Riverside north of the river and west of the Tower. Hammersmith Riverside
This post covers sites north of the river only, South of the river is St.:Paul's School
Post to the west is Chiswick riverside and Bedford Park
Post to the south Castelnau
Post to the east Central Hammersmith
Aiten Place
Short road on the site of Riverside Works, printers based in Standish Road
Albion Gardens
Albion Gardens flats. These were built for pensioners in 1955. Three architect was Henry Cadbury-Brown a modernist who combined a concern for social needs with a passion for elegant design
2 Dalling Carriage & Motor Works Ltd. These were present here in 1919
Albion Mews
The Mews run alongside the railway line beneath which are arches in which there are a variety of small firms
LGOC Depot. This is on the site of a large depot for the London General Omnibus Co. Which was extant in the late 19th.
Motor coach works. This was on the eastern part of the LGOC site. It 2as probably the works for the National Motor Cab Co. who ran a fleet of 250 Unic cabs and where W.O.Bentley worked to keep them on the road. They also promoted cars for local manufacturers – the KRC sports car made by White Holmes, of Down Place, for example
Blenheim Works. This was an engineering firm William Edgar and Sons, making a variety of products including street lighting and geysers. They appear to have been at several other addresses from the 1900s. The firm is shown here in the 1950s with a registered office in 77-79 King Street In liquidation 1967.
Albion Place
Turning off King Street leading to new flats on the site of a group of factories
Green Peas Solutions. Plastics factory. This was a plastics packaging firm here in the early 21st which later moved to Sheffield.
Haberdashery factory
Argyle Place
Blue Cross Animal Hospital
Box and Trunk Factory
Electrical works
Aspen Gardens
Housing built in 1948 following slum clearance and opened by Aneurin Bevan
Residents Hall
Atwood Road
This was originally called Church Road
Banim Street
Cambridge School. This is the back of what is now West London Free School
Beavor Lane
This as the "Washway" and the "Green Walk in the 1750.
Beavor Lodge. This house dated from the mid 18th and stood on land owned by a Samuel Beaver. It is described as a simple rectangular brick building surrounded by gardens. It was still extant in the early 20th but demolished in the 1920s.
11 -21 Palco House. Industrial Polymer Chemicals Ltd. Building now demolished. Palco was a ‘telemarketing consultancy’.
23-31 office block which is used by the Polish Scouting Association, The Real Health Institute, The Tisserand Institute. It appears currently to be a school.
23-31 Eden High School and/or Al Muntada Girls School
23-31 The Independent School. Another private school. It says it is co-educational, independent, secondary school 11-16 year olds with a different approach to others. No mention of fees.
45 Clockwork Building. Refurbished offices. This was designed Richard Seifert on the site of the International Time Recording Company’s works. They were world’s largest manufacturer of time recorders. It was later known as Riverview House and used as council housing department
International works. International Time Recorders. The company was in Beavor Lane from 1963. The originated as Howard Brothers who marketed the Dev Time Register in the late 19th They were part of IBM in the 1950s but subject to a management buyout in 1963. Taken over later by the Brocks Group they closed in eh 1970s
Electrical Engineering Works
Beavor Works
Reo Motor Works. Reo were an American car manufacturer. Chassis which had been designed for lorries from parts imported from REO in Lansing, Michigan were assembled into buses and commercial vehicles here in the 1930s.
Marshall-Arter. This was a car manufacturer 1912-1915, In 1912 Marshall-Arter 8/10 hp was introduced, which had a V2 engine. In 1914, they produced two models with four-cylinder engines and they were built till 1915. For a short period the car was known as the QED. But production ended because of the Great War
Black Lion Lane
Samel's Court. Behind river front buildings this is a modern courtyard-style house. It is named after Bertie Jonathan Samels, mayor of the Metropolitan Borough of Hammersmith 1926-29.
Cottages on the site of Samel’s Court. Previously there were old cottages on this site. One was home to Eric Gill early 20th typographer and sculptor
2 Black Lion. Pub with a skittle alley from 1840 buy could be earlier. The name is that of the badge of Queen Phillipa, queen of Edward III.
St Peter's church. Built in 1829 it was then surrounded on all sides by meadows, market gardens and smallholdings. It was funded by the church commissioners. The land was given by George Scott of Ravenscourt. The architect was Edward Lapidge, whose father had worked as landscape gardener at Chiswick House. The body of the church is a plain rectangle of Suffolk brick and Bath stone. The vestries are underneath the galleries, which stand on Tuscan columns: The Chapel of St George This chapel was dedicated in 1920 to those who fought and died in the Great War. Om the tower is a clock made by Thwaites and Reed from 1862
The graveyard. When the Great West Road was built in 1957 a large portion of church land was lost. There is one headstone left on the south side of the church and thirty remaining on the north side. In 1958 the remaining portion of the churchyard was laid out as a garden of rest in the 1960s. A statue by Karel Vogel was included in 1959. It is called The Leaning Woman,
St Peter’s School. Church primary school apparently a new school was opened here by Lucy Hannah Scott in 1849
57 Cross Keys Pub. Dates from the 1860s
91 Carpenters Arms. Opened in 2007
Bradmore Park Road
Grove Neighbourhood Centre. The centre began in a private house and then moved to a prefab building in Bradmore Park Road, which became the Grove Neighbourhood Centre. In 1982 the prefab was demolished and replaced by a single storey community centre. In 1994 a grant from Hammersmith & Fulham Council enabled us to add a second storey.
32 Bradmore Children’s Centre. Now apparently part of West London Free School.
20 Bradmore Pub. Opened 1881 and closed 1944. Now flats.
Cambridge Grove
Cambridge House. This is now an office campus with breakout facilities. It also calls itself the Old Aircraft Factory. Most recently it has been used as offices for Hammersmith and Fulham Education Serviced, and others. It is said to have been built in the 1890s as a piano factory. Kirkman. ‘Bradmore Works, pianos’ is shown on maps on this footprint in 1894 but on earlier maps only a farm is shown nearby. The Kirkman family had a factory of that name on Aldensley Road – Cambridge House backs onto Aldensey Road. It is said about 900 pianos were made by them here in 1881. The Kirkman family had made pianos throughout the 19th in the Soho area. Three is a report of their Golden Square factory being burnt down in 1853. By 1877 the firm was owned by Georgina Kirkman and she is said to have sold, or passed, the business to rival piano makers Collard in 1896.
Waring and Gillow. Furniture and bedding factory. John Waring and Robert Gillow set up their furniture business in 1903. Initially this was a depository and then made cabinets and high-end furnishings. In the Great War they made aircraft and after the war they made civilian aircraft,
Alliance Aircraft Factory. In 1918, responding to pressures for aircraft manufacture, Samuel Waring, the owner Waring & Gillow and the Nieuport & General Aircraft Company, formed the Alliance Aeroplane Company. The main factory was located at Hammersmith and, used Acton Aerodrome. The company assisted in the building of several hundred biplanes and triplanes for the de Havilland and Handley-Page. At the end of the Great War Alliance turned to producing civil aircraft. They engaged J.A. Peters, and produced a long distance machine, the P.2 Seabird. It flew non-stop flight to Madrid in, 1919, but a second machine crashed killing all on board. Alliance closed in 1920 and factory remained in the hands of Waring & Gillow until 1945. In the Second World War parts for the Mosquito bomber are said to have been made here. The hangar is said to have been used to make parts for De Havilland.
Shepherds’ Bush Housing Group Community Hub. It is in a building called Craft Court, named after William and Ellen Craft, former slaves who campaigned against slavery. They lived in Cambridge Grove from 1857 to 1867.
Plaque to William and Ellen Craft. They were an enslaved African-American couple who lived in Hammersmith in 1857. They were famous for daring adventures during their escape from slavery. William wrote a book about this
Rail bridges. This runs north from King Street with a dip to allow traffic to pass underneath the District and Piccadilly lines. The pavements do not dip but keep a level course supported by brick retaining walls with iron railings. The road was originally a 19th cul-de sac. It became a through road probably in 1853-56.
Godolphin and Latimer school. Godolphin was founded in the 16th through a bequest of William Godolphin. It was a grammar school in 1861, and established here as a boarding school for boys. In 1905 it became an independent girls' day school associated with the Latymer Foundation, and was renamed the Godolphin and Latymer School. The Latymer School was founded under the 1624 will of Edmund Latymer who bequeathed land in Hammersmith to charitable ends. In 1951 it became Voluntary Aided and in 1977, rather than become a comprehensive it reverted to full independent status.
Banda House. This was a factory of Block and Anderson, office machinery manufacturers. They were founded in 1922 among other things manufactured the spirit duplicator invented in 1923 by Wilhelm Ritzerfeld Under their "Banda" brand
54 Stonemasons Arm’s, this was originally called the Cambridge. And still has the Duke of Cambridge’s arms on the façade. It was reamed in 2015.
Elizabeth Burgwin School. The school was built in 1964 and was originally called Elizabeth Burgwin School. It later became Cambridge School which was a small special needs secondary school. It was closed so the Free School could have the building.
West London Free School. It seems very unclear which bit of this school is where. Very confusing but this might be the primary section.
Chiswick Mall
Malt Houses. Malt houses were among buildings here. The small inlet here would make it easy for barges to moor up and offload grain to be processed. The malt would then be transported to nearby breweries like Fullerʼs or Lambs.
Durham Wharf. This was built in the early 20th as a coal wharf -hone the name. In the 1930s it became a home to artists and a centre for other art work.
St Peters Wharf. This is a development of modern studio houses, built in 1974 by the landowner, artist Julian Trevelyan and designed by architect Michael Patrick as homes for artists. It is a dark brick group staggered to the road with a courtyard by the river.
Shepherd's wood yard. This was burnt down in the 1960s and replaced by the houses now called St. Peter’s Wharf
Chambon Place
This new housing development is on the site of Chambon’s Riverside print works. This works undertook specialist printing, including various bank notes, vouchers, labels etc. and also supplied machinery for this in the form of Manufacturers of multi-colour rotary printing machines, slitting and rewinding machines and other specialised machinery. Many patents are registered to it. It originated with the French company of Machines Chambon S.A. of Paris and from 1925 was part owned by match makers Bryant and May.
Cromwell Avenue
St. Peter’s School (Boys). This was on the west side of the road pre-Second World War.
Dalling Road
8-10 is currently the studio of artist Ben Johnson and a number of community events -= lectures, exhibitions - also happen in these buildings.
6-10 WTT Engineering Co. The company had been set up in 1919 as the Aeroplane Components Company, and also carried on as the General Aircraft and General Engineering Company, Ltd. They handled the Johnson Motor Wheel, for the Johnson cyclemotor. This American invention was the basis for the Johnson outboard motor. WTT Engineering of this address was however wound up in 1920.
21-23 Salvation Army Citadel. This seems to have begun as the Albion Congregational Church, built in 1891 by F.W. Stocking. Subsequently used by The Ebenezer Chapel. This closed and it is now occupied by the Salvation Army.
20-40 Waverley Cars Ltd. This firm was established from 1910 to 1934. The first Waverley had a 9 hp engine to be replaced a year later with a 10 hp four-cylinder. In 1920 they produced a sport model and some middle-class models with different engines. None of these models achieved significant production numbers.
30-40 Mace Montessori Nursery
43 Hitchcock and King. Timber merchants in railway arches
73 Flynn’s Pub. Previous names have been Egerton; Tommy Flynn’s; Fiddlers; and originally The Prince of Wales. It is in Brewers Tudor with an outside patio and originates from the 1850s
113 Commercial Spares. This company was selling parts for Maudslay lorries. No date
113 White Mouse Stable. This was the garage and workshop for Birabongse Bhanutej Bhanubandh, Thai Prince and successful racing driver. Full of a lot of very fast cars
115 Thatched House. This dates from the 1850s and was renamed Butchers Hook in 19134
Flora Gardens Children’s Centre
Flora Gardens Primary School
Ravenscourt Works. This was owned by F.C. Blake. They dealt in electrical ignition specialties, coils, ignition plugs, etc., around 1901.
