Riverside north of the river and west of the Tower. Strand on the Green

This post relates to sites north of the river only. South of the river is Kew

Post to the south Kew
Post to the west Brentford and Kew Green and Gardens
Post to the east Chiswick Grove Park
Post to the north Gunnersbury



Brooks Road
Strand on the Green Primary School and Infants and Nursery School. The school was opened in 1912. There has been a National School here since 1857 which was on the south side of Thames Road. In 1874 the school was moved to the site of the present school. In 1912 A new building was added for boys and buildings for infants and juniors on 1939. By the 1950s it was a popular school with swimming lessons, a pottery kiln, visits to Switzerland and many children going on to the County Grammar School.


Chadwick Mews
Flats in a converted industrial building previously known as Magnolia House, 160 Thames Road. In 1903 this belonged to the Larger London Land Company Ltd – and later to a firm known as Perrot and Sons who made, or dealt in, fancy goods and who retained it as their registered office until 1989.

Chiswick Village
Chiswick Village. This consists of 15 blocks of flats built round a green. They were designed by Charles Simmonds and funded by the People’s Housing Corporation in 1935 – today there seems to be an argument as to whether it is art deco or international moderne. It would appear to fit very neatly into an old orchard and a space left by the removal of the Chiswick Curve in 1932 in 1932 – this was a railway line connecting Gunnersbury and Kew Bridge stations.

Dead Donkey Lane
A lane which meandered down to the river northwards in the Magnolia Road area.

Ernest Gardens
The road now extends eastwards with new housing into an area which was once a timber yard alongside the railway

Grove Park Road
66 Thames Bank. This was a very large Tudor-style mansion built in 1870, facing the river. Between 1931 and 1994 it was the Redcliffe Missionary Training College and extended for them. In the late 1990s the site was redeveloped as housing and renamed Redcliffe Gardens.
Redcliffe Training Mission College dates from 1892 originally based in Kings Road, Chelsea. In 1917 they moved to Redcliffe Gardens, Kensington – hence the name – and In 1931 to 66 Grove Park Road. During the Second World War the college was used for the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force and the College returned in 1944. In 1984 it began to allow as women to enrol and in 1995 moved to Gloucester.
68-74 These were built before 1874 by electric boat builder William Sargeant.
70 Grove Mount. Home of John Thaw and Sheila Hancock.
76 three houses were built here after 2002 on the site of a boat yard. It was occupied until 1988 by Bason & Arnold, as a boat repair yard and club plus a re-fuelling point for boats with fuel pumped from tanks in the basement. The Wheelhouse Club also met there for a while.
St Paul’s Church. St Paul's was because of the patronage of William Cavendish the 7th Duke of Devonshire. It was designed by the English architect Henry Currey built in 1872. It is said to have a mock belfry. In the Second World War the church hall was destroyed and the church damaged. The Lady Chapel was this converted into a Community Room
64 Vicarage. Dylan Thomas lived here in the 1940’s when the ground floor was converted into a bed-sit.


Hartington Road
This was one of the earliest roads laid out on the Duke of Devonshire’s Grove Park Estate. The Marquis of Hartington is the title of his eldest son.
61 the house has a garden to the Thames and was at one time the Nicaraguan Embassy.  Also the home of TV presenter Eamonn Andrews.
Hartington Court. Art Deco flats built in 1938
81 University of London Boathouse. The club dates from the 1860s and competes in major events, including Henley Regatta and the Olympics. An appeal was launched for a boat house in 1926. The boat house was constructed in two phases in 1936 and 1937 by Thompson & Walford, in modern blue and white. Although added to it remains largely as originally built.


Oliver’s Island
This is an Island in the Thames. There is a story that Oliver Cromwell hid there – and it was called Strand Ait before the Civil War then named after him. However it was called Strand Ait for many years after that and the chance that there is any truth in story of a secret tunnel to the mainline is very remote indeed. In 1777 the City of London navigation committee installed a tollbooth on here to charge river craft to fund future works on the river. This was a wooden structure looming lime a small castle, with a barge – the City Barge - from where the tolls were collected. There was a smithy on the island by 1865 and a barge building and repair yard. In 1909 it was assigned to the Port of London Authority which used it as a storage depot and as a wharf for derelict vessels. The PLA tried to sell it in 1971 and there was a protest from residents at Strand on the Green. It was later to the London Natural History Society and the thickly wooded island is now a haven for herons, cormorants and Canada geese.


Pyrmont Road
St.Paul’s Hall. This is currently home to Chiswick Toddlers World. The hall here was originally called St. Paul's Institute. It appears to be attached to St. Pauls Church in central Brentford rather than St. Paul’s Grove Park.


