Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney

by G. E. Mitton; John Cunningham Geikie

If we enter the borough of Fulham at the Hammersmith end, we come upon one of the most interesting associations of the whole district, just before the North End Road makes a decided bend. Here are two houses, formerly one, called the Grange, in which the novelist Samuel Richardson passed the greater part of his life. This pompous, vain little man, who never to the end of his life abated one whit of his savage envy of his successful contemporaries, was endowed with the genius of originality which prompted him to write as no one had ever thought of writing before. He remained here until 1755, when he moved to Parsons Green. He had begun life as one of the nine children of a man of small means, and was apprenticed to a printer. This work he carried on long after the necessity for it had ceased, for he was above all things punctual, methodical, neat, and entirely the opposite in character to that usually ascribed to genius. To a man of his type it seems almost sinful to give up routine work in order to depend on the work of imagination. He had a house at Salisbury Court near his business premises, and the Grange at North End was his country residence. Here he composed "Sir Charles Grandison" and "Clarissa," writing for the most part in a grotto in the garden, where the admiring circle of women who adored him, and whose effusive flattery he ever received with pleasure, paid court to him. He was twice married, and while at North End was living with his second wife and their four daughters. Thus he was surrounded by womenkind, who forgave him all faults on account of his appreciation of sentimentality.

The house is distinctly picturesque. The southern half is of red brick, and is surrounded by a high wall, in which is a gateway with tall red-brick piers surmounted by stone balls. Over the wall hangs an acacia-tree, and on the front of the house is an old sundial—altogether a house one could well associate with an imaginative novelist. It was the residence of the late Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Bart. The other part of the house has been painted a light stone colour. Even as early as 1813 the Grange had been divided into two houses.

St. Mary's Church, facing the Hammersmith Road, is in Fulham. It was built by a Mr. Richard Hunt, to whose memory there is a tablet on the wall, and was opened as a chapel of ease in 1814. Some fine carving on the north side of the chancel and the oak panelling of the gallery were brought from Lady Mary Coke's old mansion at Chiswick.

In 1860 the site of Edith Road was, according to Crofton Croker, to be let on building lease. In it, Croker says, "once stood the house of Cipriani." But there is some doubt as to the exact site of Cipriani's house, which is also claimed for Great Church Lane, Hammersmith (see [p. 7]). Cipriani lived in England from 1755 to 1785, and his works were largely engraved by Bartolozzi, who also had a house at North End.

Further south, to the east of Queen's Club grounds, are a maze of new streets, in one of which, Castletown Road, is a large and fine Congregational chapel and hall. The chapel has a square tower rising to a considerable height, and the roof is supported by flying buttresses. This is an offshoot of the Allen Street Congregational Chapel, whose trustees still have the control and help to support it financially. The foundation-stone was the last laid by the late Earl of Shaftesbury, November 22, 1882.

The well-known Earl's Court Exhibition has an entrance in the North End Road. It occupies the area between this on the one side, and Eardley Crescent and Philbeach Gardens on the other, and is the largest exhibition open in London. It belongs partly to Kensington and partly to Fulham, for the boundary line is close to the railway.

St. Andrew's Church, at the corner of Greyhound and Vereker Roads, was built in 1873. It has a spire, and differs little from the accepted model.

The entrance to Queen's Club grounds is in the Comeragh Road. On the right of the gate is a grand-stand, from which a fine view of the eleven or twelve acres of ground can be obtained. Along the west side run the principal buildings, including secretary's offices, grand-stands, tennis and fives courts, etc. The covered lawn-tennis courts are laid with great care and expense, the floors being of American maple, screwed and fitted over a patent wooden floor to insure absolute accuracy. The ladies' lawn-tennis championship is played off here. The great public event of the year is the Oxford and Cambridge sports, which in interest rank after the boat-race and cricket-match.

Close to Queen's Club is the Hammersmith cemetery, an extensive piece of ground of some twenty acres. There is a broad gravel walk down the centre, and two small chapels, round which the graves are thickly clustered, spreading gradually westward as space is required. The first burial took place in 1869. The principal entrance is in the Margravine Road. The significance of this unexpected name in such a position is explained by the fact that the Margravine of Brandenburg-Anspach had a house near the river in this part for many years. It is described in detail below.

Just across the road is the Fulham and Hammersmith Union Workhouse and Infirmary, facing Fulham Palace Road. Between the workhouse and the river is a stretch of land used by market-gardeners. It was by the riverside that Brandenburg House, built by Sir Nicholas Crispe in the beginning of Charles I.'s reign, was situated. General Fairfax quartered himself here in 1647 during the Civil War, and his troops afterwards plundered the house; but at the close of the war Sir Nicholas returned and restored his property to its former state. After his death in 1666 it descended to his nephew, who sold it seventeen years later to Prince Rupert, who gave it to Margaret Hughes. It passed through the possession of various owners. One of these, George Dodington, afterwards Lord Melcombe, repaired and modernized it, altering the name to La Trappe. In 1792 it became the property of the Margrave of Brandenburg-Anspach and Bayreuth, and at his death the Margravine, formerly Lady Craven, continued to live there. Faulkner gives a minute account of the house and a long inventory of all the pictures in it while it was the residence of this lady. She built a theatre near the waterside, and herself took part in the performances. Bills of the plays in which her name appears are still extant. One of them is preserved in the Hammersmith Free Library. Though Brandenburg House was situated in Fulham, it is often described and spoken of as in Hammersmith. This is perhaps owing to its connection with Sir Nicholas Crispe, who was a great benefactor to the latter parish, and perhaps because the house existed when Hammersmith and Fulham were still one parish. Lysons says that during the interregnum it was proposed to make the hamlet of Hammersmith parochial, and add to it Sir Nicholas Crispe's house and a part of North End, but, as stated, the separation of the parishes did not take place until 1834.