Down Place
White Holmes. Makers of the KRC light car in 1923
Princes Electric Theatre. The Colisee Cinema opened before 1912 and by 1915 it was listed as the Prince’s Electric Theatre, operated by C & B Cinemas Ltd. It had closed by 1918.
Felgate Mews
1-8 Purdey gunsmiths factory. Their products are described as ‘high end bespoke sporting guns’ – the cheaper end starts at £89,000. The company started in the early 19th in the west end and remained there until 1979 when they moved to Hammersmith. The factory was completely rebuilt in 2016,
J.E. Jolly – the food factory market on site appears to be that of J.Jolly provision merchants with a shop at 42 King Street. They may have had a slaughter house on site at one time and built a cold storage facility here in the early 1960s
Furnival Gardens
Furnival Gardens. The Gardens link Lower and Upper Mall on what was once the mouth of Hammersmith Creek. By the mid 19th it was a dense mixture of factories and low quality housing. In the 1920s Hammersmith Council began to develop the area but there was extensive Second World War bombing and in 1948 it was decided to create a public open space for the Festival of Britain. The new park was named after Dr Frederick James Furnivall founder in 1896 of Furnival Sculling Club in 1896. The planting here dates from the 1950s apart from a 19th lime, and an older plane. The site of High Bridge/ Bishop’s Bridge is marked by a raised hump in the gardens and a flowerbed. There is a garden on the site of the bombed Friends Meeting House burial ground which, in line with Friends' traditions, never featured memorial stones. This was set up in 1955. The Thames Walk is along the river bank
Plaque. This is said to be on the river wall and commemorates Hammersmith Creek
Galena Road
11 Freedom Brewing Company. Microbrewery, first in England to make lager under the Reinheitsgebot laws from Germany.
8-20 Galena Westside School. This was founded in 2006 as a charitable, independent school with approval from the Department of Education to become an Alternative Provision Free School Academy. They moved to the current building in 2013. Students are referred here from mainstream schooling.
Glenthorne Road
St John the Evangelist Church. This was built in 1858-9 as the centre for a new parish. It is a large church in yellow brick designed by William Butterfield, - and of his stained glass windows were lost in Second World War bombing. The church closed in 2005 and was leased to Godolphin and Latymer School. It has been converted into The Bishop Centre, a centre for performing arts opening in 2009.
Gardens. The church had gardens with mature trees and shrubs, bounded by iron railings.
War Memorial. In the church garden there is a memorial cross covering the Great War. This is a stone cross with an inscription ‘to the glory of God and in memory of the men of this parish who gave their lives for honour and freedom in the Great War 1914-1918. There are no names on it.
Vicarage. To the north of the church and also designed by Butterfield.
62 This was the Royal Oak Pub. Closed in 1990 and now a strip club.
75 Galena Garage
Galena Mews – back land offices and workshops
Council offices. Built in the 1970s and now demolished.
Fireplace works. This was to the rear of the now demolished council block
Boy girls and infants school 1890s
Goldhawk Road
354 Queen Charlotte's Hospital. When new this was intended to be the largest maternity hospital in the British Empire, double the size of its Marylebone Road site. The plan was to have a block for private patients and one for women with puerperal fever as well as a, Nurses' Training College and Nurses' Home and an Out-Patients Department block. Work began in 1929 and it admitted its first patients in 1930. There were all sorts of facilities. The Bernhard Baron Memorial Research Laboratory opened in 1931 to study the causes of puerperal fever. Queen Charlotte's Ball, held every May, provided a fund-raising opportunity for the Hospital. In 1938 the Human Milk Bureau was established, dispatching human milk all over the country. The isolation block was closed in 1939 and taken over by the Hammersmith Borough Council to use as a First Aid post and decontamination centre. The Marylebone Road site closed in 1940 and all services moved to the Goldhawk Road site when the first section of the ward block was finally completed. The Research Laboratory reopened in 1947. In 1948 the Hospital joined the NHS, merging with the Chelsea Hospital for Women and becoming a postgraduate teaching hospital. The Nurses' Home was finally completed in May 1950. By 1976, however, plans were being made to relocate all services to the Hammersmith Hospital site in Du Cane Road, although many of the buildings planned for Goldhawk Road had never happened. In 1988, following long negotiations with the Chelsea Hospital for Women, the Hospitals merged onto one site and all functions transferred to Queen Charlotte's Hospital. At the end of 2000 the Hospital moved to new premises built on the Hammersmith Hospital campus. The Goldhawk Road site was bought by Crest Nicholson. The buildings have been demolished and the site has been entirely redeveloped.
Great West Road
Bazelgette Court. The Pump House - this is now the name for flats in the old buildings of the Hammersmith Water Works. This building was installed in 1909 for the Metropolitan Water Board. The West Middlesex Water Company works were established here in 1806 with the central part of the complex being designed by William Tierney Clark. They had two pumping engines were housed in brick buildings and a system of cast iron pumps. In 1838 when the intake was moved to above Hampton the pump house was moved there but the Hammersmith buildings remained in the ownership of the water company and were in use into the 1960s and when steam equipment from the 19th remained usable. Two triple expansion engines were erected in 1910. A steam turbine drying centrifugal pumps and a generator in 1936, two electric pumps from 1938 and two more from 1946.. From here water from Barnes and Barn Elms was distributed. In 1968, the riverside buildings were demolished and became a site for a public park. In the 1990s saw the development of the 1909 Pump House into flats
Hammersmith Creek
Hammersmith Creek. Furnival Gardens is on the site of Hammersmith Creek which was/is a distibutary of the Stamford Brook. There was a fishing fleet here until the early 19th, as well as malt houses and boat builders and much else. It was then navigable to near King Street. The Creek was a magnet for traders and watermen of all professions. It was crossed by the High Bridge, rebuilt in the early 18th, and also known as Bishop's Bridge. In the late 19th malt houses and stables on the west side stretched alongside it up as for as King Street. It was infilled in 1936 although a small drainage tunnel into the Thames is still visible
Friends Meeting House. The Quakers established a Meeting House close to the Creek in the late 17th and rebuilt in the late 18th together with a Caretaker's Cottage. They were demolished by Second World War bombing,
Sankey and Co. This was a building firm sited alongside the Creek which also supplied building materials. In the 1880s they were lime merchants with dwelling houses, offices and garden, 4 warehouses used as lime houses, lime mill and pipe stores, slate brick and tile sheds, and a public house with 4 cottages and warehouse. In 1900 sailing barge Viola was built for them.
Hammersmith Brewery. This was alongside the Creek opened by Joseph Cromwell about 1780. It was also known as Swail’s Brewery. Town Brewery or Cromwell’s Brewery. It was extant until at least 1842
Hammersmith Terrace
The terrace is made up 16 brick houses. Built around 1750. The front face gardens which originally ran down to a private road along the river and there is still no public road here,
Old Hammersmith lock until 1930 built in 1936, before that wharves and malt houses
1a this was Harvey’s Bakery until 1932. It was also from where the Bell family ran their 19th boatbuilding business
1 The Doves Press was first established here.
3 home of Doves Press founder Emery Walker and subsequently Edward Johnson the calligrapher who created Johnston Type for London Transport. There is a plaque saying 'master calligrapher lived here 1905-1912'.
7 home of painter Loutherbourg and later Emery Walker, of the Doves Press and mentor to William Morris. This art deco house is sometimes opened to the public by the Emery Walker Trust. 1903-1933
8 Home of William Morris’ daughter May, embroiderer.
12 plaque to Sir Alan Herbert 1890-1971 which says ‘author, humorist and reformist MP lived and died here’.
Bell or Black Lion Stairs. Frederick Bell, who ran a ferry from the steps here as well as a boatbuilding business from Hammersmith Terrace.
Hampshire Hog Lane
This is a tiny passageway running south down the west side of the Hampshire Hog Pub in King Street. Before the construction of the Town Hall and the Great West Road it turned dramatically south east to run in a straight line to what was High Bridge over the Hammersmith Creek. The last stretch being a road with terraced housing called New Street.
St Peter’s National School
Hampshire House. This 17th house was the YMCA Youth Club badly bombed in 1943. It demolished for work on the Great West Road. It was also used as workshops by calligrapher Edward Johnson and St. Dominic’s Press was set up which later moved to Ditching in Sussex and in which Eric Gill was involved.
Hampshire Cottage. Demolished.
King Street
84 Best Western Seraphine Hotel. This was previously a Woolworth store but may have been an adaption of a previous building to which Woolworths added their decoration in the 1930s. The site is previously shown as a cinema – although it is not apparent in cinema reference sources. The Hammersmith Woolworth was one of the first to open, in 1914 – and may have been on this site.
108 Norfolk Pub. Demolished
111-115 Shops in a building which is streamlined in black and cream faience. This was built as the British Home Stores in 1937 by Albert L. Forman,
120 The Picture Hall cinema was an extension of the Plough and Harrow Hotel operated by Popular Entertainments (1909) Ltd. between 1910 and 1912. The building is now an electronics store
120-124 Plough and Harrow Hotel. The hotel is now the Holiday Inn Express, with a bar operated by the J.D. Wetherspoon chain called the Plough and Harrow. The Edwardian facade has been kept. In the 1960s the site was a showroom for restored Rolls Royces.
134 Windsor Castle Pub. The pub is said to have records going back to the 18th but Tesco opened here in 1961 having converted the building. It is now a betting shop and a pawnbrokers.
133-135 Coach Maker’s Arms Pub latterly called The Penny Farthing and then Autumn House. This closed in 2004 and the building became a restaurant. A large ‘Charrington’s Entire’ sign remains on the facade.
139 Classic Cinema. This opened as The Electric Palace Theatre in 1910. It had a central paybox at the pavement entrance, and the name ‘Electric Palace’ at the top of the facade. In 1918, it was re-named Academy Picture Theatre and operated by Biocolour Theatres Ltd. In 1946 it was taken over by the Classic Repertory Cinemas circuit and re-named the Classic Cinema. It closed in 1959 and was demolished. It was replaced by shops and offices called Appleton House
Kings Road Cloisters. Back land development of workshops and offices, recently reconfigured.
154 Salutation Inn. By A. P. Killick, 1910, with its blue and mauve tiles. It is a Fullers House.
170 Cock and Magpie. It is also said to have been demolished in 1919 to be replaced by the gospel hall of the Kelly mission.
Town Hall. This was built 1937 -1940 as a large square building three storey building in red brick by E. Berry Webber. Its original front faced the by a tall central brick arch Thames but this has been superseded by the Great West Road extension. In the 1970s this was reversed and the grand double staircase removed. In 1971-5 a five storey extension towards King Street was built by the borough' architects department creating a new main front.
207 Blue Hall Cinemas. The New Blue Hall Cinema opened in 1912 built and operated by Blue Halls Ltd. a second cinema, Blue Hall Extension, opened in 1913 at the back and was designed by John Quilter & Sons. By 1918 they were managed by A.E. Abrahams and then leased to Favourite Cinemas Ltd. And By 1930 they were with Associated British Cinemas who replaced them with The Regal in 1935-6. This is now the closed Cineworld.
207 Cineworld. This was designed as the Regal Cinema by the Associated British Cinemas in-house architect William R. Glen. It replaced the earlier two Blue Hall cinemas on the site. It had a Compton 2Manual/5Rank theatre organ brought here from the Granada Theatre, Hove. There was a stage and four large dressing rooms. Inside there was an ornamental galleon on the walls either side of the screen. The Regal Cinema opened in 1936 and was eventually renamed ABC in 196. It was tripled in 1975 and eventually beamed the UGC and later the Cineworld. The foyer survives as part of the UGC, but only the side opening to the balcony is recognizable. It has now closed.
207 Cromwell House. This was the home of Joseph Cromwell who founded the brewery here. It was demolished in 1912 for the Blue Hall Cinema
208 Foresters Arms. Closed.
Rivercourt Church House. In 1905, land next to the Methodist church was bought by the church acquired, and in 1938 Rivercourt Church House was built. This had office facilities, shops on King Street, and a hostel for young Methodist men.