Railway
London and South West Railway Line.  A railway line runs north south through the area and crosses the river on a bridge passing over Thames Road. This was the Kensington and Richmond branch of the London and South West Railway built in the mid-1860s. North of Wolseley Gardens the Chiswick Curve had left it to the west.
London and South West Railway Windsor Staines and South Western Railway line. This runs east/west across this square. It dates from the mid-1840s. In this stretch it runs between Chiswick Station and Kew Bridge,
Chiswick Curve. This left the main Kensington-Richmond line south of wharf was then called Brentford Road Station – now Gunnersbury at the request of a House of Commons Committee. It joined the line to Kew Bridge at Brook Lame called Chiswick Junction.  It was not used until 1870 and closed in 1932.


Strand on the Green
Pier House Laundry. The laundry appears to have been established in 1860 on the river front but from 1905 expanded north of the road leaving its original riverside site as a permanent open space. The current buildings date from in 1905 and extended in 1914. The building has previously been a hotel and closed as a laundry in 1973. It is now offices. A chemical manufacturing plant called Camille Simon, a subsidiary, moved in 1973. The building is now said to be offices
Indian Queen. This pub was on the corner with Spring Grove and appears to date from the mid 18 –there is a record from 1760. It is also thought that the name refers to Pocahontas who is said to have lived in Brentford. It is long since demolished.
Tile and slate works, with kilns. This was here in the early 19th
85 Steam Packet Public House opened in the 1870s. It closed as a pub in the 1980s to become The Dome Cafe and is now Café Rouge. The upstairs area was once used by the Old Meadonians Cricket Club
84 Rose Cottage. 19th house which was the home of Nancy Mitford in the 1930s.
Waterman’s stairs.
83 this was a 19th farm house. Maltings here were lost in bombing.
Malt house. Clunell’s large malt house entirely covered the point at the junction of with Thames Road
72 Bell and Crown. This was an 18th pub but rebuilt in 1907 in an Arts and Crafts style. It was first licensed in 1787. It was acquired by Fuller, Smith & Turner in 1814. In the early 20th it had a butcher’s shop in part of the building. It retains its original metal windows and tall chimneys. The conservatory was added in the 1980s.
Bell and Crown Watermen’s Stairs
70 where Michael Zachary lived who swam 22 leagues with a tinderbox and matches wrapped in his hair. It was also the home of William Sargeant who had a boat yard and electric boats locally. More recently Midge Ure from Ultravox.
Zacchary House riverside steps.
65 with a little lion over the door.  Home of Zoffany, the German artist, who undertake work locally. It is late 18th with a bay window and balconies.
Malt house belonging to Goslings
Ship Alley. A small brook came down here and there was a small bridge carrying the road over it
Ship House river stairs – these are of wood
56 This was once the Ship pub which may be the oldest house on the Strand, it existed before 1694.
Boat and barge building yard of James Hagtharp present in the early 19th
Yard of George Dorey, stonemason and builder
Oliver House Stairs
Malt house. This stood next to 50
46-47. Malt house and Warehouse site. It was the site of Ailsa Craig, an engineering company which made detachable, or outboard, motors in the early part of the 20th.  In the Great War the factory was a National Munitions Factory producing 4 ½” gun shells, 10,000 a week. Later it returned to inventing, designing and making the Ailsa Craig marine diesel engines for which it was famous. The buildings remained until 1982 when the site was sold for housing development.
44 Navigators Cottage. This was once owned by the City Corporation/ Thames Conservancy/ Port of London Authority and used as a house for their local foreman.  There were boatyard facilities and the grid on the foreshore is still maintained for shipping.
Grid. This is a timber grid with mooring piles, owned by the Port of London Authority.  It is used for drying out and limited to smaller vessels
40-43 this was once the Steam Navigation Company's boat-building yard which was sold for building in 1963. There are now houses on the site. Adjoining estate was property of the Port of London Authority also sold in 1970.
Magnolia Wharf. This is now housing built in 1963. It was previously owned by Maritime Lighterage Co. and had been an old ship-building site and Thames Conservancy warehouse, slip, crane and workshops. Robert Talbot & Sons built about 300 barges here between 1858 and 1908, and by 1908 were working for the Maritime Lighterage Co. The yard was closed in the 1950s and sold off for housing in 1961
Strand Works. This was William Sargeant’s boat-building yard on, already established yard. Bury and Moritz Immisch commis¬sioned him to build electric boats in 1888. They asked Sargeant to adapt a hulk to take a 20 horse-power Fowler under-type steam engine coupled up to one of Immisch’s dynamos. Sargeant designed two other electric launches and went on to build several more. The business being taken over in 1890 by Woodhouse and Rawson United, manufacturers of heavy engineering equipment, There was also a charging station here.
29 The Post House. This was once a post office and tea shop. Later it was the Cosy Cafe or The Spot of Comfort.
28 Post Office alley. This goes through a small tunnel underneath the first floor of 2o.
27 City Barge.  This was licensed by 1786 and known then as the Maypole Inn. Bells were sold in 18th on the site of this 16th inn.  Oliver Cromwell held court here. Joe Millar the comic was there –he could not read.  Nearby the pub was where the City of London State barge moored in the winter   and also used for Swan Upping.  British school.  In 1841 it was called the Navigators Arms, and also called after the Marie Celeste.  The bar has a 'Parliamentary clock' in a glass door to avoid the tax. The doors are boarded at high tides and when there are floods. It was bombed during the Second World War and all that remains of the original pub is at pavement level
City Barge River Stairs.
23 A modern infill of shuttered concrete and glass built in 1966 and designed by Timothy Rendle for Lephas Howard of the Temperance Seven.
20 York Cottage. This used to be Railway Cottage, and belonged to the London and South Western railway from the 1860s. It was used for housing for railway staff.
Strand Sailing Club. This dates from 1946 when 22 people met in the Club Room of the Bell and Crown pub and unanimously resolved to form a sailing club. The Club held its inaugural cruise on Good Friday, "in brilliant sunshine but alas! No wind". In the early days, boats were moored in the river. Then in 1964 the arch under Kew railway bridge was acquired, and rented from British Rail ever since. The ramp was built in 1964 and refirnioshed in 2011. In 2000 electricity, water and a toilet was installed in the clubhouse through new housing being built next door.
Railway Bridge.
Bull's Head Inn.  There is a sign outside about Oliver Cromwell visiting the pub. Said to have used it as his HQ sometimes and that there is a secret passage to Oliver’s Ait in the river. None of this can be substantiated.
Bull’s Head Stairs. These are set at right angles to the river
Hopkin Morris river stairs
Hopkin Morris Alley
Hopkin Morris Homes of Rest. These wren originally thatched alms houses from around 1658. They were rebuilt in 1721-04 by Thomas Child, Solomon Williams and William Abbott. They were repaired and extend in 1934 and financed by Hopkin Morris was a Middlesex councillor. They were taken over by Hounslow Council in 1973 and renovated.
7 modern housing on site once occupied by the British Buffalo Marine Motor Company which made marine engines. They were out of business by 1912.
Horse trough and drinking fountain
Devonshire Boat House.  Built by Frank Maynard in 1871. They built the first electric boat designed by Sargeant for Imisch He retired in 1938 but work continued under Bason and Arnold and then Automarine Services. It later became the Wheelhouse Club, Chiswick Yacht and Boat Club and then Papa Gees. Demolished in 2004.


