a plaque about Philipson. However it remains as four storeys encrusted with half- timbering, plasterwork, heraldry, and kings in niches.
23 represents antiquarian taste of the 1970s; a gabled and jettied 17th timber-framed building with 18th alterations, largely rebuilt and restored after a fire in 1973.
36 1888 by F.J. Brewer, with much terracotta. Good Victorian building
Griffin Centre with shops, bar and first-floor Assembly Room Listed Grade II. The former Griffin Hotel from the early 19th. The front continuous round from the High Street to the Market Place. It is a former coaching inn which a four horse coach left three days a week in 1869. In 1851 was taken over by John Williams, who established the assembly room to the rear. On the Kingston Zodiac it may be the hawk headed griffin in Osiris legends on the Libra bird. . .
J& B Marsh corn chandlers Shop next to the Griffin. Became Berni Inn, previously corn chandlers which altered its Jacobean frontage to Olde Englishe
Royal Shrubsole memorial 1882, Statue of King Alfred. By F. J. Williamson. High pedestal with a maiden with an urn on her shoulder and a child by her side.
Ranyard's Kingston Tallow Works. This works operated from 1762 and used Cotton wick dipped into molten fat. Produced as patent candle which didn't need snuffing and Rush lights from local rushes. The firm expanded and eventually moved to the oil mill having acquired other related business.
Riverside walk
The following covers a number of riverside sites along the Thames– there are various, and changing, names for the riverside walk between Kings Walk and slightly south of Clattern Bridge. Thus they have all been put together.
Clattern Bridge. Over the Hogsmill River. Late 12th with alterations. . 3 arches with ashlar dressings and rubble and flint filling. 18th brick top with stone capping. Mid 19th cast iron railings to match the coronation stone.
Kingston Bridge. Before 1729 there were no other bridges between it and London Bridge. Was there a Saxon or a Roman bridge? There were stone and wooden bridges going back at least to the Conquest. The medieval bridge had a Bridge master and the Freemen of Kingston controlled it. There were Pontage grants, holy bequests and a Ducking Stool underneath. At The reformation the bridge priory was abolished and tolls abolished in 1565. In 1631 Crown grants ceased so the Bridge was locked at night. It was really too narrow despite late 18th improvements and barges hit it. Middlesex and Surrey complained and both sued Kingston Corporation. In 1814 it fell down and Parliament required it to he passed to the counties. In 1825 the trustees got an Act to rebuild and funds from the Exchequer Loan Commissioners. The new bridge was designed by Edward Lapidge, County Surveyor for Surrey and the Earl of Liverpool laid the first stone in 1825. The Duchess of Clarence opened it in 1828 but there was still a big row because it was still too narrow. It was again widened. There were Toll houses, etc. but the tolls were removed in 1870. It was widened in 1914. The iron posts on the Middlesex side came from Harris’s iron foundry in the High Street and Harris' crest is on each post. The bridge was widened again in 2000 to include two bicycle lanes, larger pavements and a bus lane.
Kingston Railway Bridge. Built as part of the 1863 construction of Kingston Station following an Act of 1860 for London South West Railway. It carried the railway from and to Hampton Wick. It was designed by Errington and built by Brassey and had five cast iron arches each with 75ft span. The sewage main from Hampton Wick is attached to it.
Gazebos. Listed Grade II. 1900. Part of the riverside gardens built with the Sun Hotel. Timber-framed pavilions either side of a flight of steps down to a landing stage. The pub site became the Gazebo pub.
Westby Thames was the riverside area south of Kingston Bridge an area of maltings and wharves
Kingston's first swimming pool. This was a Pontoon in the river opened in 1882 and designed by engineer John Dixon. The bath was a grating hung in the river, which could be raised and lowered as required. It was moored Beside the Clattern ridge
Creekside distillery owned by Horne of Hampton Wick, sold to Searle and Gordon in 1929. Auctioned in 1925 and closed
Barge Dock which is the old power station jetty and home to various river related projects
Training Ship Steadfast for the Sea Cadets. This is on the site of Down Hall
Skerne Road
This was until recently Lower Ham Road. The Skerne family owned the area in the 15th.
Thames Street
1 Bradford and Bingley a late 16th timber- framed house behind a plastered front. Weather- boarded back, nicely restored.
3- 5 Grade II listed. 1901. Modern shop on the ground floor. This was Nuthalls restaurant with a banqueting hall inside. It closed as a Tea Shop in 1933
11 partly medieval in origin. This was J.J.Holland fashion shop in 1890s and in 1889 he bought shop next door. W.H.Smiths rebuilt it in the same style. Listed Grade II. Modern shop on the ground floor.
10 shop which was once the Blue Anchor pub
14 15th building with 18th
16 older house concealed behind later front
18 older house concealed behind later front. Listed Grade II 18th building but the front is 20th
26 – 28 Grade II listed. Late 17th once two buildings but now one. Modern shop on ground floor. 34 this was a boot and shoe business the building done up by Henry Tyler in 1889
Leopold Coffee Tavern was on the Clarence Street corner. One of its directors was Bryant of Bryant and May Prince Leopold gave money – thus giving its name. It didn't pay and closed in 1882
Fountain Court was a cobbled area off Thames Street owned by a family of painters and plumbers called Selfe. The Fountain was a spring in the yard and they sold water from here by the bucket. It was demolished and replaced by shops in the 1930s.
Solartron Electronics, now at Farnborough, electronics for Government after Second World War
Union Street
48 this was built in 1825 as the watch house. It later became a mortuary and was converted into a shop in 1939 with an upper storey added in the 1950s.
Garden of Remembrance. This was an extension to the churchyard 1826-1855. It was cleared in 1923 and landscaped as memorial for servicemen of the First World War
Maltings. East of here and Eden Street
Old Crown 17th timber framed building behind an early 18th red brick front.
Baptist Church of 1864 replaces a building of 1790.
Vicarage Road
Was called Pheasant Lane
Kingston Brewery. Nightingales Brewery fronting onto this and also onto Water Lane. Established in the 1830s but extended across the road in the 1860s using steam plant. They made Sovereign Ale. Sold in 1891 and used for council housing. Part of the brewery was used from the 1860s by the Marsh Brothers for their mill.
Down Hall Mill. Opened by the Marsh brothers in the 1860s on the older part of the Nightingale Brewery site. They ground flour but were also corn and forage merchants.
Can I acknowledge with this page and its predecessor on Kingston use of June Sampson's excellent 'All Change'.
Sources
Osborne. Defending London
Sampson. All Change
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