Rivercourt Methodist church. In 1874 building work began on a new church here replacing a church in Warerloo place. It is Gothic style with a spire of 125 feet and on it In place of the usual weather-cock, reminiscent of Peter's denial, the trustees chose a dove with an olive leaf in its bill.. It has two stained glass windows and a three manual pipe organ which dates from 1771 and is thought to have come from St. Mary's Islington. The opening service was held in 1875. There is a plaque to the use of space in the church by Hammersmith Friends Meeting following the loss of their hall through Second World War bombing.
227 Hampshire Hog Pub also called The Ruby Grand. It was first licensed in the 17th as The Hogs, a name based on that of the members of the Royal Hampshire Regiment. The current building was built by Sich's Chiswick Brewery, in 1883.
237 Latymer Upper School. The school was founded in 1624 by Edward Latymer, a wealthy lawyer and puritan, who left money for the education of “eight poore boyes” from Hammersmith. At first the school was in Fulham churchyard and then moved to Hammersmith. Following other moved a new building was provided here in 1863, and replaced in 1890 with a new building between King Street and the river. This is still in use although the school has been extended since. Latymer Prep School is also on site as is the Latymer Arts Centre.
241 Palingswick House. The land on which the house stands was once part of the Seagreens estate whose best-known owner was Louis Weltje, chef to George IV. He bought the estate in 1790. Seagreens House was on the Upper Mall with grounds back to King Street. Buhl House was then built on the King Street frontage and from 1872 it was renamed Marlesford Lodge – it is set back, grand, rather dour late Victorian Italianate. In the 1880s it became a school for workhouse children from Kensington and Chelsea and later a London County Council children’s' home. More recently it has been the home of many small non-profit sector organizations, all of whom have now been evicted. It is now in use for the Sixth Form of the West London Free School.
Drinking fountain outside Palingswick House.
West End Baptist Chapel. The chapel itself was founded in the 1790s in Hammersmith. This King Street building appears to have been replaced around 1961 by the building now used as the Polish Cultural Centre and which originally included a church. A replacement chapel is now sited at the back of this building in 1968 in what was the burial ground. This appears to have been used as a school in the 1980s. The chapel was relaunched in 2007 as Ravenscourt Baptist Church.
246 Polish Cultural Centre. Built 1971 by M.F. Grzesik, a heavy concrete building. The Polski Ośrodek Społeczno-Kulturalny was founded and funded in 1967, for exiled Poles living in west London. It promotes Polish culture and art. It houses the Library of Poland in London, founded in 1942. Numerous Polish organizations are hosted within the building
243 La Piccolo. Pizza restaurant in old public toilets.
255 Premier Inn. This was previously the Best Western Vencourt Hotel. The building itself dates from 1960 as an office block.
257 Ravenscourt Arms. Ravenscourt Arms. Mid 20th pub with the stone figure of a lively black bull outside.
Black Bull figure. This came from the Black Bull pub at 121 High Holborn, mentioned in Martin Chuzzlewit. In 1825 it was rebuilt and the life-size statue with gilt horns and hooves, and a golden band round its body, was put on the front of the building. The commissioner of sewers said it had to come down and tried to remove it with a party of fifty men. The bull however somehow soared up to the inn’s parapet with a flag saying ‘I don’t intrude now’. When the pub was demolished in 1904, the bull as brought here by William Bull MP for his office entrance – on the site of which is now the Ravenscourt Arms .It is said to weigh four and a half tons.
271-273 London House. In 1949 this large building was in use for the storage of carpets and curtains. It was later Chelsea College, part of the University of London = housings for instance the Geology and Pharmacy Department and shown on maps as Chelsea college of science and technology. Later it was the London Language Centre along with many other small businesses and organisations. It and Linden House next door are being replaced by flats.
260 Willoughby House. Built in the 1840s, with bench mark on the front wall.
Commodore Theatre. The foundation stone for this theatre was laid on 1929 by Tallulah Bankhead. It was built for independent operator Commodore National Theatres Ltd. controlled by Ralph Specterman, and designed by George Coles – described as ‘outstanding’... It was very large and was designed for cinema and variety. There were also 252 standing spaces as well as seats. It had a Dutch Standaart cinema organ, plus an orchestra with a large stage eight dressing rooms. There was also a cafe and a dancehall. Associated British Cinemas took it over in 1933 and dropped the stage shows and the orchestra. It closed in 1963 became a Mecca Bingo Club until 1981 and was immediately demolished. Quantas House offices are on the site and the foundation stone of the Cinema is at the entrance.
Gates to Ravenscourt Park. These are the William Bull Memorial Gates which date from 1933 and commemorate Sir William who died in 1931. He was MP for Hammersmith 1900-1929, and its first Freeman. They are enhanced with a coat of arms
342 James and Browne. Factory of these automobile manufacturers, in Westminster and Hammersmith 1896 -1910. The cars had an unusual engine layout with the flywheel between the cylinders. In 1906 they made models with horizontal engines and a vertical engined car called the Vertex. Two of their cars are known to have survived.
395 Quantas. Large office block for the Austrailian airlined
383 White Hart Tavern. This pub dated from at least the 1820s. It closed in 2012 and had been converted into a supermarket.
Young’s Corner. This was the local name for the corner with Goldhawk Road, because a greengrocer called Young had a shop there
Lower Mall
Digby Mansions. This is a 19th Mansion block – one flat in which was the home of Charles Wheatstone.
6 Headquarters of British Rowing with a small boatshed beneath the semi-circular bay window. It is on the site of house and orchard named Bedles, pulled down about 1811
8 Aston House. Home of Architect Maxwell Fry
9 plaque erected 2002 to, George Devine 1910-1965. Saying 'Actor. Artistic Director of the Royal Court Theatre 1956-1965, lived here.
10 Kent House. This was built in 1762 and called Mansion House. It became a boys' school in the early 19th and as later owned by the Hammersmith Club Society with ballroom, theatre and snooker hall.
11 and 12 old cottages one of which claims to date from 1629. A passage under the west end has a moulded oak lintel oak.
13 Blue Anchor pub, licenced from 1772
13 The Auriol Kensington Rowing Club. This is an amalgamation in 1981 of Auriol Rowing Club founded 1896 and Kensington Rowing Club founded 1872.
15 The Rutland Arms Pub. This was badly damaged in Second World War bombing,
19 Furnivall Sculling Club. Founded as Hammersmith Sculling Club in 1896 by Frederick Furnivall, for women only, men could join from 1901.
21 This building was once used by the Vicar of St Paul's and housed an library
22 Westcott Lodge. Grand and set back house with some later additions. It was built as Turret House in the late-17th and once the official vicarage for St Paul's Church. Attached to it is a West Berlin street lamp. A plaque says it was “presented by Herr Willi Brandt, the Mayor of West Berlin to councillor Stanley Atkins J.P., the worshipful mayor of Hammersmith as a token of friendship of the jumelage held in this borough.1st June 1963.
Tilbury Motor Body Co. Limited, Aspen pl. & 27 Lower mall, motor body builders
F.A. Clark. Phoenix Lead Mill. This was a large works at the east end of Lower Mall.
Macbeth Street
This was previously called Waterloo Road, after the battle and before that it was Plough and Harrow Lane. It was renamed after Robert Macbeth a local 19th Congregational minister. There is a plaque to him in the Macbeth Centre.
Wesleyan Chapel built in 1809. This was enlarged in 18¬56 and by 1875 had been superseded by the Rivercourt Methodist Church in King Street. The chapel was replaced by a Board School, and the playground became the site of the burial-ground.
Macbeth Centre. Hammersmith and Fulham Adult Education Service. This is in the buildings of St John's Church of England Primary School. This was an early Board School. The Centre also gives space to a number of other quasi official organisations
Waterloo Street School. This dates from 1865 and was renamed Waterside Primary School in 1928,
20 Hope and Anchor Pub. The pub originates in the 1860s and was built in 1936 for Truman's Brewery by A E Sewell as part of the Riverside Gardens estate. There is a Truman eagle in a roundel on the corner of the wall. Inside there is gold lettering on the bar-backs and above the panelling in the rear saloon, saying: 'Truman's Trubrown', 'Truman's Pale Ale', Truman's Eagle Ale', 'London Stout', 'London - Trumans - Burton' and 'If it's Truman's ... It is Beer'. In the saloon is a Truman mirror above the fireplace. The pub is however closed and most of the building is now flats.
South Street Mission Hall. This was run by Sister Lizzie as a women’s refuge. South Street Mission Brass Band was active from around 1910s through to the 1950s. The building now appears to be operated as a church centre probably through St.Paul’s church. It also appears to have links with the Shaftesbury Society and the St.Barnabas movement operating as a centre for the homeless and a night shelter for street sleepers.
Subway – The Macbeth Street subway runs under the Great West Road to emerge on the edge of Furnivall Gardens.
William Smith’s Almshouses. In 1865 William Smith of transferred £12,000 to Trustees for ten almshouses for residents of Hammersmith. They were built in 1868 and later administered by Hammersmith United Charities. These were demolished after the opening of new almshouses in Sycamore Gardens in 1955
Mylne Close
Maisonettes above garages are by the Borough Architect's Department, 1962
Nigel Playfair Avenue
This is essentially a service road to the Town Hall.
20 Quaker Meeting House. The 18th Meeting House remained in use until 1944 when it was destroyed by a flying bomb. The friends were offered space at Rivercourt Methodist Church where they remained for the next eleven years. They hoped to rebuild on their original site, but agreed with Hammersmith Borough Council to surrender it following plans for Furnivall Gardens. It was to be set aside as a Garden of Rest, where it remains today. They had a new Meeting House designed by Quaker Hubert Lidbetter which opened in 1955. It as in the 17th and 18th style with pine wainscoting and a raised Elder’s Bench. It is nearby the site of the old Meeting House, and Garden of Rest. In 2002, on the 350th anniversary of George Fox’s vision on Pendle Hill, Hammersmith Meeting planted an apple tree brought from a nursery close to George Fox’s birthplace.
Oil Mill Lane
An extension of Beavor Lane south of the Great West Road and then known by that name. The area was known as Seagreens which became divided into various estates and dwellings such as Seagreens, Upper Mall House, Linden House and Grafton House. In 1631 Richard Gurney purchased Upper Mall House with land which was later divided and some sold in 1733 to Samuel Bever, a woollen draper
Seagreens. The most famous owner this house was Louis Weltje, head cook to George IV. Weltje bought Seagreens in 1790.
Ravenscourt Park
This square covers only the southern part of the park and also excludes the house and some facilities
Ravenscourt Park. This opened as a public park in 1888, laid out on the grounds of the Ravenscourt estate, once known as Pallenswick. From 1812 it was owned by George Scott who may have sought Humphry Repton's advice on landscaping. It was acquired by the Metropolitan Board of Works and Hammersmith Vestry and opened as a public park in 1888 having been laid out by the London County Council’s Lieut. Col J J Sexby. It opened to the public on 19 May 1888 and soon attracted visitors. During the Second World War trenches were dug in the park and some of the area was used for allotments. The early 18th avenue of elm and chestnut trees became dangerous and had to be cut and replaced with flowering cherries. South of the 1869 railway line are more planes and VE Day commemorative carpet bedding.
Ravenscourt Park
This was once called Shaftesbury Road
Parkside Orthopaedic Hospital for Officers. Presented to the War Office by Henry Foreman, Mayor of Hammersmith and later MP.