Thames Road
This was once known as Back Lane and was a muddy path. Nine alleyways led from it to the river
Oliver Close. Site of R. &J. Park. Dominion Works. Their workshops were on the site of land leased to the War Office in the Great War for a National Munitions Factory and then a government training centre. It was later leased to R&J Park Ltd – who after the Second World War rebuilt their factory. They sold the site in 1982 to Fairview Estates who built the new houses here. This was a packing factory– preparing large items for export. This included heavy motor vehicles, machinery, etc. and light aircraft, for shipment abroad. There was also a bonded warehouse with a Customs officer on site.
Strand on the Green Recreation Ground. The land on which the park stands was bought by Chiswick Urban District Council around 1902 from Fanny Duncan and the Recreation Ground opened along with some allotments. This is a small park with play equipment, a dog free zone and a Friends Group. A bomb here in 1940 destroyed 41 houses and killed one person. Work is ongoing on planting bushes and flowers and the creation of enhanced facilities.
Magnolia Works. Des Vignes and Cloud. This company was present in the late 19th being dissolved in 1899. They were Engineers, Boiler Makers, Steam and Electric Yacht and Launch Builders, Barge Builders, and Motor Car Manufacturers,


Waldeck Road
There were a number of small factories and works between 54 and 70, most now modern housing.
66 Sental House. This, the last remaining industrial unit in the street is now housing since 2014. A number of companies are still registered there.


Wolseley Street
Park, a small park between the road and the motorway has a gate off the street


Sources
Aldous. London Villages
Chiswick History. Web site
Chiswick W4. Web site
Clegg. The Chiswick Book
Clunn. The Face of London
Field. Place Names of London, 
GLIAS. Newsletter
Greater London Council. Thames Guidelines
Hawthorne. Electric Boats
Jackson. London’s Local Railways,
London Encyclopaedia
Lost Pubs Project. Web site, 
Middlesex County Council. The History of Middlesex
Panorama of the Thames. Web site
Pevsner and Cherry. North West London
Redcliffe Training Mission. Web site
Robbins. The North London Railway
Royal Institute of British Architects, Web site
Stevenson. Surrey
St. Paul’s Church. Web site
Strand Yacht Club. Web site
The Kingston Zodiac
University of London Boat Club. Web site
Walford. Village London

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

South Norwood

Bromley by Bow

River Lea/Bow Creek Canning Town