Ravenscourt Park Hospital. By the mid 1920s, facilities at the Freemasons Hospital and Nursing Home were inadequate. In 1931 plans were made to build a new hospital in Ravenscourt Park. The building was opened in 1933 by King George V. It was then the largest independent acute hospital. Built in the Modern International style, it had four principal buildings, all linked by glass bridges, on a cross axial layout. At the entrance two massive pylons flank the door, with concrete figures of Healing and Charity above. Between them is an acid-etched glass window with Zodiac signs. The big entrance hall is like a cinema foyer. On either side of it are the Board and Conference Rooms, originally intended for Masonic receptions. The wards faced south around three sides of a courtyard. The semi-circular cantilevered sun balconies made of welded steel designed by the structural engineer Sven Bylander. The Hospital was exempted from joining the NHS in 1948 and continued as an independent hospital but by the late 1970s, with more modern private hospitals opening in London, the Royal Masonic Hospital had severe financial difficulties. Bed occupancy was low and in 1978 non-Masons were accepted for treatment as private patients. The Grand Lodge was embarrassed by the constant adverse publicity over the Hospital's finances and, in 1986, attempted to sell the building by a High Court writ was issued to stop the sale. A consultants report concluded that it would only be viable as a completely private hospital. The Duke of Kent resigned as President and a number of financial scandals emerged and the e Charity Commissioners called in receivers who recommended closure. It was put up for sale and reopened as a private hospital - the Stamford Hospital. In 2002 it was leased to the NHS am d Ravenscourt Park Hospital, in a bid to cut NHS waiting lists, but once done, it was underused. The Nurses' Home became a hostel for backpackers and is now flats Ashlar Court. The hospital is said to be planned as the London International Hospital. An acute private hospital, it will specialise in cancer and diseases of the heart and brain.
135 Payne & Payne, in the Railway arches. They were motor launch builders
Ravenscourt Gardens
Ashlar Court. This was built 1935-37 by Burnet, Tait and Lorne as a nurses’ home for the Royal Masonic Hospital. It was subsequently used as a students’ tourist hostel. It is in the Dudokian style and has elements of its original interior, for - fireplaces in travertine and bronze, wood block floors, walnut veneer panelling, stone dados and wooden fenestration. It is now being converted to flats.
Ravenscourt Road
John Betts Primary School. In 1859 Dr John Betts created a trust to built” a good substantial schoolhouse” on what is now Paddenswick Road. This opened in 1871. The school is still owned by the trust which Dr. Betts setup but is managed by the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham Education Authority.
Ravenscourt Park Pre School. Building in the park.
Ravenscourt Park station. This opened in 1873 as Shaftesbury Road Station and lies between Hammersmith and Stamford Brook Stations on the District Line. It was built by the London South Western Railway which had opened the line through the station in 1869. The station was opened as part of a new branch line to Richmond. In 1888, the station was given its present name because of the opening of the nearby park. In 1903, the District Railway funded the electrification of the tracks through the station although other services running through were still stream hauled and by 1916 the District was the only operator. In 1911 the station had been rebuilt with an extra platform and a new street level building. In the early 1930s, tracks were laid to allow the Piccadilly line to run through the station and this began in 1932;
Ravenscourt Baptist Church. This church dates from the 1970s and was built at the back of an older church which stood on the site of the Polish Cultural Centre in Kings Road
Ravenscourt Theatre School, This was a stage school founded in 1989 by Robin Phillips following the closure of the Corona Stage Academy. Robin ran the Corona agency for many years and most of its the traditions transferred to Ravenscourt Theatre School. It was sited in what is now the Ravenscourt Baptist Church but moved to Kew in 2009 and in 2010 became the Corona Theatre School,
Redmore Road
40 Emerson House. This is a private specialist centre for dyslexia, dyscalculia and dyspraxia set up in 1991 by for primary-age children. It appears to be based in an old Baptist Church.
Rutland Grove
River House Community Centre for people with HIV
St. Peter’s Road
40 Hope Pub. This was closed in the early 1960s
St.Peter’s Church of England Primary School. This appears to be an old school attached to the local church = and may have been a national schoo0l. There appear to be other buildings in the area which it used from time to time.
St. Peter’s Square
The St Peter's Estate was built between 1825-1840 with a focus on the Square. It overlooked a rectangular central garden designed by J C Loudon and reflected his theories on the relationship between houses and gardens. The architect of the surrounding houses may have been Edward Lapidge, who designed St Peter's Church. The
St. Peters Square Gardens. This was originally a private communal garden for residents of the surrounding houses. It was acquired by Hammersmith Borough Cchamouncil in 1914 and opened to the public in 1915. Although
Gardens, The gardens were threatened by building in 1912, but were bought by the borough, redesigned, and opened to the public in 1915. The Council laid out the garden as a simplified version of the earlier layout with a perimeter path three mature trees remain, one at each end and one in the centre. It is now surrounded by reproduction cast-iron railings based on the original pattern.
Engine-house in the centre formerly supplied the houses with water from an artesian well 510 feet in depth that supplied the surrounding houses with fresh water. ' On the site of the well is a bronze statue, 'Greek Runner' (1879) by William Blake Richmond. It was presented to Hammersmith Borough Council by his family and erected here in 1926 as a memorial to him.
41a Reliance Motor Body Works belonging to A. E. Wilkinson
Standish Road
Riverside Works. Chambon printers. Chambon Close is now on this site.
Studland Street
Studland Road junction - the point at which the two underground lines, which have been running parallel from Hammersmith, meet. This was authorised under an Act of 1874 and was built by the Disrrict Railway to allow through running from the Metropolitan Line.
Upper Mall
Divided from Lower Mall by the narrow creek. It was once the most fashionable part of Hammersmith.
Upper Mall Open Space. This was the water works site. The arched walls from the works have been retained as a feature of the park they were opening into one of the engine houses. The wall by the children’s play area next to The Ship was also part of the building. There is a plaque on the landward side to William Tierney Clark, the company’s engineer.
25 Old Ship Inn. This was described in 1839 as 'an ancient building in the style of Charles I', which was saved from demolition when the West Middlesex Water Works was being built because it has a landing stage. The entrance to the pub is from a passage, at the rear. There is the remains of a 17th brick entrance to the east of the current pub. It was rebuilt around 1850
Albert Mills and Albert Wharf. Pinchin Johnson. In 1871 this partnership owned a seed-crushing warehouse and oil mills. This factory experienced a fire and the firm were later working from sites in east London and Kings Cross.
Vitamins Ltd. They made a wheat germ supplementary food called Bemax. They were on the Albert Mills site from 1930
London Motor Car Works Co. In 1900 this company were in Albert Mills owned by Brown and Rickard
Lord Napier Place. This is a 20th residential development on the sites of Albert and Atlanta Wharves. The riverside footpath passes under one of the blocks.
Linden House. This is used as a sailing and rowing clubhouse, owned by the London Corinthian Trust. The exact date of the construction is not known but it is recorded from 1795. It is possible that a Dutch merchant named Isaac le Gooch built it in 1685. It may also have been built as one house with Grafton House. It was later extended. In the 19th it became to St. Katherine's College for Girls and then in 1913 J. Lyons & Co bought Linden House as its sports and social club. In 1924 an indoor rowing tank and a shooting range were added. In 1956 it was passed to Hammersmith Council who suggested that the London Corinthian Sailing Club might want to have it rather than from their damaged clubhouse downstream. The Council then undertook major alterations and later offered to the club for sale – which it achieved with a lottery grant and with the condition that the Sons of the Thames Rowing Club could also use the building.
London Corinthian Sailing Club. This was set up in 1894 with a base at Bell Steps, near the Black Lion pub. The London Sailing Club, a clubhouse between The Dove and The Rutland pubs but then moved down to Essex. They then leased their building to the Corinthians. After the Second World War they had association with well known dinghy designers. The clubhouse had been bombed in the Second World war bad was on the site now part of Furnival Gardens. They therefore moved to Linden House
Race starting box. This was installed as part of the work done to allow London Corinthian to take over Linden House. It provides dinghy race officials with a clear uninterrupted view along the Hammersmith Reach. It is also called ‘The Bridge’ and is downstream of the boat house
Sons of the Thames Rowing Club. This was established in 1886 by professional watermen. It moved up river from Erith via Lambeth and Putney to its present base here. They have a clubhouse in Linden house to which the Council has added a rowing gymnasium and undercroft for rowing boat storage.
Grafton House. This was next to Linden House and had a similar history – they may once have been one house. It was destroyed following Second World War bombing.
Boat House and landing stage with it. The boat house is on the site of Grafton House.
Buildings and flats overlooking the river, by Chapman Taylor Partners, 1971.
Latymer Boathouse. This boathouse was built on the site of 17th Upper Mall House, demolished in 1896 by the Latymer Foundation
Latymer Lodge. This was built for the Headmaster of Latymer School in the early 20th and is now used as classrooms by the school. It replaced 17th Hyde Lodge. It was home until 1674 to Isaac Le Gooch a Dutch jeweler. He left to the Dutch Church and the Latymer foundation.
Rivercourt house. This was built in the early 19th on the site of an earlier house of the same name which had been adjacent to the Queen Dowager, Katherine of Braganza’s houses. It is now Latymer Prep School.
Bastions - two wide semi-circles encroaching into the Thames. It is believed these were to make turning spaces for carriages and that they were once planted with fine elm trees, known as the Queen's Elms, behind which stood the Queen Dowager's House.
26 Kelmscott House. Thus was originally the warehouse for River House next door. It was the home of William Morris, and the Kelmscott Press, and now the William Morris Centre. Morns, lived here 1878 - 1896, and named it after Kelmscott Manor, his country home in Oxfordshire. Morris used the coach house for meetings, had a tapestry loom in his bedroom, and printing the books of the Kelmscott Press in the cottage. It was also at one time the home of Sir Frances Rolands electrician and meteorologist, inventor of the electric telegraph in 1816 who conducted many important experiments in the back garden
24 River House. Combined with 22 it was part of the Queen Dowagers servants’ house.
22 17th house in the 20th occupied by a, the Irish Sisters of Charity who added a chapel.
20 Sun Inn 1718 - 1799, with a garden to the river. In 1800 records it became a bakery demolished in the early 20th.
The Doves. This was a 17th coffee house and known as 'The Doves' after doves were painted on the sign in 1860. Reputed to be the smallest bar in Britain.
Doves Psssage. An old lane is a worple way at the back of the buildings here.
Dove Pier. This was built by the Port of London Authority for passenger boats on their journey downstream to the Festival of Britain at Battersea in 1951. An original ticket office remains on one of the pontoons
The Seasons is thought to have been part of the Dove Inn at, and named in honour of the poet James Thomson, author of Rule Britannia.
13-15 In 1893 T.J. Cobden-Sanderson established the Doves Bindery and later, with Sir Emery Walker the Doves Press There is plaque to Cobden-Sanderson which says ‘ 'founded the Doves Bindery and Doves Press in this house, and later lived and died here' 'The business continued, until the First World War and an angry Cobden-Sanderson threw his type into the Thames. Plaque erected 1974.
Vencourt Place
Vencourt Works of The Brehmer Folding Box Company Ltd. Employing young persons in cutting, cornering, stitching, bending, printing and packing boxes and corrugating paper in the 1930s.
Ergon Electrical Manufacturing Co 1937 1947 - British Industries Fair. Manufacturers of Electro Medical Infra Red Appliances. Ultra Violet Mercury Quartz Lamps, Ultra Violet Carbon Arc Lamps, Electric Table and Floor Lamps, Infra Red Industrial Drying Plants, Industrial Workshop and Photo Lamps.
2 Royal Mail, sorting, parcels, etc for Hammersmith
Weltje Road
Weltje Road is located close to the Seagreens property and an old wall in the adjacent Trust boatyard is worth noting.
Weltje Road cinema. This was opened prior to 1913, and continued until at least 1914.
Western Terrace
5 Mulberry Cottage. This appears to be three separate houses on the site of Western Terrace, and it is known that there is certainly one older house here - Mulberry Cottage. It was built in the 17th, possibly as a gate house to the Mulberry Estate situated behind or maybe as a farmhouse,
Sources
Arthure. Old Chiswick
Barton. London’s Lost Rivers
Bayliss and Kimber. Hammersmith and Fulham
British Aviation Projects to Production. Web site
British History Online. Web site
British Listed Building. Web site
Cinema Treasures. Web site
Clunn. The Face of London
Corinthian Sailing Club. Web site.
Osborne. Defending London
English Heritage. Blue Plaque Guide
Field. London Place Names,
Hammersmith and Fulham Historic Buildings Group. Newsletter Web site
Fulham and Hammersmith History Society, Buildings to see in Fulham and Hammersmith
Grace’s Guide. Web site
Greater London Council. Thames Guidelines
Grove Neighbourhood Centre. Web site
John Betts School. Web site
London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. Web site
London Encyclopaedia.
London Gardens Online. Web site
Lost Hospitals of London. Web site
Lost Pubs Project. Web site
Metropolitan Water Board. Fifty years review
Motor Car Co. Web site
Nairn. Nairn’s London
Panorama of the Thames. Web site
Pevsner and Cherry. North West London
Polish Cultural Centre Web site
Port of London Magazine
Pub History. Web site
Ravenscourt Baptist Chapel. Web site
Richmond and Turton. The Brewing Industry
Rivercourt Methodist Church. Web site
Stevenson. Middlesex
St.Peter’s Church. Web site
Summerson. London’s Georgian Houses
Symonds. Behind the Blue Plaques
The Seraphine. Web site
Trench and Hillman. London Under London
West London Free School. Web site
Post to the west is Chiswick riverside and Bedford Park
Post to the south Castelnau
Post to the east Central Hammersmith
Aiten Place
Short road on the site of Riverside Works, printers based in Standish Road
Albion Gardens
Albion Gardens flats. These were built for pensioners in 1955. Three architect was Henry Cadbury-Brown a modernist who combined a concern for social needs with a passion for elegant design
2 Dalling Carriage & Motor Works Ltd. These were present here in 1919
Albion Mews
The Mews run alongside the railway line beneath which are arches in which there are a variety of small firms
LGOC Depot. This is on the site of a large depot for the London General Omnibus Co. Which was extant in the late 19th.
Motor coach works. This was on the eastern part of the LGOC site. It 2as probably the works for the National Motor Cab Co. who ran a fleet of 250 Unic cabs and where W.O.Bentley worked to keep them on the road. They also promoted cars for local manufacturers – the KRC sports car made by White Holmes, of Down Place, for example
Blenheim Works. This was an engineering firm William Edgar and Sons, making a variety of products including street lighting and geysers. They appear to have been at several other addresses from the 1900s. The firm is shown here in the 1950s with a registered office in 77-79 King Street In liquidation 1967.
Albion Place
Turning off King Street leading to new flats on the site of a group of factories
Green Peas Solutions. Plastics factory. This was a plastics packaging firm here in the early 21st which later moved to Sheffield.
Haberdashery factory
Argyle Place
Blue Cross Animal Hospital
Box and Trunk Factory
Electrical works
Aspen Gardens
Housing built in 1948 following slum clearance and opened by Aneurin Bevan
Residents Hall
Atwood Road
This was originally called Church Road
Banim Street
Cambridge School. This is the back of what is now West London Free School
Beavor Lane
This as the "Washway" and the "Green Walk in the 1750.
Beavor Lodge. This house dated from the mid 18th and stood on land owned by a Samuel Beaver. It is described as a simple rectangular brick building surrounded by gardens. It was still extant in the early 20th but demolished in the 1920s.
11 -21 Palco House. Industrial Polymer Chemicals Ltd. Building now demolished. Palco was a ‘telemarketing consultancy’.
23-31 office block which is used by the Polish Scouting Association, The Real Health Institute, The Tisserand Institute. It appears currently to be a school.
23-31 Eden High School and/or Al Muntada Girls School
23-31 The Independent School. Another private school. It says it is co-educational, independent, secondary school 11-16 year olds with a different approach to others. No mention of fees.
45 Clockwork Building. Refurbished offices. This was designed Richard Seifert on the site of the International Time Recording Company’s works. They were world’s largest manufacturer of time recorders. It was later known as Riverview House and used as council housing department
International works. International Time Recorders. The company was in Beavor Lane from 1963. The originated as Howard Brothers who marketed the Dev Time Register in the late 19th They were part of IBM in the 1950s but subject to a management buyout in 1963. Taken over later by the Brocks Group they closed in eh 1970s
Electrical Engineering Works
Beavor Works
Reo Motor Works. Reo were an American car manufacturer. Chassis which had been designed for lorries from parts imported from REO in Lansing, Michigan were assembled into buses and commercial vehicles here in the 1930s.
Marshall-Arter. This was a car manufacturer 1912-1915, In 1912 Marshall-Arter 8/10 hp was introduced, which had a V2 engine. In 1914, they produced two models with four-cylinder engines and they were built till 1915. For a short period the car was known as the QED. But production ended because of the Great War
Black Lion Lane
Samel's Court. Behind river front buildings this is a modern courtyard-style house. It is named after Bertie Jonathan Samels, mayor of the Metropolitan Borough of Hammersmith 1926-29.
Cottages on the site of Samel’s Court. Previously there were old cottages on this site. One was home to Eric Gill early 20th typographer and sculptor
2 Black Lion. Pub with a skittle alley from 1840 buy could be earlier. The name is that of the badge of Queen Phillipa, queen of Edward III.
St Peter's church. Built in 1829 it was then surrounded on all sides by meadows, market gardens and smallholdings. It was funded by the church commissioners. The land was given by George Scott of Ravenscourt. The architect was Edward Lapidge, whose father had worked as landscape gardener at Chiswick House. The body of the church is a plain rectangle of Suffolk brick and Bath stone. The vestries are underneath the galleries, which stand on Tuscan columns: The Chapel of St George This chapel was dedicated in 1920 to those who fought and died in the Great War. Om the tower is a clock made by Thwaites and Reed from 1862
The graveyard. When the Great West Road was built in 1957 a large portion of church land was lost. There is one headstone left on the south side of the church and thirty remaining on the north side. In 1958 the remaining portion of the churchyard was laid out as a garden of rest in the 1960s. A statue by Karel Vogel was included in 1959. It is called The Leaning Woman,
St Peter’s School. Church primary school apparently a new school was opened here by Lucy Hannah Scott in 1849
57 Cross Keys Pub. Dates from the 1860s
91 Carpenters Arms. Opened in 2007
Bradmore Park Road
Grove Neighbourhood Centre. The centre began in a private house and then moved to a prefab building in Bradmore Park Road, which became the Grove Neighbourhood Centre. In 1982 the prefab was demolished and replaced by a single storey community centre. In 1994 a grant from Hammersmith & Fulham Council enabled us to add a second storey.
32 Bradmore Children’s Centre. Now apparently part of West London Free School.
20 Bradmore Pub. Opened 1881 and closed 1944. Now flats.
Cambridge Grove
Cambridge House. This is now an office campus with breakout facilities. It also calls itself the Old Aircraft Factory. Most recently it has been used as offices for Hammersmith and Fulham Education Serviced, and others. It is said to have been built in the 1890s as a piano factory. Kirkman. ‘Bradmore Works, pianos’ is shown on maps on this footprint in 1894 but on earlier maps only a farm is shown nearby. The Kirkman family had a factory of that name on Aldensley Road – Cambridge House backs onto Aldensey Road. It is said about 900 pianos were made by them here in 1881. The Kirkman family had made pianos throughout the 19th in the Soho area. Three is a report of their Golden Square factory being burnt down in 1853. By 1877 the firm was owned by Georgina Kirkman and she is said to have sold, or passed, the business to rival piano makers Collard in 1896.
Waring and Gillow. Furniture and bedding factory. John Waring and Robert Gillow set up their furniture business in 1903. Initially this was a depository and then made cabinets and high-end furnishings. In the Great War they made aircraft and after the war they made civilian aircraft,
Alliance Aircraft Factory. In 1918, responding to pressures for aircraft manufacture, Samuel Waring, the owner Waring & Gillow and the Nieuport & General Aircraft Company, formed the Alliance Aeroplane Company. The main factory was located at Hammersmith and, used Acton Aerodrome. The company assisted in the building of several hundred biplanes and triplanes for the de Havilland and Handley-Page. At the end of the Great War Alliance turned to producing civil aircraft. They engaged J.A. Peters, and produced a long distance machine, the P.2 Seabird. It flew non-stop flight to Madrid in, 1919, but a second machine crashed killing all on board. Alliance closed in 1920 and factory remained in the hands of Waring & Gillow until 1945. In the Second World War parts for the Mosquito bomber are said to have been made here. The hangar is said to have been used to make parts for De Havilland.
Shepherds’ Bush Housing Group Community Hub. It is in a building called Craft Court, named after William and Ellen Craft, former slaves who campaigned against slavery. They lived in Cambridge Grove from 1857 to 1867.
Plaque to William and Ellen Craft. They were an enslaved African-American couple who lived in Hammersmith in 1857. They were famous for daring adventures during their escape from slavery. William wrote a book about this
Rail bridges. This runs north from King Street with a dip to allow traffic to pass underneath the District and Piccadilly lines. The pavements do not dip but keep a level course supported by brick retaining walls with iron railings. The road was originally a 19th cul-de sac. It became a through road probably in 1853-56.
Godolphin and Latimer school. Godolphin was founded in the 16th through a bequest of William Godolphin. It was a grammar school in 1861, and established here as a boarding school for boys. In 1905 it became an independent girls' day school associated with the Latymer Foundation, and was renamed the Godolphin and Latymer School. The Latymer School was founded under the 1624 will of Edmund Latymer who bequeathed land in Hammersmith to charitable ends. In 1951 it became Voluntary Aided and in 1977, rather than become a comprehensive it reverted to full independent status.
Banda House. This was a factory of Block and Anderson, office machinery manufacturers. They were founded in 1922 among other things manufactured the spirit duplicator invented in 1923 by Wilhelm Ritzerfeld Under their "Banda" brand
54 Stonemasons Arm’s, this was originally called the Cambridge. And still has the Duke of Cambridge’s arms on the façade. It was reamed in 2015.
Elizabeth Burgwin School. The school was built in 1964 and was originally called Elizabeth Burgwin School. It later became Cambridge School which was a small special needs secondary school. It was closed so the Free School could have the building.
West London Free School. It seems very unclear which bit of this school is where. Very confusing but this might be the primary section.
Chiswick Mall
Malt Houses. Malt houses were among buildings here. The small inlet here would make it easy for barges to moor up and offload grain to be processed. The malt would then be transported to nearby breweries like Fullerʼs or Lambs.
Durham Wharf. This was built in the early 20th as a coal wharf -hone the name. In the 1930s it became a home to artists and a centre for other art work.
St Peters Wharf. This is a development of modern studio houses, built in 1974 by the landowner, artist Julian Trevelyan and designed by architect Michael Patrick as homes for artists. It is a dark brick group staggered to the road with a courtyard by the river.
Shepherd's wood yard. This was burnt down in the 1960s and replaced by the houses now called St. Peter’s Wharf
Chambon Place
This new housing development is on the site of Chambon’s Riverside print works. This works undertook specialist printing, including various bank notes, vouchers, labels etc. and also supplied machinery for this in the form of Manufacturers of multi-colour rotary printing machines, slitting and rewinding machines and other specialised machinery. Many patents are registered to it. It originated with the French company of Machines Chambon S.A. of Paris and from 1925 was part owned by match makers Bryant and May.
Cromwell Avenue
St. Peter’s School (Boys). This was on the west side of the road pre-Second World War.
Dalling Road
8-10 is currently the studio of artist Ben Johnson and a number of community events -= lectures, exhibitions - also happen in these buildings.
6-10 WTT Engineering Co. The company had been set up in 1919 as the Aeroplane Components Company, and also carried on as the General Aircraft and General Engineering Company, Ltd. They handled the Johnson Motor Wheel, for the Johnson cyclemotor. This American invention was the basis for the Johnson outboard motor. WTT Engineering of this address was however wound up in 1920.
21-23 Salvation Army Citadel. This seems to have begun as the Albion Congregational Church, built in 1891 by F.W. Stocking. Subsequently used by The Ebenezer Chapel. This closed and it is now occupied by the Salvation Army.
20-40 Waverley Cars Ltd. This firm was established from 1910 to 1934. The first Waverley had a 9 hp engine to be replaced a year later with a 10 hp four-cylinder. In 1920 they produced a sport model and some middle-class models with different engines. None of these models achieved significant production numbers.
30-40 Mace Montessori Nursery
43 Hitchcock and King. Timber merchants in railway arches
73 Flynn’s Pub. Previous names have been Egerton; Tommy Flynn’s; Fiddlers; and originally The Prince of Wales. It is in Brewers Tudor with an outside patio and originates from the 1850s
113 Commercial Spares. This company was selling parts for Maudslay lorries. No date
113 White Mouse Stable. This was the garage and workshop for Birabongse Bhanutej Bhanubandh, Thai Prince and successful racing driver. Full of a lot of very fast cars
115 Thatched House. This dates from the 1850s and was renamed Butchers Hook in 19134
Flora Gardens Children’s Centre
Flora Gardens Primary School
Ravenscourt Works. This was owned by F.C. Blake. They dealt in electrical ignition specialties, coils, ignition plugs, etc., around 1901.
Down Place
White Holmes. Makers of the KRC light car in 1923
Princes Electric Theatre. The Colisee Cinema opened before 1912 and by 1915 it was listed as the Prince’s Electric Theatre, operated by C & B Cinemas Ltd. It had closed by 1918.
Felgate Mews
1-8 Purdey gunsmiths factory. Their products are described as ‘high end bespoke sporting guns’ – the cheaper end starts at £89,000. The company started in the early 19th in the west end and remained there until 1979 when they moved to Hammersmith. The factory was completely rebuilt in 2016,
J.E. Jolly – the food factory market on site appears to be that of J.Jolly provision merchants with a shop at 42 King Street. They may have had a slaughter house on site at one time and built a cold storage facility here in the early 1960s
Furnival Gardens
Furnival Gardens. The Gardens link Lower and Upper Mall on what was once the mouth of Hammersmith Creek. By the mid 19th it was a dense mixture of factories and low quality housing. In the 1920s Hammersmith Council began to develop the area but there was extensive Second World War bombing and in 1948 it was decided to create a public open space for the Festival of Britain. The new park was named after Dr Frederick James Furnivall founder in 1896 of Furnival Sculling Club in 1896. The planting here dates from the 1950s apart from a 19th lime, and an older plane. The site of High Bridge/ Bishop’s Bridge is marked by a raised hump in the gardens and a flowerbed. There is a garden on the site of the bombed Friends Meeting House burial ground which, in line with Friends' traditions, never featured memorial stones. This was set up in 1955. The Thames Walk is along the river bank
Plaque. This is said to be on the river wall and commemorates Hammersmith Creek
Galena Road
11 Freedom Brewing Company. Microbrewery, first in England to make lager under the Reinheitsgebot laws from Germany.
8-20 Galena Westside School. This was founded in 2006 as a charitable, independent school with approval from the Department of Education to become an Alternative Provision Free School Academy. They moved to the current building in 2013. Students are referred here from mainstream schooling.
Glenthorne Road
St John the Evangelist Church. This was built in 1858-9 as the centre for a new parish. It is a large church in yellow brick designed by William Butterfield, - and of his stained glass windows were lost in Second World War bombing. The church closed in 2005 and was leased to Godolphin and Latymer School. It has been converted into The Bishop Centre, a centre for performing arts opening in 2009.
Gardens. The church had gardens with mature trees and shrubs, bounded by iron railings.
War Memorial. In the church garden there is a memorial cross covering the Great War. This is a stone cross with an inscription ‘to the glory of God and in memory of the men of this parish who gave their lives for honour and freedom in the Great War 1914-1918. There are no names on it.
Vicarage. To the north of the church and also designed by Butterfield.
62 This was the Royal Oak Pub. Closed in 1990 and now a strip club.
75 Galena Garage
Galena Mews – back land offices and workshops
Council offices. Built in the 1970s and now demolished.
Fireplace works. This was to the rear of the now demolished council block
Boy girls and infants school 1890s
Goldhawk Road
354 Queen Charlotte's Hospital. When new this was intended to be the largest maternity hospital in the British Empire, double the size of its Marylebone Road site. The plan was to have a block for private patients and one for women with puerperal fever as well as a, Nurses' Training College and Nurses' Home and an Out-Patients Department block. Work began in 1929 and it admitted its first patients in 1930. There were all sorts of facilities. The Bernhard Baron Memorial Research Laboratory opened in 1931 to study the causes of puerperal fever. Queen Charlotte's Ball, held every May, provided a fund-raising opportunity for the Hospital. In 1938 the Human Milk Bureau was established, dispatching human milk all over the country. The isolation block was closed in 1939 and taken over by the Hammersmith Borough Council to use as a First Aid post and decontamination centre. The Marylebone Road site closed in 1940 and all services moved to the Goldhawk Road site when the first section of the ward block was finally completed. The Research Laboratory reopened in 1947. In 1948 the Hospital joined the NHS, merging with the Chelsea Hospital for Women and becoming a postgraduate teaching hospital. The Nurses' Home was finally completed in May 1950. By 1976, however, plans were being made to relocate all services to the Hammersmith Hospital site in Du Cane Road, although many of the buildings planned for Goldhawk Road had never happened. In 1988, following long negotiations with the Chelsea Hospital for Women, the Hospitals merged onto one site and all functions transferred to Queen Charlotte's Hospital. At the end of 2000 the Hospital moved to new premises built on the Hammersmith Hospital campus. The Goldhawk Road site was bought by Crest Nicholson. The buildings have been demolished and the site has been entirely redeveloped.
Great West Road
Bazelgette Court. The Pump House - this is now the name for flats in the old buildings of the Hammersmith Water Works. This building was installed in 1909 for the Metropolitan Water Board. The West Middlesex Water Company works were established here in 1806 with the central part of the complex being designed by William Tierney Clark. They had two pumping engines were housed in brick buildings and a system of cast iron pumps. In 1838 when the intake was moved to above Hampton the pump house was moved there but the Hammersmith buildings remained in the ownership of the water company and were in use into the 1960s and when steam equipment from the 19th remained usable. Two triple expansion engines were erected in 1910. A steam turbine drying centrifugal pumps and a generator in 1936, two electric pumps from 1938 and two more from 1946.. From here water from Barnes and Barn Elms was distributed. In 1968, the riverside buildings were demolished and became a site for a public park. In the 1990s saw the development of the 1909 Pump House into flats
Hammersmith Creek
Hammersmith Creek. Furnival Gardens is on the site of Hammersmith Creek which was/is a distibutary of the Stamford Brook. There was a fishing fleet here until the early 19th, as well as malt houses and boat builders and much else. It was then navigable to near King Street. The Creek was a magnet for traders and watermen of all professions. It was crossed by the High Bridge, rebuilt in the early 18th, and also known as Bishop's Bridge. In the late 19th malt houses and stables on the west side stretched alongside it up as for as King Street. It was infilled in 1936 although a small drainage tunnel into the Thames is still visible
Friends Meeting House. The Quakers established a Meeting House close to the Creek in the late 17th and rebuilt in the late 18th together with a Caretaker's Cottage. They were demolished by Second World War bombing,
Sankey and Co. This was a building firm sited alongside the Creek which also supplied building materials. In the 1880s they were lime merchants with dwelling houses, offices and garden, 4 warehouses used as lime houses, lime mill and pipe stores, slate brick and tile sheds, and a public house with 4 cottages and warehouse. In 1900 sailing barge Viola was built for them.
Hammersmith Brewery. This was alongside the Creek opened by Joseph Cromwell about 1780. It was also known as Swail’s Brewery. Town Brewery or Cromwell’s Brewery. It was extant until at least 1842
Hammersmith Terrace
The terrace is made up 16 brick houses. Built around 1750. The front face gardens which originally ran down to a private road along the river and there is still no public road here,
Old Hammersmith lock until 1930 built in 1936, before that wharves and malt houses
1a this was Harvey’s Bakery until 1932. It was also from where the Bell family ran their 19th boatbuilding business
1 The Doves Press was first established here.
3 home of Doves Press founder Emery Walker and subsequently Edward Johnson the calligrapher who created Johnston Type for London Transport. There is a plaque saying 'master calligrapher lived here 1905-1912'.
7 home of painter Loutherbourg and later Emery Walker, of the Doves Press and mentor to William Morris. This art deco house is sometimes opened to the public by the Emery Walker Trust. 1903-1933
8 Home of William Morris’ daughter May, embroiderer.
12 plaque to Sir Alan Herbert 1890-1971 which says ‘author, humorist and reformist MP lived and died here’.
Bell or Black Lion Stairs. Frederick Bell, who ran a ferry from the steps here as well as a boatbuilding business from Hammersmith Terrace.
Hampshire Hog Lane
This is a tiny passageway running south down the west side of the Hampshire Hog Pub in King Street. Before the construction of the Town Hall and the Great West Road it turned dramatically south east to run in a straight line to what was High Bridge over the Hammersmith Creek. The last stretch being a road with terraced housing called New Street.
St Peter’s National School
Hampshire House. This 17th house was the YMCA Youth Club badly bombed in 1943. It demolished for work on the Great West Road. It was also used as workshops by calligrapher Edward Johnson and St. Dominic’s Press was set up which later moved to Ditching in Sussex and in which Eric Gill was involved.
Hampshire Cottage. Demolished.
King Street
84 Best Western Seraphine Hotel. This was previously a Woolworth store but may have been an adaption of a previous building to which Woolworths added their decoration in the 1930s. The site is previously shown as a cinema – although it is not apparent in cinema reference sources. The Hammersmith Woolworth was one of the first to open, in 1914 – and may have been on this site.
108 Norfolk Pub. Demolished
111-115 Shops in a building which is streamlined in black and cream faience. This was built as the British Home Stores in 1937 by Albert L. Forman,
120 The Picture Hall cinema was an extension of the Plough and Harrow Hotel operated by Popular Entertainments (1909) Ltd. between 1910 and 1912. The building is now an electronics store
120-124 Plough and Harrow Hotel. The hotel is now the Holiday Inn Express, with a bar operated by the J.D. Wetherspoon chain called the Plough and Harrow. The Edwardian facade has been kept. In the 1960s the site was a showroom for restored Rolls Royces.
134 Windsor Castle Pub. The pub is said to have records going back to the 18th but Tesco opened here in 1961 having converted the building. It is now a betting shop and a pawnbrokers.
133-135 Coach Maker’s Arms Pub latterly called The Penny Farthing and then Autumn House. This closed in 2004 and the building became a restaurant. A large ‘Charrington’s Entire’ sign remains on the facade.
139 Classic Cinema. This opened as The Electric Palace Theatre in 1910. It had a central paybox at the pavement entrance, and the name ‘Electric Palace’ at the top of the facade. In 1918, it was re-named Academy Picture Theatre and operated by Biocolour Theatres Ltd. In 1946 it was taken over by the Classic Repertory Cinemas circuit and re-named the Classic Cinema. It closed in 1959 and was demolished. It was replaced by shops and offices called Appleton House
Kings Road Cloisters. Back land development of workshops and offices, recently reconfigured.
154 Salutation Inn. By A. P. Killick, 1910, with its blue and mauve tiles. It is a Fullers House.
170 Cock and Magpie. It is also said to have been demolished in 1919 to be replaced by the gospel hall of the Kelly mission.
Town Hall. This was built 1937 -1940 as a large square building three storey building in red brick by E. Berry Webber. Its original front faced the by a tall central brick arch Thames but this has been superseded by the Great West Road extension. In the 1970s this was reversed and the grand double staircase removed. In 1971-5 a five storey extension towards King Street was built by the borough' architects department creating a new main front.
207 Blue Hall Cinemas. The New Blue Hall Cinema opened in 1912 built and operated by Blue Halls Ltd. a second cinema, Blue Hall Extension, opened in 1913 at the back and was designed by John Quilter & Sons. By 1918 they were managed by A.E. Abrahams and then leased to Favourite Cinemas Ltd. And By 1930 they were with Associated British Cinemas who replaced them with The Regal in 1935-6. This is now the closed Cineworld.
207 Cineworld. This was designed as the Regal Cinema by the Associated British Cinemas in-house architect William R. Glen. It replaced the earlier two Blue Hall cinemas on the site. It had a Compton 2Manual/5Rank theatre organ brought here from the Granada Theatre, Hove. There was a stage and four large dressing rooms. Inside there was an ornamental galleon on the walls either side of the screen. The Regal Cinema opened in 1936 and was eventually renamed ABC in 196. It was tripled in 1975 and eventually beamed the UGC and later the Cineworld. The foyer survives as part of the UGC, but only the side opening to the balcony is recognizable. It has now closed.
207 Cromwell House. This was the home of Joseph Cromwell who founded the brewery here. It was demolished in 1912 for the Blue Hall Cinema
208 Foresters Arms. Closed.
Rivercourt Church House. In 1905, land next to the Methodist church was bought by the church acquired, and in 1938 Rivercourt Church House was built. This had office facilities, shops on King Street, and a hostel for young Methodist men.
Rivercourt Methodist church. In 1874 building work began on a new church here replacing a church in Warerloo place. It is Gothic style with a spire of 125 feet and on it In place of the usual weather-cock, reminiscent of Peter's denial, the trustees chose a dove with an olive leaf in its bill.. It has two stained glass windows and a three manual pipe organ which dates from 1771 and is thought to have come from St. Mary's Islington. The opening service was held in 1875. There is a plaque to the use of space in the church by Hammersmith Friends Meeting following the loss of their hall through Second World War bombing.
227 Hampshire Hog Pub also called The Ruby Grand. It was first licensed in the 17th as The Hogs, a name based on that of the members of the Royal Hampshire Regiment. The current building was built by Sich's Chiswick Brewery, in 1883.
237 Latymer Upper School. The school was founded in 1624 by Edward Latymer, a wealthy lawyer and puritan, who left money for the education of “eight poore boyes” from Hammersmith. At first the school was in Fulham churchyard and then moved to Hammersmith. Following other moved a new building was provided here in 1863, and replaced in 1890 with a new building between King Street and the river. This is still in use although the school has been extended since. Latymer Prep School is also on site as is the Latymer Arts Centre.
241 Palingswick House. The land on which the house stands was once part of the Seagreens estate whose best-known owner was Louis Weltje, chef to George IV. He bought the estate in 1790. Seagreens House was on the Upper Mall with grounds back to King Street. Buhl House was then built on the King Street frontage and from 1872 it was renamed Marlesford Lodge – it is set back, grand, rather dour late Victorian Italianate. In the 1880s it became a school for workhouse children from Kensington and Chelsea and later a London County Council children’s' home. More recently it has been the home of many small non-profit sector organizations, all of whom have now been evicted. It is now in use for the Sixth Form of the West London Free School.
Drinking fountain outside Palingswick House.
West End Baptist Chapel. The chapel itself was founded in the 1790s in Hammersmith. This King Street building appears to have been replaced around 1961 by the building now used as the Polish Cultural Centre and which originally included a church. A replacement chapel is now sited at the back of this building in 1968 in what was the burial ground. This appears to have been used as a school in the 1980s. The chapel was relaunched in 2007 as Ravenscourt Baptist Church.
246 Polish Cultural Centre. Built 1971 by M.F. Grzesik, a heavy concrete building. The Polski Ośrodek Społeczno-Kulturalny was founded and funded in 1967, for exiled Poles living in west London. It promotes Polish culture and art. It houses the Library of Poland in London, founded in 1942. Numerous Polish organizations are hosted within the building
243 La Piccolo. Pizza restaurant in old public toilets.
255 Premier Inn. This was previously the Best Western Vencourt Hotel. The building itself dates from 1960 as an office block.
257 Ravenscourt Arms. Ravenscourt Arms. Mid 20th pub with the stone figure of a lively black bull outside.
Black Bull figure. This came from the Black Bull pub at 121 High Holborn, mentioned in Martin Chuzzlewit. In 1825 it was rebuilt and the life-size statue with gilt horns and hooves, and a golden band round its body, was put on the front of the building. The commissioner of sewers said it had to come down and tried to remove it with a party of fifty men. The bull however somehow soared up to the inn’s parapet with a flag saying ‘I don’t intrude now’. When the pub was demolished in 1904, the bull as brought here by William Bull MP for his office entrance – on the site of which is now the Ravenscourt Arms .It is said to weigh four and a half tons.
271-273 London House. In 1949 this large building was in use for the storage of carpets and curtains. It was later Chelsea College, part of the University of London = housings for instance the Geology and Pharmacy Department and shown on maps as Chelsea college of science and technology. Later it was the London Language Centre along with many other small businesses and organisations. It and Linden House next door are being replaced by flats.
260 Willoughby House. Built in the 1840s, with bench mark on the front wall.
Commodore Theatre. The foundation stone for this theatre was laid on 1929 by Tallulah Bankhead. It was built for independent operator Commodore National Theatres Ltd. controlled by Ralph Specterman, and designed by George Coles – described as ‘outstanding’... It was very large and was designed for cinema and variety. There were also 252 standing spaces as well as seats. It had a Dutch Standaart cinema organ, plus an orchestra with a large stage eight dressing rooms. There was also a cafe and a dancehall. Associated British Cinemas took it over in 1933 and dropped the stage shows and the orchestra. It closed in 1963 became a Mecca Bingo Club until 1981 and was immediately demolished. Quantas House offices are on the site and the foundation stone of the Cinema is at the entrance.
Gates to Ravenscourt Park. These are the William Bull Memorial Gates which date from 1933 and commemorate Sir William who died in 1931. He was MP for Hammersmith 1900-1929, and its first Freeman. They are enhanced with a coat of arms
342 James and Browne. Factory of these automobile manufacturers, in Westminster and Hammersmith 1896 -1910. The cars had an unusual engine layout with the flywheel between the cylinders. In 1906 they made models with horizontal engines and a vertical engined car called the Vertex. Two of their cars are known to have survived.
395 Quantas. Large office block for the Austrailian airlined
383 White Hart Tavern. This pub dated from at least the 1820s. It closed in 2012 and had been converted into a supermarket.
Young’s Corner. This was the local name for the corner with Goldhawk Road, because a greengrocer called Young had a shop there
Lower Mall
Digby Mansions. This is a 19th Mansion block – one flat in which was the home of Charles Wheatstone.
6 Headquarters of British Rowing with a small boatshed beneath the semi-circular bay window. It is on the site of house and orchard named Bedles, pulled down about 1811
8 Aston House. Home of Architect Maxwell Fry
9 plaque erected 2002 to, George Devine 1910-1965. Saying 'Actor. Artistic Director of the Royal Court Theatre 1956-1965, lived here.
10 Kent House. This was built in 1762 and called Mansion House. It became a boys' school in the early 19th and as later owned by the Hammersmith Club Society with ballroom, theatre and snooker hall.
11 and 12 old cottages one of which claims to date from 1629. A passage under the west end has a moulded oak lintel oak.
13 Blue Anchor pub, licenced from 1772
13 The Auriol Kensington Rowing Club. This is an amalgamation in 1981 of Auriol Rowing Club founded 1896 and Kensington Rowing Club founded 1872.
15 The Rutland Arms Pub. This was badly damaged in Second World War bombing,
19 Furnivall Sculling Club. Founded as Hammersmith Sculling Club in 1896 by Frederick Furnivall, for women only, men could join from 1901.
21 This building was once used by the Vicar of St Paul's and housed an library
22 Westcott Lodge. Grand and set back house with some later additions. It was built as Turret House in the late-17th and once the official vicarage for St Paul's Church. Attached to it is a West Berlin street lamp. A plaque says it was “presented by Herr Willi Brandt, the Mayor of West Berlin to councillor Stanley Atkins J.P., the worshipful mayor of Hammersmith as a token of friendship of the jumelage held in this borough.1st June 1963.
Tilbury Motor Body Co. Limited, Aspen pl. & 27 Lower mall, motor body builders
F.A. Clark. Phoenix Lead Mill. This was a large works at the east end of Lower Mall.
Macbeth Street
This was previously called Waterloo Road, after the battle and before that it was Plough and Harrow Lane. It was renamed after Robert Macbeth a local 19th Congregational minister. There is a plaque to him in the Macbeth Centre.
Wesleyan Chapel built in 1809. This was enlarged in 18¬56 and by 1875 had been superseded by the Rivercourt Methodist Church in King Street. The chapel was replaced by a Board School, and the playground became the site of the burial-ground.
Macbeth Centre. Hammersmith and Fulham Adult Education Service. This is in the buildings of St John's Church of England Primary School. This was an early Board School. The Centre also gives space to a number of other quasi official organisations
Waterloo Street School. This dates from 1865 and was renamed Waterside Primary School in 1928,
20 Hope and Anchor Pub. The pub originates in the 1860s and was built in 1936 for Truman's Brewery by A E Sewell as part of the Riverside Gardens estate. There is a Truman eagle in a roundel on the corner of the wall. Inside there is gold lettering on the bar-backs and above the panelling in the rear saloon, saying: 'Truman's Trubrown', 'Truman's Pale Ale', Truman's Eagle Ale', 'London Stout', 'London - Trumans - Burton' and 'If it's Truman's ... It is Beer'. In the saloon is a Truman mirror above the fireplace. The pub is however closed and most of the building is now flats.
South Street Mission Hall. This was run by Sister Lizzie as a women’s refuge. South Street Mission Brass Band was active from around 1910s through to the 1950s. The building now appears to be operated as a church centre probably through St.Paul’s church. It also appears to have links with the Shaftesbury Society and the St.Barnabas movement operating as a centre for the homeless and a night shelter for street sleepers.
Subway – The Macbeth Street subway runs under the Great West Road to emerge on the edge of Furnivall Gardens.
William Smith’s Almshouses. In 1865 William Smith of transferred £12,000 to Trustees for ten almshouses for residents of Hammersmith. They were built in 1868 and later administered by Hammersmith United Charities. These were demolished after the opening of new almshouses in Sycamore Gardens in 1955
Mylne Close
Maisonettes above garages are by the Borough Architect's Department, 1962
Nigel Playfair Avenue
This is essentially a service road to the Town Hall.
20 Quaker Meeting House. The 18th Meeting House remained in use until 1944 when it was destroyed by a flying bomb. The friends were offered space at Rivercourt Methodist Church where they remained for the next eleven years. They hoped to rebuild on their original site, but agreed with Hammersmith Borough Council to surrender it following plans for Furnivall Gardens. It was to be set aside as a Garden of Rest, where it remains today. They had a new Meeting House designed by Quaker Hubert Lidbetter which opened in 1955. It as in the 17th and 18th style with pine wainscoting and a raised Elder’s Bench. It is nearby the site of the old Meeting House, and Garden of Rest. In 2002, on the 350th anniversary of George Fox’s vision on Pendle Hill, Hammersmith Meeting planted an apple tree brought from a nursery close to George Fox’s birthplace.
Oil Mill Lane
An extension of Beavor Lane south of the Great West Road and then known by that name. The area was known as Seagreens which became divided into various estates and dwellings such as Seagreens, Upper Mall House, Linden House and Grafton House. In 1631 Richard Gurney purchased Upper Mall House with land which was later divided and some sold in 1733 to Samuel Bever, a woollen draper
Seagreens. The most famous owner this house was Louis Weltje, head cook to George IV. Weltje bought Seagreens in 1790.
Ravenscourt Park
This square covers only the southern part of the park and also excludes the house and some facilities
Ravenscourt Park. This opened as a public park in 1888, laid out on the grounds of the Ravenscourt estate, once known as Pallenswick. From 1812 it was owned by George Scott who may have sought Humphry Repton's advice on landscaping. It was acquired by the Metropolitan Board of Works and Hammersmith Vestry and opened as a public park in 1888 having been laid out by the London County Council’s Lieut. Col J J Sexby. It opened to the public on 19 May 1888 and soon attracted visitors. During the Second World War trenches were dug in the park and some of the area was used for allotments. The early 18th avenue of elm and chestnut trees became dangerous and had to be cut and replaced with flowering cherries. South of the 1869 railway line are more planes and VE Day commemorative carpet bedding.
Ravenscourt Park
This was once called Shaftesbury Road
Parkside Orthopaedic Hospital for Officers. Presented to the War Office by Henry Foreman, Mayor of Hammersmith and later MP.
Ravenscourt Park Hospital. By the mid 1920s, facilities at the Freemasons Hospital and Nursing Home were inadequate. In 1931 plans were made to build a new hospital in Ravenscourt Park. The building was opened in 1933 by King George V. It was then the largest independent acute hospital. Built in the Modern International style, it had four principal buildings, all linked by glass bridges, on a cross axial layout. At the entrance two massive pylons flank the door, with concrete figures of Healing and Charity above. Between them is an acid-etched glass window with Zodiac signs. The big entrance hall is like a cinema foyer. On either side of it are the Board and Conference Rooms, originally intended for Masonic receptions. The wards faced south around three sides of a courtyard. The semi-circular cantilevered sun balconies made of welded steel designed by the structural engineer Sven Bylander. The Hospital was exempted from joining the NHS in 1948 and continued as an independent hospital but by the late 1970s, with more modern private hospitals opening in London, the Royal Masonic Hospital had severe financial difficulties. Bed occupancy was low and in 1978 non-Masons were accepted for treatment as private patients. The Grand Lodge was embarrassed by the constant adverse publicity over the Hospital's finances and, in 1986, attempted to sell the building by a High Court writ was issued to stop the sale. A consultants report concluded that it would only be viable as a completely private hospital. The Duke of Kent resigned as President and a number of financial scandals emerged and the e Charity Commissioners called in receivers who recommended closure. It was put up for sale and reopened as a private hospital - the Stamford Hospital. In 2002 it was leased to the NHS am d Ravenscourt Park Hospital, in a bid to cut NHS waiting lists, but once done, it was underused. The Nurses' Home became a hostel for backpackers and is now flats Ashlar Court. The hospital is said to be planned as the London International Hospital. An acute private hospital, it will specialise in cancer and diseases of the heart and brain.
135 Payne & Payne, in the Railway arches. They were motor launch builders
Ravenscourt Gardens
Ashlar Court. This was built 1935-37 by Burnet, Tait and Lorne as a nurses’ home for the Royal Masonic Hospital. It was subsequently used as a students’ tourist hostel. It is in the Dudokian style and has elements of its original interior, for - fireplaces in travertine and bronze, wood block floors, walnut veneer panelling, stone dados and wooden fenestration. It is now being converted to flats.
Ravenscourt Road
John Betts Primary School. In 1859 Dr John Betts created a trust to built” a good substantial schoolhouse” on what is now Paddenswick Road. This opened in 1871. The school is still owned by the trust which Dr. Betts setup but is managed by the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham Education Authority.
Ravenscourt Park Pre School. Building in the park.
Ravenscourt Park station. This opened in 1873 as Shaftesbury Road Station and lies between Hammersmith and Stamford Brook Stations on the District Line. It was built by the London South Western Railway which had opened the line through the station in 1869. The station was opened as part of a new branch line to Richmond. In 1888, the station was given its present name because of the opening of the nearby park. In 1903, the District Railway funded the electrification of the tracks through the station although other services running through were still stream hauled and by 1916 the District was the only operator. In 1911 the station had been rebuilt with an extra platform and a new street level building. In the early 1930s, tracks were laid to allow the Piccadilly line to run through the station and this began in 1932;
Ravenscourt Baptist Church. This church dates from the 1970s and was built at the back of an older church which stood on the site of the Polish Cultural Centre in Kings Road
Ravenscourt Theatre School, This was a stage school founded in 1989 by Robin Phillips following the closure of the Corona Stage Academy. Robin ran the Corona agency for many years and most of its the traditions transferred to Ravenscourt Theatre School. It was sited in what is now the Ravenscourt Baptist Church but moved to Kew in 2009 and in 2010 became the Corona Theatre School,
40 Emerson House. This is a private specialist centre for dyslexia, dyscalculia and dyspraxia set up in 1991 by for primary-age children. It appears to be based in an old Baptist Church.
Rutland Grove
River House Community Centre for people with HIV
St. Peter’s Road
40 Hope Pub. This was closed in the early 1960s
St.Peter’s Church of England Primary School. This appears to be an old school attached to the local church = and may have been a national schoo0l. There appear to be other buildings in the area which it used from time to time.
St. Peter’s Square
The St Peter's Estate was built between 1825-1840 with a focus on the Square. It overlooked a rectangular central garden designed by J C Loudon and reflected his theories on the relationship between houses and gardens. The architect of the surrounding houses may have been Edward Lapidge, who designed St Peter's Church. The
St. Peters Square Gardens. This was originally a private communal garden for residents of the surrounding houses. It was acquired by Hammersmith Borough Cchamouncil in 1914 and opened to the public in 1915. Although
Gardens, The gardens were threatened by building in 1912, but were bought by the borough, redesigned, and opened to the public in 1915. The Council laid out the garden as a simplified version of the earlier layout with a perimeter path three mature trees remain, one at each end and one in the centre. It is now surrounded by reproduction cast-iron railings based on the original pattern.
Engine-house in the centre formerly supplied the houses with water from an artesian well 510 feet in depth that supplied the surrounding houses with fresh water. ' On the site of the well is a bronze statue, 'Greek Runner' (1879) by William Blake Richmond. It was presented to Hammersmith Borough Council by his family and erected here in 1926 as a memorial to him.
41a Reliance Motor Body Works belonging to A. E. Wilkinson
Standish Road
Riverside Works. Chambon printers. Chambon Close is now on this site.
Studland Street
Studland Road junction - the point at which the two underground lines, which have been running parallel from Hammersmith, meet. This was authorised under an Act of 1874 and was built by the Disrrict Railway to allow through running from the Metropolitan Line.
Upper Mall
Divided from Lower Mall by the narrow creek. It was once the most fashionable part of Hammersmith.
Upper Mall Open Space. This was the water works site. The arched walls from the works have been retained as a feature of the park they were opening into one of the engine houses. The wall by the children’s play area next to The Ship was also part of the building. There is a plaque on the landward side to William Tierney Clark, the company’s engineer.
25 Old Ship Inn. This was described in 1839 as 'an ancient building in the style of Charles I', which was saved from demolition when the West Middlesex Water Works was being built because it has a landing stage. The entrance to the pub is from a passage, at the rear. There is the remains of a 17th brick entrance to the east of the current pub. It was rebuilt around 1850
Albert Mills and Albert Wharf. Pinchin Johnson. In 1871 this partnership owned a seed-crushing warehouse and oil mills. This factory experienced a fire and the firm were later working from sites in east London and Kings Cross.
Vitamins Ltd. They made a wheat germ supplementary food called Bemax. They were on the Albert Mills site from 1930
London Motor Car Works Co. In 1900 this company were in Albert Mills owned by Brown and Rickard
Lord Napier Place. This is a 20th residential development on the sites of Albert and Atlanta Wharves. The riverside footpath passes under one of the blocks.
Linden House. This is used as a sailing and rowing clubhouse, owned by the London Corinthian Trust. The exact date of the construction is not known but it is recorded from 1795. It is possible that a Dutch merchant named Isaac le Gooch built it in 1685. It may also have been built as one house with Grafton House. It was later extended. In the 19th it became to St. Katherine's College for Girls and then in 1913 J. Lyons & Co bought Linden House as its sports and social club. In 1924 an indoor rowing tank and a shooting range were added. In 1956 it was passed to Hammersmith Council who suggested that the London Corinthian Sailing Club might want to have it rather than from their damaged clubhouse downstream. The Council then undertook major alterations and later offered to the club for sale – which it achieved with a lottery grant and with the condition that the Sons of the Thames Rowing Club could also use the building.
London Corinthian Sailing Club. This was set up in 1894 with a base at Bell Steps, near the Black Lion pub. The London Sailing Club, a clubhouse between The Dove and The Rutland pubs but then moved down to Essex. They then leased their building to the Corinthians. After the Second World War they had association with well known dinghy designers. The clubhouse had been bombed in the Second World war bad was on the site now part of Furnival Gardens. They therefore moved to Linden House
Race starting box. This was installed as part of the work done to allow London Corinthian to take over Linden House. It provides dinghy race officials with a clear uninterrupted view along the Hammersmith Reach. It is also called ‘The Bridge’ and is downstream of the boat house
Sons of the Thames Rowing Club. This was established in 1886 by professional watermen. It moved up river from Erith via Lambeth and Putney to its present base here. They have a clubhouse in Linden house to which the Council has added a rowing gymnasium and undercroft for rowing boat storage.
Grafton House. This was next to Linden House and had a similar history – they may once have been one house. It was destroyed following Second World War bombing.
Boat House and landing stage with it. The boat house is on the site of Grafton House.
Buildings and flats overlooking the river, by Chapman Taylor Partners, 1971.
Latymer Boathouse. This boathouse was built on the site of 17th Upper Mall House, demolished in 1896 by the Latymer Foundation
Latymer Lodge. This was built for the Headmaster of Latymer School in the early 20th and is now used as classrooms by the school. It replaced 17th Hyde Lodge. It was home until 1674 to Isaac Le Gooch a Dutch jeweler. He left to the Dutch Church and the Latymer foundation.
Rivercourt house. This was built in the early 19th on the site of an earlier house of the same name which had been adjacent to the Queen Dowager, Katherine of Braganza’s houses. It is now Latymer Prep School.
Bastions - two wide semi-circles encroaching into the Thames. It is believed these were to make turning spaces for carriages and that they were once planted with fine elm trees, known as the Queen's Elms, behind which stood the Queen Dowager's House.
26 Kelmscott House. Thus was originally the warehouse for River House next door. It was the home of William Morris, and the Kelmscott Press, and now the William Morris Centre. Morns, lived here 1878 - 1896, and named it after Kelmscott Manor, his country home in Oxfordshire. Morris used the coach house for meetings, had a tapestry loom in his bedroom, and printing the books of the Kelmscott Press in the cottage. It was also at one time the home of Sir Frances Rolands electrician and meteorologist, inventor of the electric telegraph in 1816 who conducted many important experiments in the back garden
24 River House. Combined with 22 it was part of the Queen Dowagers servants’ house.
22 17th house in the 20th occupied by a, the Irish Sisters of Charity who added a chapel.
20 Sun Inn 1718 - 1799, with a garden to the river. In 1800 records it became a bakery demolished in the early 20th.
The Doves. This was a 17th coffee house and known as 'The Doves' after doves were painted on the sign in 1860. Reputed to be the smallest bar in Britain.
Doves Psssage. An old lane is a worple way at the back of the buildings here.
Dove Pier. This was built by the Port of London Authority for passenger boats on their journey downstream to the Festival of Britain at Battersea in 1951. An original ticket office remains on one of the pontoons
The Seasons is thought to have been part of the Dove Inn at, and named in honour of the poet James Thomson, author of Rule Britannia.
13-15 In 1893 T.J. Cobden-Sanderson established the Doves Bindery and later, with Sir Emery Walker the Doves Press There is plaque to Cobden-Sanderson which says ‘ 'founded the Doves Bindery and Doves Press in this house, and later lived and died here' 'The business continued, until the First World War and an angry Cobden-Sanderson threw his type into the Thames. Plaque erected 1974.
Vencourt Place
Vencourt Works of The Brehmer Folding Box Company Ltd. Employing young persons in cutting, cornering, stitching, bending, printing and packing boxes and corrugating paper in the 1930s.
Ergon Electrical Manufacturing Co 1937 1947 - British Industries Fair. Manufacturers of Electro Medical Infra Red Appliances. Ultra Violet Mercury Quartz Lamps, Ultra Violet Carbon Arc Lamps, Electric Table and Floor Lamps, Infra Red Industrial Drying Plants, Industrial Workshop and Photo Lamps.
2 Royal Mail, sorting, parcels, etc for Hammersmith
Weltje Road
Weltje Road is located close to the Seagreens property and an old wall in the adjacent Trust boatyard is worth noting.
Weltje Road cinema. This was opened prior to 1913, and continued until at least 1914.
Western Terrace
5 Mulberry Cottage. This appears to be three separate houses on the site of Western Terrace, and it is known that there is certainly one older house here - Mulberry Cottage. It was built in the 17th, possibly as a gate house to the Mulberry Estate situated behind or maybe as a farmhouse,
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